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

to the objects, while general logic is not at all [p. 56] concerned with the origin of our knowledge, but only considers representations (whether existing originally a priori in ourselves or empirically given to us), according to the laws followed by the understanding, when thinking and treating them in their relation to each other. It is confined therefore to the form imparted by the understanding to the representations, whatever may be their origin.

And here I make a remark which should never be lost sight of, as it extends its influence on all that follows. Not every kind of knowledge a priori should be called transcendental (i.e. occupied with the possibility or the use of knowledge a priori), but that only by which we know that and how certain representations (intuitional or conceptual) can be lised or are possible a priori only. Neither space nor any a priori geometrical determination of it is a transcendental representation ; but that knowledge only is rightly called transcendental which teaches us that these representations cannot be of empirical origin, and how they can yet refer a priori to objects of experience. The application of space to objects in general would likewise be transcendental, but, if restricted to objects of sense, it is empirical. The distinction between transcen- [p. 57] dental and empirical belongs therefore to the critique of knowledge, and does not affect the relation of .that knowledge to its objects.

On the supposition therefore that there may be concepts, having an a priori reference to objects, not as pure or sensuous intuitions, but as acts of pure thought, being concepts in fact, but neither of empirical nor aesthetic origin, we form by anticipation an idea of a science of that knowledge which belongs to the pure understanding

46 Tra7iscendental Logic and reason, and by which we may think objects entirely a priori. Such a science, which has to determine the origin, the extent, and the objective vaHdity of such knowledge, might be called Transcendental Logic, having to deal with the laws of the understanding and reason in so far only as they refer a priori to objects, and not, as general logic, in so far as they refer promiscuously to the empirical as well as to the pure knowledge of reason.

Ill

Of the Division of General Logic into Analytic and

Dialectic

What is truth ? is an old and famous question by which people thought they could drive logicians into a corner, and either make them take refuge in a mere circle,^ or make them confess their ignorance and conse- [p. 58] quently the vanity of their whole art. The nominal definition of truth, that it is the agreement of the cognition with its object, is granted. What is wanted is to know a general and safe criterion of the truth of any and every kind of knowledge.

It is a great and necessary proof of wisdom and sagacity to know what questions may be reasonably asked. For if a question is absurd in itself and calls for an answer where there is no answer, it does not only throw disgrace on the questioner, but often tempts an uncautious listener into absurd answers, thus presenting, as the ancients said, the spectacle of one person milking a he-goat, and of another holding the sieve.

If truth consists in the agreement of knowledge with

1 The First Edition has DiaUele, the Second, Dialexe.

Transcendental Logic 47

its object, that object must thereby be distinguished from other objects; for knowledge is untrue if it does not agree with its object, though it contains something which maybe affirmed of other objects. A general criterium of truth ought really to be valid with regard to every kind of knowledge, whatever the objects may be.

But it is clear, as no account is thus taken of the contents of knowledge (relation to its object), while truth concerns these very contents, that it is impossible and absurd to ask [p. 59] for a sign of the truth of the contents of that knowledge, and that therefore a sufficient and at the same time general mark of truth cannot possibly be found.

As we have before called the contents of knowledge its material, it will be right to say that of the truth of the knowledge, so far as its material is concerned, no general mark can be demanded, because it would be self-contradictory.