The World as Will and Idea, Vol. II — Arthur Schopenhauer, trans. Haldane & Kemp

First Kant asserts, in this solution, obviously wrongl; that both sides started from the assumption, as their firsi principle, that with the conditioned the completed (thus rounded off) series of its conditions is given. Only the thesis laid down this proposition, Kant's principle of pure reason, as the ground of its assertions ; the antithesis, on the other hand, expressly denied it throughout, and asserted the contrary.

Further, Kant charges both sides with this assumption, that the world exists in itself, i.e., independently of being known and of the forms of this knowledge, but this assumption also is only made by the thesis ; indeed, it is so far from forming the ground of the assertions of the antithesis that it is absolutely inconsistent with them. For that it should all be given is absolutely contradictory of the conception of an infinite series.

It is therefore essential to it that it should always exist only with reference to the process of going through it, and not independently of this. On the other hand, in the assumption of definite limits also lies that of a whole whicl exists absolutely and independently of the process o completely measuring it.

Thus it is only the thesis tha makes the false assumption of a self-existent universe i.e., a universe given prior to all knowledge, and to whicl knowledge came as to something external to itself.

Th antithesis from the outset combats this assumption absc lutely ; for the infinity of the series which it asserts merel under the guidance of the principle of sufficient reaso can only exist if the regressus is fully carried out, bi not independently of it.

As the object in general pr supposes the subject, so also the object which is determine as an endless chain of conditions necessarily presuppos in the subject the kind of knowledge corresponding this, that is, the constant following of the links of tpj chain. But this is just what Kant gives as the solvl j

p. 115

of the problem, and so often repeats : "The infinity of the world is only through the regressus, not before it." This his solution of the conflict is thus really only the decision in favour of the antithesis in the assertion of which this truth already lies, while it is altogether inconsistent with the assertions of the thesis. If the antithesis had asserted that the world consisted of infinite series of reasons and consequents, and yet existed independently of the idea and its regressive series, thus in itself, and therefore constituted a given whole, it would have contradicted not only the thesis but also itself. For an infinite can never be given as a whole, nor an endless series exist, except as an endless progress ; nor can what is boundless constitute a whole. Thus this assumption, of which Kant asserts that it led both sides into error, belongs only to the thesis.

It is already a doctrine of Aristotle's that an infinity can never be actu, i.e., actual and given, but only potentid. Ovk eaTiv evepyeia eivcu to aireipov . . . aX\' aâvvarov to evreXe-^eca ov arrupov {infinitum non potest esse actu: . . . sed impossibile, oxtu esse infinitum), Metaph. K. 10. Further: nor evepyeiav fiev yap ovbev eaTiv aireipov, Bvvajiei Se errc Tnv Siaipeaiv (nihil enim actu infinitum est, sed potentia tantum, nempe divisione ipsa). De generat. et cori'upt., i., 3. He develops this fully in the " Physics," iii. 5 and 6, where to a certain extent he gives the perfectly correct solution of the whole of the antinomies. He expounds the antinomies in his short way, and then says, " A mediator (SiaLTTjTov) is required;" upon which he gives the solution that the infinite, both of the world in space and in time and in division, is never before the regressus, or progresses, but in it. This truth lies then in the rightly apprehended conception of the infinite. Thus one misunderstands himself if he imagines that he can think the infinite, of whatever kind it may be, as something objectively present and complete, and independent of the regressus.

Indeed if, reversing the procedure, we take as the u6 CRITICISM OF THE KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY.