Kant on the material ground of possibility: From the only possible argument to the critique of pure reason

Review of Metaphysics

Volumn 52, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 369-395

  Fisher, Mark ^a   Watkins, Eric ^b  

^a EMORY UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b NONE

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EID: 0040041687     PISSN: 00346632     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (62)

1. The physico-theological argument is now commonly referred to as the teleological argument or the argument from design.
2. In the remainder of this paper, we shall exclude consideration of practical proofs of the existence of God.
3. See, for example, Alvin Plantinga, God, Freedom, and Evil (New York: Harper and Rowe, 1974).
4. All references to Kant's works other than the Critique of Pure Reason will be to the standard volume number and pagination of Kants Gesammelte Schriften. Ausgabe der königlich preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 29 vols. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1900-). Translations from Kant's pre-critical works are from Immanuel Kant, Theoretical Philosophy 1755-1770, trans. and ed. David Walford in collaboration with Ralf Meerbote (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). Translations from the Critique of Pure Reason are from Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1965). As is standard, references to the Critique of Pure Reason (hereafter "CPR") are to the pages of the first (A) and second (B) edition. The reference for the above quotation is 2:72.
5. All references to Kant's works other than the Critique of Pure Reason will be to the standard volume number and pagination of Kants Gesammelte Schriften. Ausgabe der königlich preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 29 vols. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1900-). Translations from Kant's pre-critical works are from Immanuel Kant, Theoretical Philosophy 1755-1770, trans. and ed. David Walford in collaboration with Ralf Meerbote (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). Translations from the Critique of Pure Reason are from Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1965). As is standard, references to the Critique of Pure Reason (hereafter "CPR") are to the pages of the first (A) and second (B) edition. The reference for the above quotation is 2:72.
6. All references to Kant's works other than the Critique of Pure Reason will be to the standard volume number and pagination of Kants Gesammelte Schriften. Ausgabe der königlich preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 29 vols. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1900-). Translations from Kant's pre-critical works are from Immanuel Kant, Theoretical Philosophy 1755-1770, trans. and ed. David Walford in collaboration with Ralf Meerbote (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). Translations from the Critique of Pure Reason are from Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1965). As is standard, references to the Critique of Pure Reason (hereafter "CPR") are to the pages of the first (A) and second (B) edition. The reference for the above quotation is 2:72.
7. Josef Schmucker in Die Ontotheologie des vorkritischen Kant (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1980), 7, raises this question, but, rather than providing an answer, he promises to answer it in a future work after Kant's attitude towards rational theology has been explicated in detail.
8. Kant presents fundamentally the same argument in both the Nova Dilucidatio (1763) and his Inaugural Dissertation (1770).
9. Kant presents fundamentally the same argument in both the Nova Dilucidatio (1763) and his Inaugural Dissertation (1770).
10. The Only Possible Argument, 2:77.
11. The Only Possible Argument, 2:77-8.
12. Leibniz similarly holds that the principle of contradiction is a fundamental principle of all truth. In contrast to Wolff, he seems to think the principle of sufficient reason is a fundamental principle of all truth as well. However, Leibniz does not think that the principle of sufficient reason is a principle of possibility.
13. The Only Possible Argument, 2:77.
14. The Only Possible Argument, 2:77.
15. The Only Possible Argument, 2:77.
16. The Only Possible Argument, 2:78.
17. It may be objected at this point that there is one possible state of affairs, namely the state of affairs in which nothing exists, which serves as a counter-example to Kant's claims about the necessity of a material ground for possibility. If the state of affairs in which nothing exists is really possible, then there is at least one possibility which does not require anything real as its ground. Of course, Kant's pre-critical account of possibility, which involves the positing and logical comparison of predicates thought to apply to a thing or state of affairs, would not allow that the state of affairs in which nothing exists or is posited is in fact possible. While this may or may not adequately diffuse the objection, as we will see below Kant continues to employ this account of possiblity in the first Critique. Consequently, this objection is not central to the question we are addressing concerning Kant's own reasons for rejecting the argument of The Only Possible Argument.
18. The Only Possible Argument, 2:79.
19. The "first real ground of possibility" is characterized in terms which indicate that it is the antecedently determining ground of the possibility of all other things. (For Kant's distinction between antecedently and consequentially determining grounds, see Nova Dilucidatio 1:391-2.) It is, therefore, by reference to this ground that the possibility of things in general becomes intelligible, and as a result of this ground that things in general are really possible. This is in contrast to the law of contradiction, or the "first logical ground" of possibility, by which we consequentially determine the possibility of things whose material elements are antecedently given.
20. It may be difficult to see why Kant cannot accept the possibility that contingent beings are sufficient to provide the material element for possibility. In other words, one may agree with Kant that each possibility requires a material ground, but reject his claim that there is one being which serves to ground all possibilities. The problem with rejecting this latter claim while maintaining the former seems to be that while a contingent being can ground some possibilities, that is, those that arise from the material elements given through it, it cannot ground its own possibility or the absolute possibility of anything else. Being contingent, such a being itself requires a ground which would, presumably, have to be invoked in an attempt to explain the subsequent possibility of those things which it grounds. Therefore, contingent beings are not adequate to explain the absolute possibility of anything whatsoever. While these remarks are certainly not a sufficient defense of Kant's precritical views on necessity and possibility, they are not intended to be. Our aim is to reconstruct as accurately as possible the line of argument put forth in The Only Possible Argument, and not to provide a defense of this line of argument. (It is far from clear that one cannot simply reject Kant's claim that possibilities require a ground, since such a claim would seem to be based on a rather strong version of the principle of sufficient reason.) This aim is consistent with our intention of considering Kant's own critical attitude towards this argument. Since Kant does not seem to reject his theistic proof on these grounds, we need not address this point further here.
21. Kant devotes Reflections 3 and 4 of the The Only Possible Argument to establishing that this necessary being is God. Kant gives a similar line of argument in the Inaugural Dissertation.
22. However, in, for example, the Monadology Leibniz seems to develop a line of argument that is quite similar to Kant's. Leibniz puts the argument as follows: "43. It is also true that God is not only the source of existences, but also that of essences insofar as they are real, that is, the source of what is real in possibility. This is because God's understanding is the realm of eternal truths or that of the ideas on which they depend; without him there would be nothing real in possibles, and not only would nothing exist, but also nothing would be possible (Theod. sec. 20).
23. "#44. For if there is reality in essences or possibles, or indeed, in eternal truths, this reality must be grounded in something existent and actual, and consequently, it must be grounded in the existence of the necessary being, in whom essence involves existence, that is, in whom possible being is sufficient for actual being (sees. 184, 189, 335).
24. "#45. Thus God alone (or the necessary being) has this privilege, that he must exist if he is possible. Since nothing can prevent the possibility of what is without limits, without negation, and consequently without contradiction, this by itself is sufficient for us to know the existence of God a priori. We have also proved this by the reality of the eternal truths. But we have also just proved it a posteriori since there are contingent beings"; G. W. Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, trans. Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1989), 218. What is important to note here is that Leibniz does seem to think that the existence of possibles requires the actuality of God. However, he stops short of identifying the reality of possibles with what Kant calls the material element of possibility.
25. While Leibniz does not always explicitly assert that existence is a predicate (especially when he is considering the complete concepts of finite individuals), it is clear from his discussions of the ontological argument (for example, his letter to Elisabeth) that he does in fact think of it in this way. Thus, the fact that Leibniz does not always explicitly treat existence as a predicate in certain contexts does not relieve the tension that Kant points out concerning the use of existence as a predicate in trying to prove absolutely necessary existence.
26. The Only Possible Argument, 2:72.
27. Kant posits a distinction between real predicates, or determinations of things, and predicates that attach merely to our thoughts of things which anticipates the distinction made in the first Critique between determining predicates and logical predicates (The Only Possible Argument, 2:72; CPR, A598/B626). According to this distinction, statements of the form "x exists," which appear to predicate existence of the subject x, really express the claim that there exists an object which exhibits the properties we think together in the concept x. Existence is, thus, the subject of predication, or that which is determined, and is not itself a predicate or determination. Accordingly, statements of the form "x exists" are more properly reformulated to read "something existent is x."
28. Kant posits a distinction between real predicates, or determinations of things, and predicates that attach merely to our thoughts of things which anticipates the distinction made in the first Critique between determining predicates and logical predicates (The Only Possible Argument, 2:72; CPR, A598/B626). According to this distinction, statements of the form "x exists," which appear to predicate existence of the subject x, really express the claim that there exists an object which exhibits the properties we think together in the concept x. Existence is, thus, the subject of predication, or that which is determined, and is not itself a predicate or determination. Accordingly, statements of the form "x exists" are more properly reformulated to read "something existent is x."
29. The Only Possible Argument, 2:73.
30. The Only Possible Argument, 2:73-4.
31. The Only Possible Argument, 2:75.
32. It would at least be rather uninteresting if such a mistake were the basis for his later rejection. The argument may contain numerous errors, but they are of interest only insofar as only the mature Kant noticed them and viewed them as the basis for rejecting his earlier argument. See Allen Wood, Kant's Rational Theology (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978), 67-71. In fact, Kant seems to recognize that the argument may suffer from some defects, but he nonetheless argues that "this argument continues to have a certain importance and to be endowed with an authority of which we cannot, simply on the ground of this objective insufficiency, at once proceed to di-vest it"; CPR, A588/B616.
33. It would at least be rather uninteresting if such a mistake were the basis for his later rejection. The argument may contain numerous errors, but they are of interest only insofar as only the mature Kant noticed them and viewed them as the basis for rejecting his earlier argument. See Allen Wood, Kant's Rational Theology (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978), 67-71. In fact, Kant seems to recognize that the argument may suffer from some defects, but he nonetheless argues that "this argument continues to have a certain importance and to be endowed with an authority of which we cannot, simply on the ground of this objective insufficiency, at once proceed to di-vest it"; CPR, A588/B616.
34. Schmucker (Ontotheologie, 6) puts the same point as follows: "Man ist, hierin einig mit der Kantforschung im allgemeinen, immer davon ausgegangen, die Kantische Kritik der Metaphysik und speziell der rationalen Theologie in der transzendentalen Dialektik sei eine logische Konsequenz aus der Revolutionierung 'der Denkungsart,' wie sie in der Analytik durch die Subjektivierung von Raum und Zeit und der Kategorien vollzogen wurde."
35. Kant applies his general considerations pertaining to synthetic a priori propositions to the specific issue of God in the following passage: "the question under consideration is obviously synthetic, calling for an extension of our knowledge beyond all limits of experience, namely to the existence of a being that is to correspond to a mere idea of ours, an idea that cannot be paralleled in any experience. Now as we have already proved, synthetic a priori knowledge is possible only in so far as it expresses the formal conditions of a possible experience; and all principles are therefore only of immanent validity, that is, they are applicable only to objects of empirical knowledge, to appearances. Thus all attempts to construct a theology through purely speculative reason, by means of a transcendental procedure, are without result. "But even if anyone prefers to call into question all those proofs which have been given, . . . he still cannot refuse to meet my demand that he should at least give a satisfactory account how, and by what kind of inner illumination, he believes himself capable of soaring so far above all possible experience, on the wings of mere ideas. . . . I therefore confine myself to the moderate demand that they give, in terms which are universal and which are based on the nature of the human understanding and all our other sources of knowl-edge, a satisfactory answer to this one question: how can we so much as make a beginning in the proposed task of extending our knowledge entirely a priori, and of carrying it into a realm where no experience is possible to us, and in which there is therefore no means of establishing the objective reality of any concept that we have ourselves invented"; CPR, A637-9/B665-7.
36. Though Kant does present transcendental idealism as a hypothesis in the second edition preface (CPR, Bxii fn.), he emphasizes that this hypothesis must be established with apodictic certainty in the course of the first Crititque's argument.
37. CPR, B409.
38. An alternative way of stating the point is to say that Kant may at times seem to suggest that he has established the stronger claim, since he cannot see how the objective reality of our concepts can be established otherwise. However, his considered position in the analytic does not amount to more than the weaker conclusion.
39. See, for example, the famous quotation at CPR, A51/B75.
40. A further problem for this kind of argument lies in the fact that Kant himself recognizes synthetic a priori propositions that are not justified by means of sensible intuition, namely those involved in his practical philosophy. So even if Kant were to specify exactly how possible experience (or pure intuition) must be involved in some synthetic a priori propositions, it does not follow that such a specification would have to apply to all synthetic a priori propositions.
41. One might think that Kant's reason for rejecting his pre-critical argument is based on the claim that the material element of possibility in the critical period is intuition, not reality as given in something existent. However, since realities present in God cannot be given in intuition (since an ens realissimum is an idea of reason to which no intuition can ever correspond), the material element of possibility could not be given through positing an ens realissimum. In order to be clear about this objection, it is important to distinguish between epistemological and metaphysical aspects of the question concerning the material element of possibility. The metaphysical question is what can ground, or be the source of, the material element of possibility, while the epistemological question concerns our epistemic access to these possibilities (that is, how can we come to represent these possibilities). Presumably, Kant's pre-critical argument is supposed to provide an answer to the former question (despite the fact that Kant does often seem to equate metaphysical and epistemological considerations in the pre-critical period), while the objection to the argument described above seems directed at the latter. Further, it is far from clear that the material element of possibility in the critical period is solely intuition. In particular, it would seem that the categories might be of considerable help in representing possibility. For example, the category of substance would seem to be crucial for understanding possible objects (insofar as objects are substances for Kant). Similarly, the category of reality would seem to be an important means for representing properties of objects. Thus, even if the objection can be formulated in such a way that it can incorporate the distinction between metaphysical and epistemological aspects of the question about the material element of possibility, it would still seem to rest on a mistaken premise.
42. Both Wolfgang Rod in "Existenz als Absolute Position" in Proceedings: The Sixth International Kant Congress, ed. Gerhard Funke and Thomas Seebohm (Washington D.C.: The Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology and the University Press of America, 1989), 67-81, and Allen Wood in Kant's Rational Theology, 71-9, discuss this line of response. While Röd thinks that it does explain Kant's rejection of his pre-critical argument, Wood seems ultimately to reject this response as being inconsistent with both Kant's lectures on theology and the considerations that can be raised in defense of the argument.
43. Both Wolfgang Rod in "Existenz als Absolute Position" in Proceedings: The Sixth International Kant Congress, ed. Gerhard Funke and Thomas Seebohm (Washington D.C.: The Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology and the University Press of America, 1989), 67-81, and Allen Wood in Kant's Rational Theology, 71-9, discuss this line of response. While Röd thinks that it does explain Kant's rejection of his pre-critical argument, Wood seems ultimately to reject this response as being inconsistent with both Kant's lectures on theology and the considerations that can be raised in defense of the argument.
44. Such an interpretation might naturally be suggested by the following passage: "The possibility of the objects of the senses is a relation of these objects to our thought, in which something (namely, the empirical form) can be thought a priori, while that which constitutes the matter, reality in the [field of] appearance (that which corresponds to sensation), must be given, since otherwise it could not even be thought, nor its possibility represented. Now an object of the senses can be completely determined only when it is compared with all the predicates that are possible in the [field of] appearance, and by means of them is represented either affirmatively or negatively. But since that which constitutes the thing itself, namely, the real in the [field of] appearance, must be given - otherwise the thing could not be conceived at all - and since that wherein the real of all appearances is given is experience, considered as single and all-embracing, the material for the possibility of all objects of the senses must be presupposed as given in one whole; and it is upon the limitation of this whole that all possibility of empirical objects, their distinction from each other and their complete determination, can alone be based. No other objects, besides those of the senses, can, as a matter of fact, be given to us, and nowhere save in the context of a possible experience; and consequently nothing is an object for us, unless it presupposes the sum of all empirical reality as the condition of its possibility. Now owing to a natural illusion we regard this principle, which applies only to those things which are given as objects of our senses, as being a principle which must be valid of things in general. Accordingly, omitting this limitation, we treat the empirical principle of our concepts of the possibility of things, viewed as appearances, as being a transcendental principle of the possibility of things in general"; CPR, A581-2/B609-10.
45. See CPR, A218-19/B265-6.
46. CPR, B146.
47. CPR, B72. Kant also seems to suggest that space and time may not be the only possible forms of sensible intuition. That is, there could be sensible intuition that is not spatio-temporal.
48. Kant thinks that ultimately the categories prior to their schematization contain a non-empirical content. The modal categories in particular contain Kant's non-empirical notions of possibility, actuality (existence), and necessity. See CPR, A232/B285.
49. CPR, A572-3/B600-1.
50. In the course of his further explanation of the principle of complete determination Kant explains that every predicate pair consists of one positive and one negative predicate. The positive predicate indicates being, the negative predicate non-being or privation. Clearly, the positive predicate indicating being would naturally be understood as representing the material element of a thing and requires some kind of explanation or grounding, which the principle of complete determination provides.
51. CPA, A576/B604.
52. CPR, A619/B647, emphasis added.
53. Kant might seem to be suggesting such an analogy in the following passage: "Thus, while I may indeed be obliged to assume something necessary as a condition of the existent in general, I cannot think any particular thing as in itself necessary. In other words, I can never complete the regress to the conditions of existence save by assuming a necessary being, and yet am never in a position to begin with such a being"; CRR, A615-6/B643-4.
54. Of course, Kant presents a theistic proof that is affected by the general resolution of the antinomies, namely the fourth antinomy. According to Kant's resolution of that antinomy: "Both of the conflicting propositions may be true, if taken in different connections. All things in the world of sense may be contingent, and so have only an empirically conditioned existence, while yet there may be a non-empirical condition of the whole series"; CPR, A560/B588. Two points are of note here. First, Kant's argument in the antithesis of the fourth antinomy does not resemble his pre-critical argument in significant ways insofar as the former is essentially causal, whereas the latter is primarily modal in character. Second, this analysis seems to support the analysis that we develop in the following paragraphs, because it emphasizes the fact that the claim that God exists is not an empirical claim.
55. This conflict results from the fact that reason's concept of the world will always be either "too large" or "too small" for the sensible world.
56. Insofar as the possibilities that the argument assumes are thought through the understanding, the sensible world is not even presupposed in that step of the argument Of course, Kant may believe that the sensible world depends on God (for example, insofar as God creates the sensible world), but such a belief is not implied in the mere assertion that God exists.
57. Kant's distinction between reason and the understanding originates at the start of the critical period. Accordingly, this distinction is drawn at the right time in order to be relevant to Kant's reason for rejecting his pre-critical argument.
58. At CPR, A579/B607 Kant suggests such an interpretation: "These terms [ens originarium, ens summum, and ens entium] are not, however, to be taken as signifying the objective relation of an actual object to other things, but of an idea to concepts." 49 This interpretation allows a non-question begging sense to Kant's claim that God cannot be known, since God cannot be given in intuition. The point is not that one must have an intuition for knowledge. Rather, it is that the lack of an appropriate intuition shows that the representation of God is an idea of reason rather than of the understanding.
59. This interpretation is also consistent with Kant's remarks about the argument in question at the beginning of his discussion of the ontological argument: "It is evident, from what has been said, that the concept of an absolutely necessary being is a concept of pure reason, that is, a mere idea the objective reality of which is very far from being proved by the fact that reason requires it. For the idea instructs us only in regard to a certain unattainable completeness and so serves rather to limit the understanding than to extend it to new objects"; CPR, A592/B620.
60. Of course, reason is not regulative when it concerns syllogisms that pertain to objects of experience, but it is clear that our idea of God is not simply a formal syllogism.
61. Kant explains the regulative status of God in some detail in the following passage: "in the domain of theology, we must view everything that can belong to the context of possible experience as if this experience formed an absolute but at the same time completely dependent and sensibly conditioned unity and yet also at the same time as if the sum of all appearances (the sensible world itself) had a single, highest and all-sufficient ground beyond itself, namely a self-subsistent, original, creative reason. For it is in light of this idea of a creative reason that we so guide the empirical employment of our reason as to secure its greatest possible extension - that is, by viewing all objects as if they drew their origin from such an archetype"; CPR, A672-3/B700-1.
62. We would like to thank Karl Ameriks, Roger Ariew, Robert Greenberg, Rudolf Makkreel, Donald Rutherford, Tad Schmaltz, and Allen Wood for very helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. We would also like to thank the audience members of the Southeastern Seminar in the History of Early Modern Philosophy in Kentucky (Fall 1997) for their instructive discus-sion of this paper.