FORMAL AND TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIG by H. J.

Paton, Oxford
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| It is good for the soul of man that Ms error or his alleged errors !i should from time to time be pointed out to him. Sir Winston Churchill, it is true, once reinarked, am always willing to learn, but I am not always willing to be taught'. Such unregenerate reservations would, however, be unseemly in a philosopher; and I am genuinely grateful to Professor Harold R. Smart-ofCornell University for having discussed, politely yet forcefully, some of the mistak.es I am supposed to have made in Kant's Metaphysic of Experience. This he has done in an article entitled 'Two Views on Kant and Formal Logic', which he published in a recent issue of the American Journal, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research1). He contrasts my Interpretation of Kants formal and transcendental logic with an alternative view which he ascribes to Professor .Kemp Smith and is inclined with soine qualifications to accept. He thus gives me a welcome opportunity to correct my previous errors, to clear up some misunderstandingsr and also to defend such of my doctrines s I may still believe to be defensible. Furthermore, he gives me a hope of discovering what is the view that may be acceptable s an alternative to my own. From the very nature of the starting point it will be necessary to treat this topic more personally than I should ordinarily wish to do; but in order to reduce the personal factor s much s possible I will refer to my own view s the P-interpretation and will contrast it with the S-interpretation. This does not mean tiiat I wish to hold Kemp Smith responsible for the S-interpretation ? for he, like myself, may not always have been rightly understood by his critic. By a happy chance, however, the letter S may stand, not only for Smith, but also for Smart. It should not be inferred from the use of this terminology that I am here concerned only with minor disagreements between Professor Smart and myself. The question to be discussed is perhaps the most fundamental one that oan be raised about the Interpretation of the Critique ci Pore Reason s a whole,
II

Before considering these two contrasted interpretations Professor Smart first remarks on the two divergent attitudes from which he supposes them
) VoL XVI; No..2. December 1955. All unaccompanied page numbers will refer to this article/ * .
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to spring. According to him, the P-interpretation arises from an attempt to get an 'inside1 view of Kant, while the S-interpretation is the result of 'trying to see Kant in an historical perspective, 'backward and forward' that is, in relation, not only to 'his predecessors, but also to his successors down to the recent past. Now it is certaily possible to write about an laorthor in two different ways that is, either by concentrating on his own work or by ranging more widely over his historical background. But the two kinds of book thus produced would seem to be complemen/tary rather than opposed. The commentator who seeks to understand and expound an author will attempt, if he knows his Job, to linderstand, though not necessarily to expound, that author's predecessors and contemporaries and perhaps also his successors. On the other hand, a commentator concerned with the author's historical setting will presumably try to get -an 'inside' understanding of his predecessors and contemporaries and successors; and it would be strnge if the only person to be excluded from this kind of understanding were the original author himself. The sharp cleavage found here by Smart seems to spring from his Interpretation of what is meant by the phrase 'an inside view'. He apparently takes it to mean .a view Which adheres, and perhaps even adheres 'slavishly', to the letter s opposed to the genuine spirit of a 2 philosophy ). This, if I may say so, is a curiously external Interpretation of 'insidedness'? -and it is s nearly s possible the precise opposite of what I mean. The primary aim of a oommentator is, I take it, to understand an -author .and to help other s t o a like understanding. But t understand an -author is not merely to know and to remernber his actual words or to adhere slavishly to <the letter of his philosophy. On the contrary, it is to re-think that philosophy -7- to try to s-ee things from th-e auithor's point of view and to look at them through his eyes. In the case of a difficult , writer like Kant this can be done, so far <as it can be done at all, only by a most assiduous study of the letter; but this by itself is relatively uselessf unless accompanied by a power to re-think the philosophy s -a whole. It is to this need for re-thinking that I refer when I speak of an internal understanding or an inside view. An inside view in this sense by no means excludes, it may even require, an exainination of the author's historical background <as well of his philosophical developmisnt. The only restriction upon this is the inescapable brevity of human life. The difference, s I see it, between Smart's views on this matter and my own is so far mainly one of emphasis. Whilst I attach most importance to the sfcudy of Kant's predecessors, and conitemporaries, Smart stresses the need to study his successors. The advantages of the latter course are by no means negligible either for <evaluation or for exposition. The mere fact, for example, that Kant's teaching proved sudi a Stimulus to philosophical thinking in Germany is one sign of his greatness; and the study
*) P. 161. 246

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of his successors may .draw attention to Strands in his thinking which might otherwise have been overlooked. Nevertheless' caution is necessary, s Smart himself recognizes, Subsequent history may be a chronicle of the ways in which a great man can be misunderstood by his successors, s happened,'on Kant's view, to David Hume. When these misunderstandings are repeated and elaborated, s they too often are, by one thinker after another, they beoome a kind of smoke-cloud or smokescreen between the reader <and the original author. It seems to me not impossible that some of this smoke may have got into the eyes of Professor Smart himself.
III

Let us now turn briefly to the P-interpretation of the difference between formal and transcendental logic. As we must look at the problem in its simplest possible terms, we may ignore complications and agree straigiht away witii Smart that formal logic s depicted in the P-interpretation is not only more general or more abstract than transzendental logic it is also what he calls 'basic' to transcendental logic. By this I take him to mean-that transcendental logic is logically dependent on formal logic, while formal logic is logically independent of transcendental logic. To accept this view, we may add r is to hold also and here we come to the main crux that for Kant the categories are dependent, at least in part, on the forms of judgement studied in formal logic, while the forms of judgement are independent of the categories. Smaxt holds this P-interpretation to be mistaken and proposes to put a better one, namely, the S-interpretation, in its place. There are initial diffioulties in grasping the S-interpretation because it has to be approached through what Smart considers to be the imperfect formulations of it given by Kemp Smith. First of all it is suggested3) that according to Kemp Smith 'there is an imporlant sense in which the two logics are properly speaking not related at all!' This paradoxical utterance isf however, translated into a very different thesis, whidi is still attributed to Kemp Smith and is given the fll force of italics'4) 'Accept the principles underlying the transcendental logic, and traditional formal logic, s such, must groVThe puzzle here is to know where it is to go to. Is it to be abandoned altogether or is it to be merged in transcendental logic or is it to be continued in some improved form? Smart's answer to these questions perhaps it is not meant to be a direct answer^ appears.to be found in a doctrine which-he thinks' Kemp Smith has failed to grasp'.and affirm with all the clarity and emphasis it deserves. The S-interpretation, in its corrected Version, ought apparently to be expressed s follows;6) It is a plain implication of Kant's new * * % *) P. 159. 4 ) P. 161. ' ) P. 163.
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transcendental logic, that logical forme, s such, must be construed and interpreted in consonance with the metaphysical fonns or categories, -and not vice versa. Orf to generalize this thesis, one may say that what kind of -a logic formal or other 'a philosopher subscribes to, is a function of, and derives from, that philosopher's 'metaphysics'. Perhaps we may add to this a further quotation 6 ): f lt were absurd to say that the logical forms of judgement were basic to the transcendental or metaphysical forms immanent in the objects of knowledge, rather than the reverse'. Special commendation is given by Smart to Aristotle on the ground that his syllogistic logic faithfully reflects the ontological or metaphysical import of the Aristotelian categories7) a Statement which I should like to see expanded further. The S-interpretation, although not .too clearly expressed, appears to hold that formal logic, if it can have any separate existence, is logically dependent on transcendental logic, while transcendental logic is logically independent of formal logic. If this is correct, the P-interpretation and the S-interpretation are at opposite poles. So far s Kant is concerned, the S-interpretation has all the appearance of a counter-Copernican revolution.
IV

Smart himself recognizes that the S-interpretation does not adhere slavishly to the letter of Kant's philosophy. He does, however, claim lhat it adheres to the spirit, and he proposes to offer a justification for this claim. Most of thi justification, so far s it is founded on the text, appears to rest on one well-known passage about judgement in the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason.s) There Kant expresses dissatisfaction with the definition of judgement given by formal logicians namely, that judgement is 'the representation of a relation between two concepts1. He points out two defects in it. In the first place, it covers only categorical judgements, since hypothetical and disjunctive judgements assert a relation, not between concepts, but between judgements. In the second place and this is the more important point it does not specify what the relation in question is. In order to overcome these two defects Kant proceeds to offer his own definition of judgement. According to him a judgement is nothing but the way of bringing given cognitions. to the objective unity of anperception'. He here substitutes the vaguer word 'cognitions' (Erkenntnisse) for 'concepts1 (Begriffe), and by this means he is able to cover the elements united in hypothetical and disjunctive, s well s those united in categorical, judgements. Anc} he introduces the objective unity of apperception in 'Order to distinguish the objective relation affirmed in
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P. 163. ) 19, B 140-2.

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) P. 165.

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judgement from a mere subjectiye association of ideas. Every judgement asserts that a relation is objectively valid. This is what we mean by oising the copula 'is'. So general a Statement might, one would have thought, be accepted by any logician of any sdiool, at least if he were acquainted with Kant's technical terminology -and recognized that a judgement must be true or false. Kant illustrates his doctrine by the judgememt 'This body is heavy'. When I say this, I am not <asserting merely that two representtations are together in my perception, however often tiiat perception may be repeated. What I am saying is that they are combined in the object, no matter what differences there may be in the state of the subject. Kants definition is a manifest improvement on that of his predejcessors, but it is an impxovement entirely within 'the sphere of formal logic. He is' s free to make improvements s any other formal logician, and he always assumes this freedom withotut hesitation. What Smart has to establish is that these emendations are based on transcendental logic. He does indeed teil <us that the new Interpretation of judgement urged by Kant is 'in accordance with his new critical principles'j but this is true only if every fresh Suggestion made by Kant on any subject is to be described s 'in 'accordance with critical principles'. If the phrase means', s I presume it does, 'in accordance with the 'principles of transcendental logic', there is here no evidence for this whatsoever. Smart is merely asserting what it is his business to prove. After this brief contact with the text Smart abandons the letter for the spirit and gives us first of all a disquisiton on the superiority of hypothetical and disjunctive judgements to categorical ones a topic not immediately relevant to the definition of judgement s such. This leads him in turn to a eulogy of the notion of System: 'for science especially, knowledge s'pells System, and System spells interrelation of diverse Elements in terms of a iinifying theory\ The fundamental defect of the P-interpretation is, we are told, tbat it 'fails to give due weight to this all-important Kantian thesis. And this failure, in turn, completely obs'cures the fact that it is precisely Kant's new "metaphysics of experience" which affords Kant the necessary basis for this revolutionr^ development in logic'). The logic in question here I take to be formal logic. In all this there is nothing to support, still less to prove, the conclusion that Kant is basing his formal logic on his transcendental logic or on his metaphysics. On the contrary, he is here explaining within formal logic what is the essential form of judgement10) on which his transcendental logic is about to base the categories. The notion of 'system', on whidi Smart's argument appears to turn, hasf it should be added, no place in a discussion either of the forms of judgement or even of the categories of the understanding. The proper place for its discussion is in the Dialectic of Pure Reasonf -and this is where it is fact discussed by Kant, ifP. 163. 10 ) K. r. V.f B 140, In Kant's own words 'the loglcal form of all judgements' (italics mine), .
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The less fundamental defects of the P-interpretation may be dealt with more briefly. One defectf we are told, is that the categories are treated s' if they could be predicates of possible judgements and could even be generic ooncepts, whereas their real function is to articulate the judgement s a whole.11) The fact that this Charge was originally brought by Kexnp Smith against Kant himself may suggest that the P-interpretation is likely to be correct, but oertain misunderstandings require to be cleared away. Every one agrees th'at there is a sense in which.the categories can be said to articulate the judgemenit s a whole. Thus we can say, 'If there is' fixe, there must be smoke'; and in so saying we rightly or wrongly apply the category of cause -and effect. But ;this in no way prevents us from using the category -s the predicate of a possible judgement. We are entitled to sayf for example, that fire is a cause of smoke and smoke an effect of fire. We are even entitled to say that all changes happen in accordance with the law of the conjunotion of caiutse and effect. This is how Kant himself formultes the Second Analogy. Furthermore, a category could not be a concept of the undersitanding unless it could be used s the predicate of a possible judgement; for to be a concept isr on Kant's view, to be the predicate of a possible judgement. The word Oategory' is commonly used nowadiays in the vaguest possible senses, but for Kant its meaning is precise. Thfe categories are concepts of what every object must be if it is to be -an object of experience - eve.ry object of experience must, for example, be subject to causal.law. 'In this sense a category may be regarded s a generic concept; for although ,an priori concept, it is nevertheless' a concept under which every member of the genus Object of experience1 must fall the categories are concepts of12an object s such (Gegenstand berhaupt). Smart's repeated criticisms ) all rest on the mis'taken assumption that the P-interpretation regards a category s a generic concept in a totally different sense namely, s an empirical class concept such s can be derived by comparison and labstraction from perceptoal objects. Since the whole point of the P-interpretation is that the categories cannot be derived empirically by abstraction froni objects, but inust be derived priori from the forms of judgement, it is hard to see what can give rise to so strnge a misunderstanding. Yet this misunderstanding appear to be Smart's ground for holding that the meaning ascribed to the categories by the P-interpretation is one which few indeed among other commentators would accept lz ). It appears. also to be his '. ground for maintaining . that on the P-interpretation Kant must reduce sciientific thinking .to. mere classification14). So easily does one misunderstandin-g lead. to another. ... .
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) P. 164.

Pp. 159, 164, 165, 167. P. 160. : ) P. 163-4.

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Curiously enough, Smart finds in the P-interpretation a further defect which seems to be the precis'e opposite of the one just considered. He objects to its fonnulation of the Copernican revolution to the doctrine that oategories which have their origin in the forms of judgement, and so in the understanding, tare 'imposed' by ithe mind on all objects of experience15). It is possible to have some sympathy with his objection to the use of the word 'imposed1. As he says, this may suggest that a pre-deterinined form is forced on a more or less recalcitrant materiaL Here, s so often, it would be better to use Kant's own terminology, and to say that the categories 'determine' the given material; or iagain ithat the mind 'combines' the given material in accordance with the categories. If we express this by saying that the mind 'imposes' forms of necessary synthetic unity on the manifold given to sense, we do not mean that the given is recalcitrant. Whatever we may think about its choice of langu<agef the P-interpretation may be supported or, s Smart says, may be 'bolstered up' by an appeal to the Copernican revolution. Previous philosophy had supposed that all our knowledge must be adjusted to objects. Kant sought to base bis philosophy on the Slipposition that objects mimst be adjusted to our knowledge16). In maintaining that formal logic must be based on transcendental logic or on metaphysics, or again that the forms of judgement must be ba&ed on the categories immanent in objeots, Smart appears to be saying the pr-ecise opposite. This objection he sweeps aside by a distinction between 'imposing1 and 'supplying1 transcendental forms a distinction I am unable to follow; -and he does not teil us where the mind obtains the categories which it 'supplies'. He takes the difference between imposing the categories on objects and extracting them from objects to be a minor, psychological -alteration of little philosophical import at least if we -accept the P-interpretation s he misunderstands it. This is a curious defence of the S-interpretation; and if our principles of exegesis entitle us to adopt an Interpretation which directly contradicts the very basis of the philosophy interpreted, there would seem to be no limit to arbitrary invention.
V.

Let us turn for farther light to a defect found by Smart in the Sinterpretation a expounded by Kemp Smith17). This defective Version, s I linderstand itf maintains (1) that Kant draws a distinction between 'discursive' and creativef thinking? (2) that he bases his derivation of the categories on a supposed aaalogy between .thes'e.two kinds of thinking?
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) 166. ") K- r. V., B XVI. " P. 167.

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and (3) that soidi an analogy is mistaken, Perhaps we are to suppose also/ although Smart does not say so, that discursive thinking is studied by formal logic, while the new creative thinking is studied by transcendental logic. My'Own objection to this doctrine of Kemp Smith is that Kant nowhere makes such a distinction and nowhere asserts such ;an analo<gy or bases any argument oipon it. All human thinking for Kant is discursive 18) that isf we think by means of concepts and must await a manifold given to sensuoois Intuition if we are to have iany objects about which to think. This human or finite thinking is contrasted by Kant with the thinking if it may be called so of an intuitive understanding, for which there would be no distinction between active 'thinking and passive Intuition. Such thinking might be described s creative, since its object, so to speak, would be given or created in the very act Oif intuitive thinking or intellectual Intuition; but^it woaild belong to a non-human understanding and indeed would be wholly beyond our comprehension. Consequently it could not be studied by any kind of human logic, whether transcendental or otherwise. On this' topic Smart is willing to allow me what he calls 'a verbal victory', but suggests, reasoinably enough, that it may not affect the s.ubstance of what Kemp Smith has expressed in a verbally unfortunate way. While ladmitting iat there is a perfectly good sense in which all human thinking is discursive, he attempts to make clear the distinction which Kemp Smith really had in mind. How is 'this to be done? At times Smart speaks s if the distinction were one between Kant's 'pre-critical and critical doctrines'19)r and so presumably between his formal and his transcendental logic, but this can hardly be what he means. His .view seems rather to be s follows. In discursive thinking conceptions are derived by comparison and abstraction from a jiumber of particular perceptions. In creative thinking the understanding introduces into the judgement a transcendental element, namely, a category, whidi is not derived by abstraction from perceptions. If this is 'the oorrect Interpretation of Smart's view, several questions arise. Are there two separate kinds of thinking, one of which is discursive and the other creative? Or is all thinking both discursive and creative? Or is all thinking really creative and none of it discursive? Is discursive thinking merely an Illusion of formal logic? To these questions I find no clear answer, but apparently both kinds of thinking do take place, although there is said to be no such sharp distinction s Kemp Smith imagines. Discursive thinking is 'thinking on a relatively commonplace level, embodying no great amount of systematic insightr such s is embodied in all but the most elementary stages pf scientific knowledge'. What is 'rather inappropriately' describe/d s creative thinking is simply 'the thinking -embodying the more comprehensive and profound, the more advanced stages of scientific know) Smart is mistaken if he thinks that Kant held this only in his pre-Critical : writings. ' 19 ) P. 168.
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ledge'20). Once we abandon the old formal logic for the new transcendental logic, there is no place for Kemp Smith's sharp didiotomy the distinction s'eems to be merely a qoiestion of degree. And -apparently, in spite of -abandoning formal logic, we shall be able to salvage whatever is of vahie in it, although not without modifying and xeinterpreting its details. What Professor Kemp Smith would think of this revised version s an attempt to defend or improve his1 doctrine I have no means of knowing; but I must confess that it does not offer to me an Interpretation of Kant which I should be tempted to prefer to my own. The function of formal and transcendental logic alike has become obscure. Is the first a study of low^grade thinking and the second a study pf advanced scientific method? If so, how does transcendental logic disjcover the categories, and how can they be basic to the forms of judgement s described by any formal logic that is permitted to siurvive? [Transcendental logic is not merely a study of the rul-es of thinking in some developed science or sciences this would be a special, s opposed to a general, logic21). Its aim according to Kant is to determine the origin, extent, and objective validity of synthetic a priori knowledge and in particular to justify the contention that the categories, in virtue of their origin in the very nature of human thinking s such, must necessarily apply to all objects of possible experience, and to nothing that is not an object of possible experience. Unless Smart proposes to adopt this aim and method, his transcendental logic is not transcendental at all. If, on the other hand, he proposes to justify the universal application of the categories by an appeal to the practice of modern science his argument would be an empirical one which could never bear the weight of such a conclusion. It would also be directly opposed to Kant's argument; for Kant holds that the categories must be universally applicable to all objects (including those of science) becajus'e they (or the principles in which they are applied) set forth the conditions of the possibility of ordinary experience, that is if I may borrow a phrase from Professor Ebbinghaus22) of the experience that any man can attain 'so wie er steht und geht9. Smart supports his improved version of the S-interpretation by appealing to one passage in the Critique of Pure Reason, to which I will return later. But we mayhere notean indirect support, which, in accordance with his method, he finds in the later developments of logic, both formal and non-formal23). As to the formal logicians, they would, -Smart argueS, be favourable to Kant if the P-interpretation were correct in holding that Kant attadied so much importance to formal logic? but in fact they are indifferent or hostile, This is a strnge argument. Their coolness or hostility is

P. 169. Compare K. r. V., A 52 = B 76. *) .Hermann Cohen als Philosoph und Publizist1, Archiv fr Philosophie, Band 6, Heft 1/2. M ) P. 170.
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20 ) 21 ) 2

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sufficiently explained by the f act 'that they have abandoned Kant's formal logic for a very different one and have no use for his transcendental logic at all. In any oase fewf if any of them, can claim expert knowledge of Kant. The inost distinguished of them all was under the Impression that Kant derived his categories from the forms of the syllogism! 24) Non-formal logicians, according to Smart, must also reject the Pinterpretation; for they all acknowledge a debt to Kant because they have learned from him, among other things, that the form and content or matter of thought are inseparable. I should like more evidence for this? but if his Statement is correct, they must have learned from Kant precisely the opposite of what he says perhaps they confused themselves by looking at Kant throoigh the eyes of Hegel. Smart himself, strangely enough, takes this inseparability of form -and content to be established by Kant's' assertion that 'concepts without percepts are empty1.25) What Kant said was that 'thoughts without content are empty1 26); but, apart from this verbal correction, his Statement is pari of an angument to show that the forms of thought haive to be studied separately in logic just s the forms of intuition had to be studied separately in the Aesthetic. On Kant's view it is the very emptiness of the forms of thought which makes it easy to study them separately that is, without reference to the countless differences in the objeots that may be thought.27) Hence the indirect support sought by Smart does not seem to be very sitrong. Those who accept the P-interpretation s possible or even certain have no need to assume, s he suggests, that 'both formalists and nonformalists are all mad together so far s their reading of Kant is concerned'.28)
VI

If we maintain that the S-interpretation is not only to say the least unsupported by Kant's writings, but is also obscure in itselfi it may.be retorted that the P-inteipretation is equally obscure. In answer lo this we must try to s tte Kant's argument, difficult s this admittedly is, in the'simplest possible terms. If anything is to be an object bf exiperience, it must first of all be given to sense (or at least be oapable of being given to sense). It must, therefore, be given under the forms of time and space, whose origin, according to Kant, is to be found in human sensibility. In ithe second place, in order to be an object, it must also be thought or jiudged mere sense, even when siupplemented by the association of ideas, can never constitute experience of an object. But if an object must be thought or judged, it must conform to the form of thought or judgement. The ultimate
) **) 2e ) ") 28 )
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Russell. A History of Western Philosophy, p. 734. P. 165. K. r. V., A 51 = B 75. Or has Smart some other passage in mind? K. r. V., A 54 = B 78, et passim. P. 170.
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form of thought is to be found in the synthetic unity of apperception29) in the spontaneous think1 whidi miust be able to, accompany all my ideas if they are to be ideas of an objeot. The think' necessarily articulates itself into certain forms of judgement whidi are also forms of synthesis the synthesis, for example, of subject and predicate, of ground and consequent, and so on, The task of setting out these necessary forms of judigement belongs to formal logic. The task of transcendental logic is to take a fuither step and to show that what is given to sense, besides conforming to time and space, nuust also conlorm to these necessary forms of judgement or forms of synthesis if we are to have experience of objects. The forms of judgement s thus determining objects : ; bf expenence are the pure categories, and these categories are studied transcendental logic -and in transcendental logic ahme. This, it need hardly be said, is only the beginning of the work of r transcendental logic; for in^order to display the connexion between the ! categories and objects we must go beyond formal logic and take into ;account the transcendental synthesis of imagination whidi combines the given manifold in one time and perhaps in one space the pure categories have to be schematized. The argument s so far outlined is only an incomplete skeleton; but it is alr-eady obvious that unless the think' does articulate itself necessarily into forms of judgement whidi are also fonns of synthesis, then this skeleton must be broken-backed. Here we come to a most controversial topic. Many able thinkers have objected (1) that the think1 does not articulate itself necessarily into certain forms of judgement, and (2) that the forms of judgement are only forms of analytic judgement and so cannot possibly be forms of synthesis. This controversy has a long history, whidi -an advocate of the historical approadi might be interested to study. He will find it in a book by Professor Klaus Reich Die Vollstndigkeit der kantischen UrteilstafeL The fact that Professor Reich came to conclusions not unlike my own confirms me in my heresy. Here I cannot do justice to a topic in whidi Smart seems to cast me for the flattering role of Athanasius contra mundum. l can only attempt to toudi on some of the points his article raises about the xelation between the forms' of judgement on the one hand and the judgements distinguished s analytic and synthetic on the other. Let us confine ourselves to the form of categorical judgements. There is no difficulty that I can see in as'serting that every categorical judgement, whether analytic or synthetic, is a synthesis of subject and predicate.30) This form of synthesis is pres'erit alike in the analytic judgement 'All bodies are extended' and in the synthetic judgement 'All bodies are heavy1. In both judgements the objects of experience in question are determined in accordance with the category of substance and accident.
*9) This is the same s the objective unity of apperception in KanVs dfinition of judgement qiven above. *) Compare K. r. Vv B 131 n.
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If we look at the question more generally, every judgement, whether analytic or synthetic, must have the form of judgement: otherwise it would not be a judgement at all, Now if there is anything clear in all this complicated exposition, it is this: there is for Kant only one set of forms of judgement those that are studied in formal logic; and sbject to certain qualifications which must here be ignored it is precisely the same set of forms of judgement that is studied in transcendental logic, only there these forms are studied, not for their own ake, but s determining objects of possible experience and consequently s categories. In spite of this Smart criticizes the P-interpretation on the ground that it involves iwo parallel sets of forms of judgement, those of transcendental logic s well s those of formal logic.31) This he finds very confusing, and no wonder. But the confusion has been introduced by himself. In the first place, he assumes 32j that synthetic judgements 'specifically so called' have a special form of their own besides the form which they share with all judgements, including analytic judgements. Sucii an assumption is wholly groundless and.is explicitly rejected by the P-interpretation. The distinction between analytic and synthetic judgements is not a formal, but a material, one: it manifestly depends in each case on the content of the subject-concept -eind the predicate-concept. This is why Kant holds that it can have no place whatsoever in a purely formal logic. In the second place, Smart assiumes that the supposed special forms of synthetic'judgements specifically so called must be the categories. But this againt is precisely what the P-interpretation denies. Hence it is unnecessary to discuss the alleged nonsense which this assumption introduces into the P-interpretation. In the third place, he assumes that formal logic is concerned with the forms of one kind of thinkinig, and that1 transcendental logic is concerned with the forms -of another kind of thinking, It is true that transcendental logic endeavours to show the objective validity of synthetic priori Knowledge; but it does so, at least in part, by finding the origin of the categories in the forms of thinking or judgement s such that is, in the forms established by formal logic, the only forms that are recognized by Kant. Hence there cannot be, s Smart holds, two parallel sets of forms. If you insist on introducing into the P-interpretation the very assumptions of the S-interpretation which it rejects, there is no difficulty in producing confusion; but since these confusions have nothing to do with the P-interpretation itself, it should be unnecessary to follow them further. Perhaps J should add that I am not certain whether Smart always suppprts these arguments himself .or merely attributes them to the Sinterpretation in the version of Kemp Smith.
31 ) 82

P. 158. ) P. 160.
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In all these arguments, if I follow him, Smart is struggling to maintain (1) that formal logic in studying one kind of thinking discovers the forms of judgement, while transcendental logic by studying another kind of thinking discovers the categories, and (2) that transcendental logic is 'basic' to formal logic or in other words1 ithat the categories are 'basic' to the forms of judgement The second contention is the more ^fundamental. i In support of this view he appeals once more to the text of the Crifique33) the difficult passage in section 10: 'The same understanding through the s'ame operations by which in j concepts, by means of analytic unity, it has produced the logical form of a judgement, introduces, by means of the synthetic unity of the manifold of Intuition in general, a transcendeintal element into its representations.' The passge from whidj this sentence is taken is one of the most crucial in the whole Critique, but unfortainately it is also one of the most obscure. It has misled many commentators, wiho have taken the analytic unity to be the unity of analytic jiudgements, whereas it is really the unity which attadies to all common concepts a sncii;34) and they have taken the synthetic unity to be the unity.of synthetic judgements, whereas it is really the synthetic unity whidi is to be found in all judgements ;as such. This syntiietic unity I -take to be bound up with the synthetic unity of apperception whicii is I quote Kant 'the highest point to which we must attacii every oise of the understanding, even the whole of logic, and alter logic the transcendental philosophy.35) This quotation from Kant himself may be regarded s the shortest possible summary of the P-interpretation; and a failure to -distinguish between analytic and synthetic unity on the 4 one band, and analytic and synthetic judgements on the other, is one of tthe main reasons why formal logic has been supposed to study analytic thinking <and transcendental logic to etudy synthetic thinking. I speak here .with feeling since it took me years of painful effort to escape from this misunderstanding. Smart himself takes1 the passage very simply. He attributes to Kant the assertion that understanding introduces a transcendental element into the judgement, and that this transcendental element is a category. He fails to observe that Kant does not mention judgement: the transcendental element is introduced into representations, -and it wcxuld be much more natural to take these s concepts or intuitions toan s judgements ultimately they must, I think, be intuitions. Neverlheless, the Substitution of the word 'judgement' for the word representations'' seems to be Smart's only ground for going on to say that it is precisely this transcendental element which ultimately determines the logical forms oi the judgement. Even if we were to accept his improbable emendation of the lextf this inference would be quite unwarranted. I take Kant to mean
K. r. V., B 133 n. L K. r. V., B 134 n. L The italics are mine.
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A 79 = B 105.

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here the exact opposite namely, that it is tihe logical form of the judgement whidi is the basis of the category; I believe this to be the only Interpretation which accords with Kant's argument throughout; and I see no way of reconciling Smart's view with the whole paragraph from which he extracts the main part of one sentenoe or with the paragraph which immediately follows. One further point is still more clear. It is the same understanding by precisely the same operations, which I take to be acts of judging, that produces both the forms of judgement .and the categories. There is no question here of analogies, true or false, between creative and discursive thinking, or between synthetic and analytic thinking, or again between advanced scientific thinking and ordinary common sense. It is this last distinction which Smart appears to find in his chosen passage, but why he does so remains to me a mystery which I am unable to fathom.
VII

hope I have shown that Smart's major criticisms of the P-interpretation rest on misfimderstanding -and that his valiant efforts to find textual support for the S-interpretation have failed. But perhaps he would claim that my arguments are still following slavishly the Jetter of Kant's philosophy to the neglect of its spirit and so miss the point that is in dispute. In their appeals to the text, it may be said, they fail to draw out the implieations, and to grasp the fll import, of seminal ideas and theories which could only be sketdied ooit inadequately and inconsistently by their author.56) It still seems to me dangerous to draw out the implieations of statements which we have failed to understand. But if this scruple is to be dismissed s narrow-minded, . perhaps we should try to get behind the letter of Smart's arguments to the spirit by which they are inspired. This is admittedly a hazardous Operation, especially s it has to be based on one short article, and I hope its author will forgive me if I have failed to understand him aright. Wh^at little I can say miust in any case be far too summary. In spirit, it seems to mer Smart is genuinely anxious to do what he can for Kant's reputation, and also for the advancement of philosophy, by separating out what is living from what is dead in the Critique of Pure Reason. This he thinks can best be judged in the light of better philosophies which have come out of it or can be extracted from it. His central argument .would seem to nun something like this. Kant would have been blind and reactionary if he had taught that transcendental logic is based on formal logic and that the categories are based on the forms of judgement. But since' Kant was not blind and reactionary, he cannot have taught this, but must have taugth the precise opposite namely, that formal logic is based on transcendental logic and the forms of judgement are based on the categories. Although it is recognized that Kant may have
se

) Compare p. 161.
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failed to grasp this completely, an attempt is made, however aHisuccessMly, to read back this improved doctrine into some of the utteranoes of Kant himself. Whatever we may think of Smart's method, we can have no quarrel with his spirit. We may even agree with him that an Interpretation which makes Kant talk nonsense is likely to be mistaken. Hampered s he no doubt is by limitations of space, we ougiht not to expect to o much from him. His great merit is that he writes clearly and so makes it easier to detect any possible errors. If he had confined himself to telling us what he thinks to be de ad in Kant and why, ,and had then proceeded to indicate and develop what he thinks is living, no one could have any cause of complaint. Unfortunately, his high regard for Kant leads him into a curioaisly ambiguous position: while half admitting thad the dead matter xeally is there, he half wants to deny its presence, His reinterpretation is conceived partly s an alternative Interpretation, for which he seeks to find soipport in tlie text; but partly it is an attempt to turn Kant's doctrines into better ones which he supposes Kant would have accepted if he had been able to think more clearly. Thus exegesis is based on evaluation rather than evaluation on exegesis. This can lead only to misunderstanding, a in fact it does. If Kant's doctrines have further implications which he failed to see, by all means let us have the logical evidence reqjuired to prove this; but it is hard to believe, unless perhaps if one is a Hegelian, that a philosphy can imply ithe precise opposite of what it says. Besides appealing to logical implication Smart seeks to find soipport in the subsequent history of philosophy. This miust, I think, be a subordinate argument, and in a short article we can hardly expect to find the historical evidence that is required for his immediate thesis. Thinkers of many types have been stimulated or provoked by Kant, and not a few have borrowed some of >his ideas or claimed his support for their own doctrines. His influence in varied forms is to be found in rationalists and empiricists, in pragmatists and positivists, in theologians and agnostics, but perhaps most of all in German and British idealists, with whom Smart's sympathies may seem to lie. Even existentialists borrow whole chunks of his doctrine abut freedom. By concentrating on one aspect of Kant's philosophy it is easy enough to find support for the doctrines we favour especially if we say that the other aspects are unfortunate aberrations which do not 'xlequately express the genuine epirit of his thinking. But so simple a device does not entitle us to claim that our favoured doctrine has a monopoly of KanVs spirit and represents it better than he did himself. If we carry this method to extremes, we shall produce a history in whidi all the lines become blurred. I have no wish to deny that if Kant had abandoned some of his fundamental presuppositions and adopted others, he might have produced a coherence theory of truth. Even if he had, it seems to me that its spirit would still have been worlds away from the spirit of Joachim, however much we may admire the latter. The fact, however, remains that Kant did not; and it isLibrary hard to see 'the. Brought to you by | Fordham University
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advantage of giving him credit which may be due to Hegel. You might s well, according'to your predilections, credit Locke with the philosophy of Berkeley, or Berkeley with the philosophy of Hume. Nor is it easy to believe that such, interpretations or reinterpretations will either add to Kant's stature or improve our own philosophies. It may be possible to defend these methods from a Hegelian point of view, though I do not think that Hegel was very iuccessful s an Interpreter of Kant. From a -Hegelian point of view they seem to me indefensible. I have no means of knowing whether Smart is a Hegelian or not, but there is nothing in the P-interpretation which need prevent him from trying to improve Kant's philosophy in any way tie pleases; and indeed I wish him all success in 'that endeavour. Were it not for considerations of space, I s'hould have liked to dis'ouss some of his more general doctrines. In partieular, I should have been tempted to examine at greater length the relations between Kant and Newton, Kant's views on conic sections, and above all his treatment of the notion of System in the Dialectic and the Critique of Judgement. Within the framework of Kant's thought I believe I could show that the views supposed by Smart to be necessary implications of the P-interpretation are, on the contrary, directly opposed to it. On the other hand, we are free to abandon that framework altogether and to start afresh. We can do this most -eas'ily if we assert with Smart that it is impossible to separate the form from the matter of thooight. If so, we must reject the very idea of formal logic, whether in Kant's sense or in any other. It would then become impossible, s Kant would have been the first to agree, to specify.the formal conditions of knowing an object s such and so to specify the necessary formal conditions of being an object of experience. To hold this is to abandon the very idea of oategories in Kant'e sense. We should then be entitled to regard the notion of System s a category in some looser sense or even to absorb all the categories into the notion of System and perhape to commit ourselves to a coherence theory of truth. Indeed we could in Kantian terminology replace understanding by reason and set aside the wftiole Critical ^analysis without which reason is, according to Kant, so dangerous' a giuide. We could even revive the speculative metaphysics which Kant set himself to destroy. I am happy to agree with Smart in holding .all tiiis to be a possible line of philosophical argument at least I hope I am agreeing with him. But such -an improvement, if it is one, would better be described, not s an Interpretation nor even s a reinterpretation, but s a revolution. It would have shocked Kant to the core. Althoiugh I have no wish to argue that Kant has produced a final philosophy in philosophy there are 110 last words I do maintain that the Critique of Pure Reason mut be treated s the systematic whole that it professes to be, if our criticisms of it are to have any value. As regardsi the list of the forms of judgement, it has always seemed to me reasonable to suppose that Kant must have been more systematic about this than he appears to be at first sight otherwise he would, have been blind not to see that his
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list of categories must be s .rhapsodical' .s those of Aristotle. Professor Reidi, in the book to whidi I have already referred, has attempted to show by diapter and vers-e what Kant's logical System was and has also contended that it is sound. If, however, we accept the common view that Kant merely took over aincritically the logic of his time iand toudied it up a little to suit his own purposes, then it is far better to recognize that in this respect he was blind and consequently that his list of categories cannot have the systematic diaracter whidi beyond doubt he claiined for it. Great thinkers do have blind patdies, and we must be prepare'd to recognize the doctrines of a master in philosophy even if we iare not prepared to defend them. If Kant went wrong in detail, it still remains a great revolutionary doctrine that the pure forms of thought, if these can be found, must determine the formal conditions under whidi any object oam be known s an object of experience;and once we understand his assumptions, even if we think thein mistaken, we oan hardly fail to see that the Critical System is at the very least a marvel of ingenuity. I can see no warrant whatever for rejecting the P-interpretation on the ground that an intelligent man like Kant could not have been so blind s to propound any doctrine of the sort. Sudi a contention, I must say frankly, steems to me to abandon philosophical sdiolarship and to make Kant's spirit contradict flatly, not only his own express and repeated Statements, but even the very principles whidi are at the root of his whole philosophy. To Interpret the spirit of a thinker is a more hazardous task than to determine the meaning, 'and assess' the value, of his doctrines: we have to abandon logic for something like feeling or Intuition or even in extreme cases divination. My own feeling is that Kant's spirit is very different from the spirit of his immediate successors. They were romantic Genrian idealists inclined to loose thinking -and vague emo.tion. He was a man of the Eighteenth Century, who prized exact thinking and precise definition and perhaps a too rigid System, even if he did not always attain his ideal. His spirit, I should surmise, is remote from appeals to the spirit in the sense advocated by Smart. Although he does in one cas'e -refer to the spirit, s opposed to the letter, of philosophical nomenclature, this is only in order to protest that his philosophy is not to be identified with that of Descartes or Berkeley merely because it too has been called idealism. **) In furtherance of his Claims Smart makes a final appeal/ s others have done before, to Kant's own assertiori that it is not unusual to understand an author better than he understands himself.38) Whether Kant is right or not in claiming to understand Plato better than Plato understood himself, he does at least,recognize that understanding has to be attained by comparing the thoughts whidi the author has expressed.
) ProL S. 13 Anmerkung III, Ak. IV, p. 293, The reference is to the edition of the Berlin Academy. *8) K. r. V.f A 314 = B 370.
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We need not, however, go so far afield. Claims of the type Smart favours were already put forward in Kant's life-time, and he reacted in no ambiguous terms. I hope it will not be considered slavish if I support my intuitions by quoting Kant's actual words. ' First of all, there is his reply to the egregious Schlettwein. This gentlemanr with an unpleasing combination of dieap insult ;and moral omction, challenged Kant to a public correspondence in which he proposed to overthrow the entire System of the Critical Philosophy. Kant not unnaturally. declined, but s he had been asked which of his Interpreters understood him best, he referred his challenger to the writings of Professor, Schulz. He hastened to add, however, that he takes the Professor's* words 'according to the Je ff er (Buchstabe) and not according to a spirit (Geist) alleged to be contained in it (by which one can drag in anything one likes)'. 39) Still m-ore pertinent is Kant's declaration of his attitude to Fichte's Wissenscha/fs/ehre.40) It was already being preached that Kant's work was a mere propaedeutic and that it was really Fichte who had produced the System of transcendental philosophy. One enthusiast, in tactfully proposing that Kant should publish his own views on this preposterous claim, had averred that the Crique of Pure Reason is not to be taken according to the letter, but is to be understood only by first mastering the appropriate standpoint (of Becfc or of Fichte) 'because the Kantian letter like the Aristotelian kills the spirit1. To this Kant replies once again that 'the. Critique is certainly to be understood by the letter and solely from the standpoint of common understanding provided this is sufficiently trained for euch abstract investigations'. He indicates rather disdainfully that-the question whether he takes the spirit of Fichte to be genuine Criticism is one that requires no answer. can defend myself against my enemies, but God save me from my friends'. If it be urged that at this s tage Kant in spite of being manifestly right about Fichte was too old to be a judge of matters pertaining to the spirit, we may find a general description of his attitude which dates from his middle age. In a letter written to Hamann in 1774 he had set out what he took to be the meaning of a recent book by Herder. He goes on s follows 41): 'If, my good friend, you find that my idea of the author's main purpose can be improved, please l et me have your view in a few lines but where possible in the speech of human beings. As a poor child of earth I am not at all organized for the divine speecih of an intuitive reason. But I follow pretty well what can be speit out to me (was man mir ... vorbuchstabieren kann) from common concepts according to logical rule. Besides, I ask no more than to understand what is the theme of the authorj for to recognize it in its total worth with intuitive certainty is ah affair to which I make no claim'. Here admittedly he is dealing with romantic insight in its extremest form, but his words offer an example of his down-to-earth spirit s understood by himself.
39 ) Ak., 40 )'A/c v 41

XII, pp. 3934. XII, pp. 396-7. ) Ak., Xf p. 148.

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I will make one last point. The claim of any Interpretation to be accepted rests ultimateily on its power to rnake a philosophy, so to speak, click together into place s a consistent whole or at least s an ingeniously constructed whole. This is the claim made by the P-interpretation: it does not require to be 'bolstered up1 to borrow Smart's phras'e by appealing to isolated passages torn from their context A similax claim can hardly be made for the S-interpretation; for it breaks up Kant's expressed philosophy into a patchwork of inconsistent theories and offers in its place -a doctrine whidif to me at least, seems neither consistent nor clear. Consider only one example. The kind of Statement transcendental logic seeks to establish by reference to the formal conditions of experience is that -every event must hiappen in accordance with causal law. Is there iany plansibility in saying that a logic of this kind if we 'agree to call it logic must snpplant or absorb, or at the very least, reconstitute'any kind of formal logic? It -appears to nie, with all respect to Professor Smart, that there is none; and this opinion is confirmed by the fact that the advocates of the S-interpretation seem unable to make up their minds whidi of these three very different possibilities they would recommend us to adopt. In short, I would soiggest that the P-interpretationf whatever its defects, is to be preferred, whether we let ouxselves be guided by the letter or by the spirit or best of all by both.

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