Transcendental Arguments and Science: Essays in Epistemology (Synthese Library)

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Main entry under title: Transcendental arguments and science. (Synthese library) Papers originally presented at a symposium held in July 1977, and sponsored by the Center for Interdisciplinary Research of the University of Bielefeld. Bibliography: p. Includes indexes. l. Knowledge, Theory of-Congresses. 2. Transcendentalism -Congresses. 3. Reasoning-Congresses. 4. Science-Philosophy -Congresses. I. Bieri, Peter, 1944II. Horstmann, RolfIII. KrUger, Lorenz. IV. Bielefeld. Universitat. Peter, 1940Zentrum fUr Interdisciplinare Forschung. BD16l.T68 121 79-4367 ISBN 90-277 -0963-7 ISBN 90-277-0964-5 pbk.

Published by D. Reidel Publishing Company, P.O. Box 17, Dordrecht, Holland Sold and distributed in the U.S.A., Canada, and Mexico by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Inc. incoln Building, 160 Old Derby Street, Hingham, Mass. 02043, U.S.A.

All Rights Reserved Copyright © 1979 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any informational storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner Printed in The Netherlands

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION

The goal of the present volume is to discuss the notion of a 'conceptual framework' or 'conceptual scheme', which has been dominating much work in the analysis and justification of knowledge in recent years. More specifically, this volume is designed to clarify the contrast between two competing approaches in the area of problems indicated by this notion: On the one hand, we have the conviction, underlying much present-day work in the philosophy of science, that the best we can hope for in the justification of empirical knowledge is to reconstruct the conceptual means actually employed by science, and to develop suitable models for analyzing conceptual change involved in the progress of science. This view involves the assumption that we should stop taking foundational questions of epistemology seriously and discard once and for all the quest for uncontrovertible truth. The resulting program of justifying epistemic claims by subsequently describing patterns of inferentially connected concepts as they are at work in actual science is closely connected with the idea of naturalizing epistemology, with conceptual relativism, and with a pragmatic interpretation of knowledge. On the other hand, recent epistemology tends to claim that no subsequent reconstruction of actually employed conceptual frameworks is sufficient for providing epistemic justification for our beliefs about the world. This second claim tries to resist the naturalistic and pragmatic approach to epistemology and insists on taking the epistemological sceptic seriously. Granting the widespread assumption that every attempt at establishing some sort of epistemological fundamentalism proves untenable under close scrutiny, this more traditional outlook tries to revive something like the Kantian notion of 'transcendental arguments' which are supposed to refute the sceptic by showing, as against conceptual relativism, that certain conceptual or linguistic frameworks have priodty over others, and that the application of certain concepts or linguistic structures is a necessary condition for all talk about 'knowledge' and 'experience'. Consequently, it is supposed that there is some point in forming a well-defined general concept of science that remains invariant throughout history. The volume is guided by the idea to make this contrast as explicit as possible and to probe into the general motives and implications of these different vii

viii

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION

views. Within the range of possible topics which could be of interest in connection with this task, it concentrates on three themes. The first part of this volume concerns the structure and the function of transcendental arguments. It covers both a reconstruction of the Kantian idea of such arguments and the analysis of contemporary discussions of them by analytical philosophy in general. The second part deals with the conceptual foundations of science and tries to clarify the background assun1ptions and the methodological and epistemological consequences of different approaches within this field. The third part concerns the question whether it is possible to reconcile a transcendental approach with alternative positions. In order to discuss all these questions, which are of interest both for philosophers and scientists and stand in need of the competence of both, the editors of the present volume organized, in July 1977, a small working symposium on transcendental arguments and the conceptual foundations of science. The symposium was sponsored by the Center for Interdisciplinary Research of the University of Bielefeld and took place in Bielefeld (West Germany). The papers as well as the commenting papers in this volume have emerged from talks given at that symposium. The editors are deeply indebted to all authors for their active participation in the symposium and for their consent to the publication of their contributions in this volume. They are also indebted to the Zentrum fitr Interdisziplinare Forschung der Universitat Bielefeld for its very generous invitation and kind hospitality, as well as to the editors of this series, especially to Professor Jaakko Hintikka, for their willingness to include the present volume in the Synthese Library. PETER BIERI ROLF P. HORSTMANN LORENZ KRUGER

Bielefeld, July 1978

THE STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION OF TRANSCENDENTAL ARGUMENTS

MANFRED BAUM

TRANSCENDENT AL PROOFS IN THE

CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON

I. THE WEAKNESSES OF TRANSCENDENTAL ARGUMENTS

It is one of the effects caused by the critical philosophy, that metaphysics qua ontology and qua 'metaphysica specialis' has suffered discredit. Even the metaphysical systems of 'German Idealism' are, according to how they were understood by their authors, rooted in Kant's insight, that 'dogmatic' metaphysics is impossible. When, in Germany around the end of the 19th century, neo-Kantianism arose, the essence of Kant's critical philosophy was supposed to be its intrinsic connection with the natural sciences, especially Newtonian physics. The Critique of Pure Reason no longer found any interest as a systematic critique of all possible attempts to know the suprasensible, or as an attempt to rescue freedom of the will, which was seen as indispensible to morals. It was taken even less seriously as a destruction of a deductive ontology of the type of Christian Wolff. The effect of the first critique was so oveJWhelming that it has almost become commonplace to see the foundation of everyday or scientific experience as the proper task of theoretical philosophy. Had not Kant taught that all (theoretical) knowledge lies within the limits of actual or possible experience and that our concepts, including the mathematical ones, could not possibly have any sense and meaning, if the range of possible experience was left behind? He seemed to anticipate with this the fundamental thesis of Vienna Circle positivism, which was that every nonanalytic sentence which cannot be verified or falsified by experience is simply without significance. But, since, in this reading, Kant had linked the fate of his theoretical philosophy with the fate of Newtonian physics, it did have the merit of being scientific. But after Frege and Russell undertook to establish mathematics as a part of logic, and thereby as a purely analytic theory, and after Einstein overthrew Newtonian physics, the first Critique seemed to have become hopelessly obsolete. So to the analyst of the Critique of Pure Reason there seems to be left the unfortunate choice between an uninteresting critique of metaphysics and an interesting but out of date philosophy of science. Yet, since the appearance of Strawsons Individuals l there is, it would seem, a third possibility of understanding the Critique, namely, to read it as 3 P. Bieri, R.-P. Horstmann, and L. Kriiger (eds.), Transcendental Arguments and Science, 3-26. All Rights Reserved. Copyright © 1979 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland.

4

MANFRED BAUM

an essay in descriptive metaphysics which is intended as a description of the actual structure of our thought about the world, Le. of the conceptual scheme which is the foundation of all human experience and is not changed by history. In reading the Critique as an essay in descriptive metaphysics the danger dissolves that philosophy might become the 'owl of Minerva' of the empirical sciences in their historical development. In using this expression, Max Scheler in 1900 2 criticized the neo-Kantian way of understanding Kant even before Einstein's Theory of Relativity appeared, that is, before dusk had fallen over Newtonian mechanics. Thus, Strawson is justified against a (neo-Kantian) interpretation as given by (Collingwood and) Korner when he opposes 3 taking the principles of the pure understanding which are proven by Kant in his Critique merely as the presuppositions of the Newtonian physics of his time, which have to be replaced (according to Korner) by other principles. If Korner were right, then we would have to assume that it was Kant's ain1 only to discover the fundamental conceptual framework of his epoch, within which the scientists of that epoch had posited their problems and fonnulated their solutions. Such conceptual frameworks were never directly refuted, but rather silently abandoned as science progressed. But this would mean that Kant had not at all sought and found the universally necessary conditions of the possibility of any experience of objects. This interpretation flatly contradicts all that Kant had said about his aims and his achievements. The "merely historical view" (p. 121) is by no means an interpretation of Kant's theory of knowledge, but rather its refutation. Even if Kant had succeeded in getting to the metaphysical first principles of Newtonian natural science, his effort would have failed to lay down the principles of any future metaphysics that could be counted as science. So far Strawson is certainly right. 4 But it can be shown that an objection raised by Komer s against Kant's alleged transcendental method is, in fact, valid against transcendental arguments in Strawson's sense. There is the difficulty that Strawson never mentions 'transcendental arguments' in his book on Kant. His understanding of this phrase, therefore, must be gathered from his book Individuals. There, he gives us an example of a transcendental argument: "Given a certain general feature of the conceptual scheme of particular-identification which we have, it follows that material bodies must be the basic particulars." (p. 40) It is not quite simple to say what is transcendental in this argument. I take it as follows : You can say what the fundamental objects (of our experience) are, if they must fulfIll the conditions under which alone the identification of an object is possible for us (namely, a certain conceptual scheme). But the

TRANSCENDENTAL PROOFS IN KANT'S 'CRITIQUE'

5

decisive statement is yet to come. According to Strawson it is not the case that, on the one hand, a certain problem with the identification of objects is posited by a conceptual scheme, whereas, on the other hand, certain material objects make the solution of the problem possible (by fulfilling the conditions for the identification of possible objects). But, Strawson says, "it is only because the solution is possible that the problem exists. So with all transcendental arguments" (p. 40). This must mean that it is only because we have always been capable of identifying material objects that an investigation of the conditions under which we can do this (viz. of a certain conceptual scheme) is possible. If we keep this in mind while reading Strawson's book on Kant and look there for a parallel line of thought, we find it for instance in his description of a "transcendental investigation" (p. 18). Its object is "the conceptual structure which is presupposed in all empirical inquiry", or in other words, it is a 'theory of experience' in the sense that it discusses the conditions of any possible experience by an a priori method (p. 18). In his 'General Review' of the first en'tique, Strawson discusses 'synthesis' as the fundanlental concept of the deduction of the categories. He rejects this concept because it and its correlate, belief in disconnected data of sense as materials for the process of synthesis to work on, belong to an idealistic explanatory model of knowledge, Le. to a 'transcendental psychology', that cannot claim to be true. For if unconnected sense data and synthesis are antecedent conditions of empirical knowledge, they cannot be empirically known themselves. For a reconstruction of the deduction of the categories there remains, therefore, only one way by which it can be shown to be a viable argument; that is, by taking the deduction as an analysis of the concept of experience in general, by which it can be shown "that a certain objectivity and a certain unity are necessary conditions of the possibility of experience" (p. 31 f). This argument is a "strictly analytical argument" (p. 32, cf. p. 73).6 From these few remarks on Strawson's approach it is clear in what sense Kant's argumentation is a 'transcendental argument': (1) Strawson thinks it is necessary to reconstruct the Kantian theory of the conditions of any possible experience as an argument that is analytical, because it first assumes the concept of experience in general and then asks what makes it possible. (2) That experience is possible is something that follows from the (self-evident and therefore unmentioned) fact, that it exists, and this is seemingly something which is itself empirically known in contradistinction to the two antecedent factors mentioned above, which are supposed to render experience possible. Taken together, the two assumptions mean that the problem of

6

MANFRED BAUM

the identifIcation of certain objects of experience by means of a certain conceptual scheme is always already solved. These two presuppositions'bf Strawson's interpretation of Kant are shared by Korner. It is therefore not unfair to present his objection to transcendental arguments briefly, even without going into a further discussion of Strawson's interpretation. But Korner's objection is directed against Kant himself; therefore, he speaks of 'transcendental deductions' and not of 'transcendental arguments'. His objection is very simple: if the categories, or the principles derived from them, are not only the sufficient, but also the necessary, conditions of the possibility of experience, not only their aptness for explaining experience, but also the uniqueness of the conceptual sche.me that enjoys this aptness, has to be demonstrated. If in a transcendental deduction it is only shown that experience is possible via the categories or the principles and how it is possible, it is not at the same time demonstrated that only via these categories and principles the possibility of experience can be established. Other categories and principles could do the job as well. This objection against 'transcendental deductions' as understood by Korner? is, in fact, sound and valid, an10ng others, against Strawson's 'transcendental arguments'. For there is no difference in your method, whether you take, as a given fact that has to be explained, Euclidean geometry, Newtonian physics or everyday experience, and fmd out analytically their conditions in the categories and the principles. What n1ust be objected to in transcendental arguments in general is not that they are transcendental, but that they are analytical. And that Kant's n1ethod, at least in so far as it has a certain plausibility, is analytic is something that both Korner and Strawson believe. It is true Kant uses the analytic method in the Prolegomena. Here he asks: How is mathematics possible? How is pure natural science possible? How is nature possible? This last question is taken to be synonYlTIOUS with the question: How is experience possible? In so asking, Kant follows the analytic or rather regressive method, which is described in the same work: "Analytic method ... only means, that you proceed from that which is sought - taking it as given, and ascend to the conditions under which it is exclusively possible." (Ak. IV 276 n). All the above-mentioned questions are directed towards the conditions of the possibility of son1ething that is assumed as a given fact, namely, mathematics, physics, experience. Of course this is not to say that the Critique is not in any way a search for insight into the possibility of science and experience, but rather presupposes it as a fact. But it is only to say that the presentation of the results of the Critique in the Prolegomena,

TRANSCENDENTAL PROOFS IN KANT'S 'CRITIQUE'

7

for didactic reasons, takes its point of departure fF:om these results, which are established in the Critique by the synthetic (progressive) method. The Prolegomena proceeds this way in order to make as clear as possible the relevance of the results achieved by the synthetic method for science and experience. One of Kant's purposes in the Prolegomena was to set his theory off as clearly as possible from Berkeley's idealism. Berkeley had cast into serious doubt important fields of mathematics, as well as the application of mathematics in the cognition of nature and even the possibility of material nature itself. Therefore, Kant insists on those aspects of his own theory which are diametrically opposed to Berkeley's. And this way of presenting his philosophy can be found in the Critique itself, for Kant incorporated some passages from the Prolegomena into the introduction of the second edition of the Critique. Thus, it can be explained why this understanding of Kant's method is so widely accepted. Moreover, parts of the proof of the principles are, in fact, analytic and proceed by reasoning back to the conditions of the possibility of experience, as will be shown in Section III. This may be sufficient to explain why the characteristics of the Kantian argumentation were taken to be 'transcendental arguments'. The weaknesses of transcendental arguments are the weaknesses of the analytic method. This method, stemming from Greek mathematics, which has been discussed since the days of Plato and Aristotle, and described in detail in a much commented passage in Pappus,8 assumes as given a certain proposition and inquires into the premisses froill which it follows. Now, it is clear that by thus reasoning back to the reasons for the truth of a proposition (1) you can get to more than one reason, Le. you can arrive at more than one sufficient condition (proposition), from which the assumed proposition may follow (vide Korner). (2) None of these sufficient conditions must be true, because its corrollary is true (ex falso quodlibet). From this it follows that by the analytic method, the truth of the assumed proposition can never be demonstrated, except in those cases where the truth of the premisses has already been known. Therefore, the truth of the premisses does not depend on their establishing true propositions, but has to be presupposed for this. If the truth of the premisses has not been established elsewhere they can only be considered as hypotheses. Applied to Kant's argumentation, this would mean that, among others, the causal law had only the status of a hypothesis, which could account for the possibility of experience but need not be true for that reason. 9 (3) Finally, Kant would have formulated a mere tautologylO if the principles could claim to be valid merely as something that could explain the presupposed experience. The reason for the validity of a condition

8

MANFRED BAUM

of the possibility of experience would then be, that it was a condition of the possibility of experience. If experience is rendered possible by something that can claim to be valid only as a condition of the possibility of experience, then possible experience obviously rests ultimately on this, that it is possible. Because Kant knew this peculiarity of the analytic method he never used transcendental arguments in the Critique. Therefore, ifhe was not the author of a descriptive metaphysic or any other theory of experience, including a metaphysic of experience, the Critique of Pure Reason has to be taken the same way as its author has taken it: as a "metaphysic of metaphysics" (Ak X 269). In what follows, I try to show that there is a theory of experience inherent in the Critique ofPure Reason, but that one can only understand it adequately if it is taken as an answer to the question of the possibility of metaphysics, or more precisely of ontology. In the effort of answering this question, transcendental proofs are needed. They are meant to establish transcendental knowledge. The possibility of experience for Kant depends on such quasiontological knowledge. II. TRANSCENDENTAL PROOFS AS A TASK OF ONTOLOGY

For Kant, transcendental propositions have, or require, transcendental proofs if they are to be considered as true. Before distinguishing different sorts of transcendental argumentation and deduction, and discussing their mutual relations, we need a preliminary explanation of the concept of the 'transcendental' and the peculiarities of transcendental proofs in general. In a sense, transcendental philosophy is not different from ontology, Le. the philosophical theory of the most universal predicates of things in general. This use of the term 'transcendental philosophy', which depends on the traditional meaning of transcendental, is present when Kant says that it treats the understanding (and reason) themselves "in a system of concepts and principles which relate to objects in general without assuming objects that may be given" (B 873). Such a system is 'Ontologia' (ibid.). What is said here of transcendental philosophy - namely that it treats only of the understanding itself in its operations, i.e. independent of the objects that are given or not given to it - is a consequence of the fact that the understanding in its transcendental concepts and principles refers universally to objects in general, that is, to all possible objects. More precisely, the understanding treats these possible objects only in so far as they are possible, or in their possibility. Now, it belongs to the concept and essence and thereby to the possibility of

TRANSCENDENTAL PROOFS IN KANT'S 'CRITIQUE'

9

any object in general to be an object of kpowledge or at least of thought. Therefore, a universal theory of possible objects in general, an ontology, has to treat understanding as a faculty of knowledge and thought. For it is the understanding itself, with its operations, that is the only thing common to all possible objects whatever their conceivable differences may be. A system of the concepts and principles of the pure understanding is therefore at the same time a system of ontology, or rather: it would be, if the pure understanding alone sufficed for knowledge of an object. Since this is not so, the plan for an ontology is a mere presumption. Of things in general, without taking into account their possible givenness in a (with us necessarily sensible) intuition, nonanalytic apriori propositions such as e.g. the principle of causality cannot be shown to be true. Therefore, the 'proud name' of an ontology has to be given up in favour of the more modest name 'analytic of the pure understanding'. This analytic takes over the task of transcendental philosophy. Nevertheless, the former, but now problematic, sense of 'transcendental' (= 'ontological ') remains valid. The ontological predicates (categodes) are now concepts of the pure understanding and yield 'transcendental' pdnciples, Le. pdnciples "by which [a] general condition apdori is represented, by which it is exclusively possible that things may become objects of our knowledge in general" (Critique of Judgement B XXIX). In order to find the necessary apriori conditions, under which there can be any 'object of our knowledge' at all (besides an analysis of [sensible] intuition as a condition, under which an object can be given to us) there is needed an analysis of our understanding as a faculty of knowledge that is insufficient if taken by itself. With regard to this sort of self-knowledge, the much quoted sentence appears, according to which that knowledge is transcendental "which is occupied not so much with objects as with the mode of! our knowledge of objects in general,!! in so far as this mode of knowledge is to be possible apriori" (B 25). Pure intuitions and pure concepts as the two apriori modes of knowledge that each require the other are the themes of a transcendental philosophy. Together they could yield us the most universal knowledge not of things in general, but of things in general that can be given to us and known by us. One element of this transcendental knowledge that has to be established by transcendental proofs is the causal law. It is a peculiarity of transcendental proofs that there can be only one proof for every transcendental proposition. This follows from the fact that transcendental propositions cannot be founded on pure or empirical intuition of objects, but, if true, must be shown to be true simply by means of concepts of objects (without being analytic). A transcendental principle, such as the

10

MANFRED BAUM

causal law, is such a synthetic proposition in which a totality of subjects is represented by a concept ('everything that happens') and of which something is predicated ('has a cause'). This is a universal (affirmative, categorical) and apodeictic proposition. Since the proposition is universal, the subject-concept cannot express differences between events. There is only one concept to represent then1. And since the proposition is strictly universal, and permits no possible exception, it expresses, although it is synthetic, something that belongs to the concept of an event. Every event has, as such, a cause, or it belongs to the essence of an event to have a cause: this is what the proposition wants to say as a transcendental proposition. Since essence means nothing else but the 'internal possibility' of a thing, one can also say it belongs to the conditions which together make an event possible that it has a cause. All this follows from the proposition's being a transcendental proposition, Le. a proposition which universally asserts something essential of its object. Or rather, as Kant puts it: "In the case of transcendental propositions ... we always start from one concept only, and assert the synthetic condition of the possibility of the object in accordance with this concept" (B 815). In our example, the one concept is the concept 'event' and the object which is determined in accordance with this concept (Le. in its essence) is the event itself. In the predication 'every event is caused' an assertion is made about an object represented in the subject-concept, and the predicate-concept 'caused' or 'effected' does not contain a contingent property but something that belongs to the essence of the thing, 'event'. That is to say, the object as the thing that is represented by its concept ('event') would not be possible if it were not caused. ~ But this is not to say that it could be known by an analysis of the meaning of the concept 'event' that every event has a cause. For then the proposition would be analytic and would not need a proof, and therefore not a transcendental proof. The predicate indicates the condition of the possibility not of the concept 'event', but of events as such ('in accordance with' their concept). The predicate in the proposition is added to the subject-concept synthetically without being a contingent determination of the object 'event'. In other words, it is part not of the definition of the concept, but of the real essence of an event, to have a cause. It is included now in the concept of events to be a species of objects. If it can be shown that it belongs to the objectivity of the object 'event' to have a cause, any condition of the possibility of this object belongs to the essence of events, although it cannot be found in their specific concept. But by this consideration the proposition 'Every event has a cause' seems to become analytic again. For if it were part of the concept of the object in general to

TRANSCENDENTAL PROOFS IN KANT'S 'CRITIQUE'

11

have a cause, the causal law as a proposition about a certain species of objects would be analytic. The concept of a cause (or of being caused), however, is neither contained in the concept of an event nor in that of an object. As we shall see, it can be shown to be a condition under which alone there is something objective for our knowledge corresponding to the concept of an event. Thus, the causal law as a synthetic (nonanalytic) proposition says something about the condition of the possibility of objects that can be known by us according to a certain concept, namely ~ according to that of events. This proposition which is transcendental in the indicated sense can only be shown to be true in an adequate way if we succeed in demonstrating it as (the only) condition of the possibility of certain objects as objects that can be known by us. The events of which the causal law is universally valid are empirically given changes of states of substances which can be met with in tin1e. The perception of these events cannot by itself make legitimate the use of the category of causality, but can, at most, correspond to it. But if there is a transcendental proof for the causal law there must be a necessary connection between events as such and the concept of causality, by means of a third thing. More precisely, the being-caused of events must be the reason for the objectivity of events. But this connection can only be seen to hold by means of a third thing, because the law is a synthetic proposition. Events are, by their concept, thought of as a species of objects or as something objective. But it is not a tautology and therefore not an analytic but a synthetic necessity that they should have the objectivity for our knowledge that is contained in their concepts. It could always be the case that there were no objects at all that would correspond to the concept of an event, understood as an objective succession of states of substances. Kant always insists on the empirical character of the relation of perceptions which corresponds to the category. The principles anticipate experience, but only as far as its form is concerned. They are only the principles of investigation and not in themselves already determinate knowledge of the objects of experience. For the categories (which are the predicates of the principles) are only "indeterminate concepts of the synthesis of possible sensations" (B 751). For the causallaw 12 this means that it is a principle of the synthesis of possible empirical intuitions, under the guidance of which that which corresponds to the category of cause must be searched for. This is "the real upon which, whenever posited arbitrarily, something else always follows" (B 183). The 'something else' is the effected event, the cause of which I can determine, in the way just indicated, by an experiment.

12

MANFRED BAUM

There seems to be a contradiction between the transcendental character of the principles and the assertion that they (including the causal law) refer to possible experience in which alone that connection of perceptions can be found, which corresponds to the category in the realm of the object. Especially, the third thing that is to make the proof of a synthetic a priori proposition (e.g. the causal law) possible, seems to be quite unsuitable to its task, if it is to lie on the level of experience. This third thing must both, according to what has been said thus far, somehow lie within experience as well as be something nonempirical. It is the "possible experience" (B 794) or rather the "possibility of experience" (B 264) or even more precisely the "condition of time-determination in an experience" (B 761, cf. B 264). A proof of (among other principles) the causal law becomes possible by this third thing. Thus, the proposition "everything that happens, that is, begins to be, presupposes son1ething upon which if follows according to a rule" (A 189) can only be proven of objects of experience as such, and in their being able to be experienced. And this possibility of experience which is, among others, expressed by the causal law, is something that precedes not only every determinate experience, but also all possible objects of experience as a condition of their possibility. For objects that can only be objects for me in a possible experience necessarily underlie the conditions under which this experience is possible. Therefore, if the causal law is one of these conditions it is as an element of synthetic a priori knowledge not only possible, but even necessary (B 151). When, in fact, something as object of possible experience is presupposed, the causal law is an apodeictic proportion if only it can be shown that it is a condition of the possibility of experience. Kant once said that it is (in a way which will be made clear in Section III) a condition of the possibility of experience by stating that it makes possible the very thing by which it can be proven itself, namely experience. Kant says of the causal principle that it has the peculiar character "that it makes possible the very experience which is its own ground of proof and that in this experience it TIluSt always itself be presupposed" (B 765). This statement has long since been evaluated as the admission of a circle in the proof of this proposition (and as a document of the triumph of empiricism over apriorism). For if a proposition originally makes possible that by which it is to be proven, it seems to make itself possible or it seems necessary to presuppose it in its own proof. But the statement only says that the 'ground of proof of the causal1aw is experience in some sense, or rather that it can be established as son1ething valid of all real events, if it is established as a condition of the possibility of

TRANSCENDENTAL PROOFS IN KANT'S 'CRITIQUE'

13

the experience of these events, and that is,: not independent of the quality of being (possibly) experienced. In other wo~ds, it can be demonstrated as a presupposition of a determinate kind of experience, or it cannot be demonstrated at all. And this is to say that you have to proceed in its proof from the presupposition that experience in general is possible and then only show how a determinate experience is only possible by this principle. While this determinate experience is rendered possible by it, the proposition itself can only be proven with the presupposition that experience in general is possible. Thus, it is not true that the causal law renders experience possible while experience in its turn renders the causal law possible. Rather, it establishes the possibility of a certain experience (that of events) and thereby of its possible objects, but it is in itself only provable under the general presupposition (which must be true quite independently of this relation) that experience in general is possible. The point at issue now is, whether this latter possibility is given, and why. If the reason for experience's being possible consists in its being actual, then there is in fact a circle 13 here. For if the experience of events is something, the possibility of which I know only from its actuality or a posteriori, and if I recognize the universal causal law only as one of the presuppositions involved in it, its truth rests only on the particular cases for which it is valid. But these could only be considered as cases, if the principle could be shown to be true independent of them. Otherwise the circle would indeed be present: experience established the very thing by which it is established itself. In so arguing, the impossibility is assumed that a (according to Kant) strictly universal and apodeictic proposition is proven empirically. But,as we shall see, Kant asserts the possibility of experience quite independent of any particular actual experience. Thus, experience is not possible because we actually have experiences, but rather because it can be shown that the possibility of experience is necessary for reasons which are quite independent of the function of this presupposition in the proof of the causal law. Thus, the causal law establishes experience only in the sense that it is, in accordance with it, necessarily possible to find a cause for any given event. This cause cannot be determined by the causal law itself, but only by experience. Here the causal law establishes in a one-sided fashion, the possibility of finding out empirically certain causes, while it is in no way established or refuted by finding or not finding certain causes. III. THREE KINDS OF TRANSCENDENTAL PROOF

After the general exposition of the specific characteristics of transcendental proofs, we will now try to find out how this scheme works when applied to

14

MANFRED BAUM

the problems of the analogies of experience, the transcendental deduction of the categories and the transcendental aesthetic. I am taking them in this order because the proof of the analogies can be shown to rest on the deduction which, in turn, presupposes doctrines of the aesthetic. So not only the differences can be made clear between the three kinds of transcenKonstnlktive Wissenschaftstheorie< use arguments akin to Kantian ones to substantiate the claim that what is called 'protophysics' can serve as an apriori foundation for physics. In a similar vein, attempts of a )protosociology <shall serve as a clarification of the methodological position called 'dialectics' which tries to furnish a non-empirical foundation for the social sciences. 8 Due to the simplifications of this sketch, I could, of course, not yet take into account the numerous mixed cases deriving from insights into certain shortcomings of the respective positions as they grew out of recent scientific discussions. E.g. a certain transcendental framework got introduced into henneneutics;9 similarly, empirical boundary-conditions entered the argumentations in dialectics. 1o Both, the concentration on )the logic of evolutioncharacterizing universal ( in the sense of Strawson 17 - into a singular term, a nominator, as I suggest to call it. What remains in the case of the assertion in question is to judge upon the use of the terms 'leaf' and 'yellow' (or 'turn yellow') which by all standards is a question of true description. Constructions remain within one language- (or object-) level, descriptions concern two consecutive levels. This difference is well known, e.g. in logical theory, where formulae can either be constructed Iby formation-rules, or they can be described by means of suitably chosen predicates of a metalanguage (used for formalising the construction). The fundamental notions are partition (of a whole into parts) in the case of constructions, and attribution (of a property to an object) in the case of descriptions. Mereology and set-theory provide for the respective formalisations of these notions though their interrelation is by no means sufficiently clarified up to now. 18

184

KUNO LORENZ

I hope these remarks give sufficient Stlpport for the claim that there is no simple correlation between science as research and stating what is (being the result of research) on the one hand, and between science as presentation and issuing what shall be (being the guarantee of presentation) on the other hand. In either case, the set-up of science is not only a question of justifying a corpus of sentences, but a question of introducing meaningful terms used as constatives and/or as directives. And justification includes the search for the truth (science as theory) together with the search for the good (science as praxis) as much as meaning exhibits both, aspects of (theoretical) signification and aspects of (practical) relevance. III

The relevant difference of research and presentation as against the simplified accounts I discussed above comes in when we look for the support of a scientific theory. As far as science is treated as a way of research, this support should derive only from the descriptive power of the theory relative to the singular objects (= perceptual cores) of research, though usually, in the analytic phi1~sophy of science, due to the aforementioned lack of a clear separation between constitution and justification, this support is extended to include the explanatory power of the theory as well. It is common to use the term 'confirmation' (referring to non-elementary propositions in relation to relevant singular >dataidea [1] sScheinprobleme< as the one concerning the possibility of induction or the one concerning a bridge over the is-ought-gap, has to consider science with respect to activities both of research and of presentation. It has to develop a concept of science starting with a kind of unity of research and presentation 22 where the domain of (scientific) language-games uniting >world language< in the sense I have outlined above becomes the result of the first step. These language-games of preactions together with their articulations can then be treated in their both aspects: matter-oriented (research) and person-oriented (presentation).23 For visualization of what I am driving at, I may use an example of current dispute: the different approaches to (physical) geometry. Concentrating on the research aspect of physics, the (temporal) behaviour of (physical) bodies relative to their spatial coordinates is judged with respect to quite general hypotheses concerning space-time-structure (explanation-bias!). The presentation aspect of physics, in the protophysics of the Erlanger Schule on the other hand, asks for a series of steps to introduce the funda-

186

KUNO LORENZ

mental concepts of geometry, chronometry and hylometry in that order using )idealized( operations with (physical) bodies (regulation-bias!). In the second case, what is done is to provide meaningful terms - that they can be used successfully outside presentational questions is taken for granted. It is not surprising that certain propositions come out true apriori. In the first case, something completely different happens: here, propositions about given objects are tested to secure their validity, which means to treat them as empirically based. The introduction of the tenns used is taken for granted inasmuch as presentational questions are considered to be a cura posterior. Thought theoretical activities of supplying true descriptions govern science in its research aspect or, rather, because of them, the presentational necessities like introducing meaningful terms get neglected. And, conversely, the concern with practical operations to get adequate constructions of fundamental concepts for science in its presentation aspect seduces into thinking low of problems whether those concepts can effectively be used in research situations. The real issue actually boils down to the question of whether the introduction of meaningful (geonletric) terms like 'straight', 'n-times the length of etc. can be treated as an extension of ordinary language about ordinary objects, serving better criteria of relevance according to further developed standards of significance and truth. For, if extendability fails, we are stuck in conceptual frames without prospects to satisfy them; and if presuppositions serve as substitute for explicit introductions, there is no chance to guarantee anything beyond the perceptual cores. It is easy to see that the last two conditional sentences may serve as a modern and more refined version of Kant's famous dictum that concepts without intuitions are em.pty and intuitions without concepts are blind. The refinement consists in the introduction of hierarchies of theoreticity starting with (of course not uniquely determined) common-sense experience phrased in everyday language. 24 The domains of objects of scientific discourse have to be arranged on levels of ascending and descending order without any chance to argue definitely for a universal )lowest( level - e.g. of elementary particles - sufficient for arbitrary future theories. The usual arguments between protophysicists and )deutero-physicists ( - if I may coin that term for the nloment - using coordinate-systems with a spatial or even a spatia-temporal metric are beside the point as long as the problem of introducing a )metric< is exempt from a truly mutual discussion. What

THE CONCEPT OF SCIENCE

187

can be introduced rather than merely postulated on the basis of elementary

common human experience (still ambiguous relative to the singular-.:general bifurcation) will lend itself to the discrimination of (empirical) actualisations from (rational) schemata for any preaction. And if we succeed in constituting a domain of objects - in classical mechanics it has been ideal mass-points in a homogeneous Euclidean space-time - which can serve as a common basis even for quite different physical theories, unification of science has been pushed one step further. Hence, I will fmally claim that in order to con1pare two theories T 1 and T 2 - even incommensurable ones against the claims of P. Feyerabend 25 - it is necessary and sufficient to develop a theory T which allows a faithful embedding VJt of T t into T. Apart from the fact that it is impossible to know in advance whether for two theories - e.g. for quantum-mechanics and general relativity-theory such a) supertheory ( exists, the actual task will consist in devising appropriate translations including )logical constructions( in the sense of B. Russe1l 26 for the objects of either theory by means of the prunitive terms of the supertheory. Furthermore, such embeddings will, through the larger contexts the embedded theories then have, provide conditionalisations for the validity of these theories. And claims of uniqueness (for the )defmition ( of certain tenns, e.g. for 'plane' by protophysical devices) can likewise be substantiated by explicitly referring to their dependence on boundary-conditions which do no longer lie outside the theory. Saarbri1cken

NOTES 1 Cf. the collection of essays (by Chomsky, Goodman, Putnam) presented at the Symposium on Innate Ideas in Boston, Dec. 1966, published in Synthese 17 (1967); or the paragraph on Innate Ideas in the last chapter of J. J. Katz, The Philosophy of Language, New York-London 1966. 2 C. F. v. Weizsacker in his address, p. 137f, referred to Konrad Lorenz as a representative of an erroneous adaptation of Kantian arguments to findings of a special natural science, here: ethology. 3 Cf. R. Reichenbach, Experience and Prediction, Chicago-London 1938, esp. Chapter I, and compare with the context of Leibniz's tem1S as expounded e.g. in H. Hermes, 'Die ars inveniendi und die ars iudicandi' [Ars inveniendi and ars iudicandi'] , Studia Leibnitiana Supp!. III, Wiesbaden 1969. 4 A term used by W. James for his version of pragmatism, which is exactly in line with the claim just made, cf. the collection of essays in The Philosophy of William James (ed. W. R. Corti), Hamburg 1976.

188

KUNO LORENZ

5 Of course, the radical empiricism of W. James may be included, too, since this issue can be dealt with quite independently from the dispute between J ames and Peirce on the meaning of the term 'pragmatism'. Cf. for support e.g. Peirce's argumentation against first intuitions to secure cognition in: 'Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man', C. S. Peirce. Collected Papers 1- VI (ed. Ch. Hartshorne and P. Weiss), Cambridge, Mass., 1931-35, 5.213ff. 6 Cf. e.g. several of the papers presented at the Loccumer Colloquium 2, from Oct. 71 (ed. U. Gerber), in: Hermeneutik als Kriterium fiir Wissenschaftlichkeit? Der Standort der Hermeneutik im gegenwiirtigen Wissenschaftskanon [Hermeneutics as a Criterion for Scientific Thought? The Position of Hermeneutics in Current Science] , Loccum 1972. 7 This derives from the fact that Kant never disputes the reality of knowledge, Le. of Newtonian physics, but tries to clarify the conditions of its possibility; cf. the relevant exposition in the last chapter (§ 15) of J . Mittelstr~, Neuzeit und Aufklarung. Studien zur Entstehung der neuzeitlichen Wissenschaft und Philosophie [Modern Age and Enlightenment. Studies in the Development of Modem Science and Philosophy] , BerlinNew York 1970. 8 Cf. the concept of a general theory of verbal communication as >protosociology< in the postscript to the new edition of J. Habermas, Erkenntnis und Interesse [Knowledge and Human Interests], Frankfurt 21973; a related though competing approach in the relevant parts of P. Lorenzen and O. Schwemmer, Konstruktive Logik, Ethik und Wissenschaftstheorie [Constructive Logic, Ethics and Philosophy of Science] , MannheimLondon-Zurich 1973, esp. III. 4 (Theory of practical knowledge). 9 Cf. K.-Q. Apel's extensive discussion on 'Das Apriori der Kommunikationsgemeinschaft' ['The Aprion of the Communicative Community'] , vol. II of his Transformation der Philosophie [Transformation of Philosophy], Frankfurt/Main 1973; further esp. R. Bubner, 'Uber die wissenschaftstheoretische Rolle der Hermeneutik' ['On the Function of Hermeneutics for the Philosophy of Science'], revised version of a paper at the Loccumer Colloquium 2 (note 6), in: Dialektik und Wissenschaft [Dialectics and Science] , Frankfurt 1973. 10 Most prominent the collection of essays by J. Habermas, Zur Rekonstrnktion des historischen Materialismus [On the Reconstrnction ofHistorical Materialism] , Frankfurt 1976. 11 H. Wohlrapp, 'Analytischer versus konstruktiver Wissenschaftsbegriff ['Analytic versus Constructive Concept of Science'], Zeitschrift fiir Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie VI (1975). 12 The latest account in my introduction to the reprint of R. Gatschenberger, Zeichen, die Fundamente des Wissens [Signs, the Fundaments of Knowledge], Stuttgart 1977; at the same place attempts to relate this approach with ideas of the symbolic interactionism as developped by G. H. Mead and of the genetic epistemology by J. Piaget. 13 This elementary level I understand as the same C. F. von Weizsacker refers toin his address (p. 136) where he speaks of a level of conceptual representation of atomic actions with no difference of judgment and concept yet, since no singular terms occur. As this paper tries to justify, I do not agree with the conclusion von Weizsacker draws when turning sides with the empirist's predelection of the singular over the general and declaring a >predicate