consciousness that these conceptions are being used in an unauthorized way. Thus even Kant speaks of the thing in itself as the reason[1] of the phenomenon, and also of a ground of the possibility of all phenomena,[2] of an intelligible cause of phenomena, of an unknown ground of the possibility of the sensuous series in general, of a transcendental object[3] as the ground of all phenomena and of the reason why our sensibility should have this rather than all other supreme conditions, and so on in several places. Now all this does not seem to me to tally with those weighty, profound, nay immortal words of his,[4] "the contingency[5] of things is itself mere phenomenon, and can lead to no other than the empirical regressus which determines phenomena."
That since Kant the conceptions reason and consequence, principium and principiatum, &c. &c., have been and still are used in a yet more indefinite and even quite transcendent sense, everyone must know who is acquainted with the more recent works on philosophy.
The following is my objection against this promiscuous employment of the word ground (reason) and, with it, of the Principle of Sufficient Reason in general ; it is likewise the second result, intimately connected with the first, which the present treatise gives concerning its subject-matter proper. The four laws of our cognitive faculty, of which the Principle
- ↑ Or ground.
- ↑ Kant, "Krit. d. r. Vern.," 1st edition, pp. 561, 562, 564; p. 590 of the 5th edition. (Pp. 483 to 486 of the English translation by M. Muller.)
- ↑ >Ibid. p. 540 of 1st edition, and 641 of 5th edition. (P. 466 of English translation.)
- ↑ Ibid. p. 563 of the 1st and 591 of the 5th edition. (P. 485 of English translation.)
- ↑ Empirical contingency is meant, which, with Kant, signifies as much as dependence upon other things. As to this, I refer my readers to my censure in my "Critique of Kantian Philosophy," p. 524 of the 2nd, and p. 552 of the 3rd edition.
