The Philosophical Review/Volume 1/Summary: Hartmann - Transcendentaler Realismus und Idealismus
A recent book[1] on an epistemological problem called out this article defending Hartmann's "transcendental realism" against the author's idealistic position and his criticisms on the Grundlegung des transcendentalen Realismus.
K. has examined only the Grundlegung, while the views of H. on the problem of causality are largely elaborated in other writings. In that book he sought to prove transcendental realism indirectly by showing the alternative belief to be absurd. K. tries to invalidate the argument by holding to a transcendental subject with transcendental functions behind the empirical conscious subject. If correct, this would be a valid answer; but two questions arise. First, Is such a position compatible with consistent idealism? and, secondly, Can it explain experience? May this trans-subjective sphere be regarded as epistemologically immanent, and so consistent with idealism which believes only in the immanent? K. explains it as an activity lying outside the reflective consciousness. It is, therefore, for my consciousness trans-subjective and epistemologically transcendent, though metaphysically, with reference to a possible absolute subject, it may be either transcendent or immanent. K. confuses metaphysics and epistemology, both in reference to idealism and in reference to immanence. He assumes that causality is epistemologically transcendent and really disputes only its metaphysical transcendency, which no one advocates. He admits a reality independent of our consciousness, and so is an epistemological realist, while in his metaphysical idealism H. agrees with him.
The absolute consciousness is doubtless the same for all empirical subjects, yet the existence of many subjects must be admitted, hence it cannot be alike for all. If it were, at any moment the content of consciousness for every empirical subject would be the same. Hence the absolute consciousness must be inwardly a manifold offering to each a different content. So I have a double relation to the absolute consciousness, one immediate to a part of the manifold, the other mediate to the remainder. The former constitutes me an individual, the latter determines the particular mode of my development. The former is epistemologically transcendent but belongs to my individual subjectivity, which it calls into existence, and is therefore not trans-subjective. The transcendent thus embraces subjective and trans-subjective. In reality the subjective includes the unconscious side of the individual, while the immanent is limited to the conscious. Consciousness perceives as essentially its own what comes from the subjectively transcendent, while what comes from the trans-subjectively transcendent is interpreted as an immanent voucher for an objective. The epistemological distinction between subject and object is not drawn between the conscious and the unconscious, but both are regarded as part of the subject. Empiricism admits only trans-subjective transcendent causality, the a priori system only subjective transcendent causality. Each is one-sided. Transcendental realism avoids the error and includes the truth of each. It shows empiricism that the dependence of consciousness on the trans-subjective is not immediate but mediated by the a priori functions of the subject; it shows the a priori system that its doctrine of a purely subjective transcendent causality is incapable of offering any explanation of changes in consciousness.
The epistemologically transcendent reality of causality does not deny its subjective ideality for the individual, or its metaphysically objective ideality, or its immanence in some absolute consciousness. The immanent causality, to which all transcendental idealists like K. resort in order to supplement the deficiencies of their subjective transcendent causality, is no causality at all, but only the broken shadows on the field of consciousness of the trans-subjective transcendent causality. To maintain it they have to eliminate from causation the ideas of efficient activity, necessity, and conceivability of the connection and retain only uniform sequence, but even then the attempt fails.
K. thinks he has refuted rationalism as well as empiricism, and thus established positivism. But the refutation of an exclusive rationalism may lead either to positivism or to a synthesis of the two. The true view is the latter. The remainder of the article is a criticism of K.'s irrational positivism. The contents of the process of nature are relatively irrational, but the absolutely irrational appears in the form of indeterminate sequence and change. For this is a violation of the law of identity. The principle of ideality is reason and of reality is will. Causality is neither rational nor irrational but a synthesis of both, of reason and will.
- ↑ Die Entwickelung des Causalprobleme, Edmund König, 2 vols., 1888-9.