THEORY OF KNOWING.
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PROP. XII.————
Why this proposition is introduced.superfluous to those who are at all acquainted with the evasive procedure of psychology. This science frequently admits that matter per se is not to be known, but still holds in reserve the opinion that it may, in some way or other, be thought or conceived. Thus Kant, who surrenders all knowledge of things in themselves, makes a reservation in favour of some kind of conception of them. Matter per se is called by him a noumenon (τὸ νοόυμενον); that is to say, it is an object of thought—of pure intellectual contemplation; a position which, besides being erroneous and contradictory, is remarkable for the direct reversal of the Platonic doctrine which it involves. Matter per se (Kant's "ding an sich") is with Plato the absolutely unintelligible, the most alien from all conceivability: with Kant it is the object of an intellectual conception, and the approved nutriment of thought—so strange are the metamorphoses which philosophical opinions undergo in their transmission from ancient to modern thinkers. In Kant's hands Plato's transitory and phenomenal has been translated into veritable substance—the γιγνόμενον transmuted into the ὄντως ὂν. The present and preceding propositions have been introduced for the purpose of correcting this abuse, by showing that matter per se can be just as little, the object of thought as it can be the object of knowledge. Should the reader, however, be inclined to adopt the contrary opinion, he will find satisfaction in the eleventh and twelfth
