Section 60
Original German
§ 60.
So haben wir Metaphysik, wie sie wirklich in der Naturanlage der menschlichen Vernunft gegeben ist, und zwar in demjenigen, was den wesentlichen Zweck ihrer Bearbeitung ausmacht, nach ihrer subjectiven Möglichkeit ausführlich dargestellt. Da wir indessen doch fanden, daß dieser blos natürliche Gebrauch einer solchen Anlage unserer Vernunft, wenn keine Disciplin derselben, welche nur durch wissenschaftliche Kritik möglich ist, sie zügelt und in Schranken setzt, sie in übersteigende, theils blos scheinbare, theils unter sich sogar strittige dialektische Schlüsse verwickelt, und überdem diese vernünftelnde Metaphysik zur Beförderung der Naturerkenntniß entbehrlich, ja wohl gar ihr nachtheilig ist: so bleibt es noch immer eine der Nachforschung würdige Aufgabe, die Naturzwecke, worauf diese Anlage zu transscendenten Begriffen in unserer Natur abgezielt sein mag, auszufinden, weil alles, was in der Natur liegt, doch auf irgend eine nützliche Absicht ursprünglich angelegt sein muß.
Eine solche Untersuchung ist in der That mißlich; auch gestehe ich, daß es nur Muthmaßung sei wie alles, was die ersten Zwecke der Natur betrifft, was ich hievon zu sagen weiß, welches mir auch in diesem Fall allein erlaubt sein mag, da die Frage nicht die objective Gültigkeit metaphysischer Urtheile, sondern die Naturanlage zu denselben angeht und also außer dem System der Metaphysik in der Anthropologie liegt.
Wenn ich alle transscendentale Ideen, deren Inbegriff die eigentliche Aufgabe der natürlichen reinen Vernunft ausmacht, welche sie nöthigt, die bloße Naturbetrachtung zu verlassen und über alle mögliche Erfahrung hinauszugehen und in dieser Bestrebung das Ding (es sei Wissen oder Vernünfteln), was Metaphysik heißt, zu Stande zu bringen, zusammennehme: so glaube ich gewahr zu werden, daß diese Naturanlage dahin abgezielt sei, unseren Begriff von den Fesseln der Erfahrung und den Schranken der bloßen Naturbetrachtung so weit loszumachen, daß er wenigstens ein Feld vor sich eröffnet sehe, was blos Gegenstände für den reinen Verstand enthält, die keine Sinnlichkeit erreichen kann, zwar nicht in der Absicht, um uns mit diesen speculativ zu beschäftigen (weil wir keinen Boden finden, worauf wir Fuß fassen können), sondern damit praktische Principien, die, ohne einen solchen Raum für ihre nothwendige Erwartung und Hoffnung vor sich zu finden, sich nicht zu der Allgemeinheit ausbreiten könnten, deren die Vernunft in moralischer Absicht unumgänglich bedarf.
Da finde ich nun, daß die psychologische Idee, ich mag dadurch auch noch so wenig von der reinen und über alle Erfahrungsbegriffe erhabenen Natur der menschlichen Seele einsehen, doch wenigstens die Unzulänglichkeit der letzteren deutlich gnug zeige und mich dadurch vom Materialism, als einem zu keiner Naturerklärung tauglichen und überdem die Vernunft in praktischer Absicht verengenden psychologischen Begriffe, abführe. So dienen die kosmologische Ideen durch die sichtbare Unzulänglichkeit aller möglichen Naturerkenntniß, die Vernunft in ihrer rechtmäßigen Nachfrage zu befriedigen, uns vom Naturalism, der die Natur für sich selbst gnugsam ausgeben will, abzuhalten. Endlich da alle Naturnothwendigkeit in der Sinnenwelt jederzeit bedingt ist, indem sie immer Abhängigkeit der Dinge von andern voraussetzt, und die unbedingte Nothwendigkeit nur in der Einheit einer von der Sinnenwelt unterschiedenen Ursache gesucht werden muß, die Causalität derselben aber wiederum, wenn sie blos Natur wäre, niemals das Dasein des Zufälligen als seine Folge begreiflich machen könnte, so macht sich die Vernunft vermittelst der theologischen Idee vom Fatalism los, sowohl einer blinden Naturnothwendigkeit in dem Zusammenhange der Natur selbst ohne erstes Princip, als auch in der Causalität dieses Princips selbst, und führt auf den Begriff einer Ursache durch Freiheit, mithin einer obersten Intelligenz. So dienen die transscendentale Ideen, wenn gleich nicht dazu, uns positiv zu belehren, doch die freche und das Feld der Vernunft verengende Behauptungen des Materialismus, Naturalismus und Fatalismus aufzuheben und dadurch den moralischen Ideen außer dem Felde der Speculation Raum zu verschaffen; und dieses würde, dünkt mich, jene Naturanlage einigermaßen erklären.
Der praktische Nutzen, den eine blos speculative Wissenschaft haben mag, liegt außerhalb den Grenzen dieser Wissenschaft, kann also blos als ein Scholion angesehen werden und gehört wie alle Scholien nicht als ein Theil zur Wissenschaft selbst. Gleichwohl liegt diese Beziehung doch wenigstens innerhalb den Grenzen der Philosophie, vornehmlich derjenigen, welche aus reinen Vernunftquellen schöpft, wo der speculative Gebrauch der Vernunft in der Metaphysik mit dem praktischen in der Moral nothwendig Einheit haben muß. Daher die unvermeidliche Dialektik der reinen Vernunft in einer Metaphysik als Naturanlage betrachtet, nicht blos als ein Schein, der aufgelöset zu werden bedarf, sondern auch als Naturanstalt seinem Zwecke nach, wenn man kann, erklärt zu werden verdient, wiewohl dieses Geschäfte als überverdienstlich der eigentlichen Metaphysik mit Recht nicht zugemuthet werden darf.
Für ein zweites, aber mehr mit dem Inhalte der Metaphysik verwandtes Scholion müßte die Auflösung der Fragen gehalten werden, die in der Kritik von Seite 642 bis 668 fortgehen. Denn da werden gewisse Vernunftprincipien vorgetragen, die die Naturordnung, oder vielmehr den Verstand, der ihre Gesetze durch Erfahrung suchen soll, a priori bestimmen. Sie scheinen constitutiv und gesetzgebend in Ansehung der Erfahrung zu sein, da sie doch aus bloßer Vernunft entspringen, welche nicht so wie Verstand als ein Princip möglicher Erfahrung angesehen werden darf. Ob nun diese Übereinstimmung darauf beruhe, daß, so wie Natur den Erscheinungen oder ihrem Quell, der Sinnlichkeit, nicht an sich selbst anhängt, sondern nur in der Beziehung der letzteren auf den Verstand angetroffen wird, so diesem Verstande die durchgängige Einheit seines Gebrauchs zum Behuf einer gesammten möglichen Erfahrung (in einem System) nur mit Beziehung auf die Vernunft zukommen könne, mithin auch Erfahrung mittelbar unter der Gesetzgebung der Vernunft stehe: mag von denen, welche der Natur der Vernunft auch außer ihrem Gebrauch in der Metaphysik sogar in den allgemeinen Principien eine Naturgeschichte überhaupt systematisch zu machen, nachspüren wollen, weiter erwogen werden; denn diese Aufgabe habe ich in der Schrift selbst zwar als wichtig vorgestellt, aber ihre Auflösung nicht versucht364.1.
Und so endige ich die analytische Auflösung der von mir selbst aufgestellten Hauptfrage: Wie ist Metaphysik überhaupt möglich?, indem ich von demjenigen, wo ihr Gebrauch wirklich, wenigstens in den Folgen gegeben ist, zu den Gründen ihrer Möglichkeit hinaufstieg.
364.1. Es ist mein immerwährender Vorsatz durch die Kritik gewesen, nichts zu versäumen, was die Nachforschung der Natur der reinen Vernunft zur Vollständigkeit bringen könnte, ob es gleich noch so tief verborgen liegen möchte. Es steht nachher in jedermanns Belieben, wie weit er seine Untersuchung treiben will, wenn ihm nur angezeigt worden, welche noch anzustellen sein möchten; denn dieses kann man von demjenigen billig erwarten, der es sich zum Geschäfte gemacht hat, dieses ganze Feld zu übermessen, um es hernach zum künftigen Anbau und beliebigen Austheilung andern zu überlassen. Dahin gehören auch die beiden Scholien, welche sich durch ihre Trockenheit Liebhabern wohl schwerlich empfehlen dürften und daher nur für Kenner hingestellt worden.
Musean translation
Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from the complete German of the Prolegomena (AA IV 253–383, all §§1–60 and the Appendix), for fidelity, the steps of Kant’s argument, clarity and structure.
§ 60.
We have thus presented metaphysics in detail as regards its subjective possibility, as it is actually given in the natural predisposition of human reason, and specifically in what constitutes the essential purpose of its cultivation. We found, however, that this merely natural use of such a predisposition of our reason, unless a discipline possible only through scientific critique curbs it and sets limits to it, entangles reason in extravagant dialectical inferences, partly merely specious and partly even in conflict with one another. Moreover, this sophistical metaphysics is dispensable for advancing cognition of nature, and may even be detrimental to it. It therefore still remains a problem worthy of investigation to discover the natural purposes at which this predisposition to transcendent concepts in our nature may be aimed, since everything found in nature must originally be designed for some useful purpose.
Such an investigation is indeed precarious. I also confess that what I can say about it is only conjecture, like everything concerning nature's primary purposes; and this alone may be allowed me in this case, since the question concerns not the objective validity of metaphysical judgments but our natural predisposition to them, and thus lies outside the system of metaphysics, in anthropology.
If I take together all the transcendental ideas, whose totality constitutes the proper task of natural pure reason, compelling it to leave mere contemplation of nature and go beyond all possible experience, and in this endeavor to bring about the thing—whether knowledge or sophistry—called metaphysics, I believe I discern the following aim of this natural predisposition. It is to free our concept from the fetters of experience and the limits of mere contemplation of nature far enough for it at least to see a field opened before it containing only objects for the pure understanding, which no sensibility can reach. This is not intended to occupy us speculatively with these objects, since we find no ground on which to gain a footing, but to enable practical principles to extend to the universality that reason indispensably requires for moral purposes: without finding such a space before them for their necessary expectation and hope, they could not so extend.
Now I find that the psychological idea, however little insight it gives me into the pure nature of the human soul, exalted above all concepts of experience, at least shows clearly enough the inadequacy of those concepts. It thereby leads me away from materialism, as a psychological concept unfit for any explanation of nature and, moreover, one that narrows reason in a practical respect. Likewise, through the visible inadequacy of all possible cognition of nature to satisfy reason in its rightful inquiries, the cosmological ideas serve to keep us from naturalism, which would present nature as sufficient in itself. Finally, all natural necessity in the world of sense is always conditioned, since it always presupposes the dependence of things on others; unconditioned necessity must be sought only in the unity of a cause distinct from the world of sense. Yet the causality of this cause, in turn, if it were mere nature, could never make the existence of the contingent comprehensible as its consequence. Through the theological idea, therefore, reason frees itself from fatalism, both that of a blind natural necessity in the connection of nature itself without a first principle, and that of a blind necessity in the causality of this principle itself; it leads to the concept of a cause through freedom, hence of a supreme intelligence. Thus the transcendental ideas, even if they do not serve to instruct us positively, nevertheless serve to abolish the presumptuous assertions of materialism, naturalism, and fatalism, which narrow the field of reason, and thereby to make room for moral ideas outside the field of speculation. This, it seems to me, would to some extent explain that natural predisposition.
The practical benefit that a merely speculative science may have lies outside the boundaries of that science. It can therefore be regarded only as a scholium and, like all scholia, does not belong to the science itself as a part of it. Yet this relation lies at least within the boundaries of philosophy, especially philosophy drawn from pure sources of reason, where the speculative use of reason in metaphysics must necessarily be united with its practical use in morals. Hence the unavoidable dialectic of pure reason, considered in a metaphysics as a natural predisposition, deserves not merely to be resolved as an illusion but also, if possible, to be explained in its purpose as an arrangement of nature. Yet this task, as a work beyond its strict obligation, cannot rightly be required of metaphysics proper.
A second scholium, more closely related to the content of metaphysics, would be the solution of the questions pursued in the Critique from pages 642 to 668. For certain principles of reason are set forth there that determine a priori the order of nature, or rather the understanding that is to seek its laws through experience. They seem to be constitutive and legislative with regard to experience, although they spring from reason alone, which, unlike the understanding, must not be regarded as a principle of possible experience. Whether this agreement rests on the following may be considered further by those who wish to investigate the nature of reason even outside its use in metaphysics, indeed in the general principles for making a natural history as such systematic: just as nature does not attach in itself to appearances or their source, sensibility, but is found only in the relation of the latter to the understanding, so the thoroughgoing unity of this understanding's use for the sake of the entirety of possible experience in a system may belong to it only in relation to reason, so that experience too stands indirectly under the legislation of reason. For in the work itself I did indeed present this problem as important, but did not attempt its solution.364.1
And so I conclude the analytic solution of the principal question I posed myself—How is metaphysics possible at all?—by ascending from that in which its use is actually given, at least in its consequences, to the grounds of its possibility.
364.1. Throughout the Critique it has been my constant intention to omit nothing that could bring the investigation of the nature of pure reason to completeness, however deeply hidden it might lie. Everyone is afterward free to decide how far to pursue their investigation, provided they have been shown what investigations might still be undertaken. For this can fairly be expected of someone who has made it their task to survey this whole field, so as afterward to leave it to others for future cultivation and division as they choose. The two scholia also belong here; their dryness will hardly commend them to amateurs, and they have therefore been set out only for connoisseurs.
Plain English translation
Mouseia’s complete Plain English edition, made independently and directly from the same complete German text.
§ 60.
We have thus given a detailed account of the subjective possibility of metaphysics as it actually exists in the natural disposition of human reason, specifically in what forms the essential purpose of working on it. We found, however, that the merely natural use of this disposition of our reason entangles reason in dialectical inferences that go beyond experience. Some are merely illusory, and some even conflict with one another. This happens unless a discipline, possible only through scientific critique, restrains reason and sets limits to it. We also found that this argumentative metaphysics is unnecessary for advancing our knowledge of nature, and may even harm it. So a problem still worthy of investigation remains: to discover the natural purposes that this disposition toward transcendent concepts in our nature may aim at. For everything in nature must originally be designed for some useful purpose.
Such an investigation is certainly precarious. I also admit that what I can say about it is only conjecture, like everything concerning nature's first purposes. This alone may be permitted me here, since the question concerns not the objective validity of metaphysical judgments, but our natural disposition toward them. It therefore lies outside the system of metaphysics, in anthropology.
Let me take together all the transcendental ideas. Their totality makes up the proper task of natural pure reason. This task forces reason to leave the mere study of nature, go beyond all possible experience, and in this effort produce the thing—whether knowledge or mere argumentation—that is called metaphysics. I then think I can see the aim of this natural disposition. It is to free our conception far enough from the bonds of experience and the limitations of merely studying nature that it at least sees a field opening before it. This field contains only objects for the pure understanding, which no sensibility can reach. The aim is not to occupy ourselves speculatively with them, since we find no ground on which to gain a foothold. Rather, it is to allow practical principles to expand to the universality that reason absolutely needs for moral purposes. Without such a space before them for their necessary expectation and hope, these principles could not reach that universality.
I find, then, that the psychological idea at least shows clearly enough the inadequacy of all concepts from experience. It does so however little insight it gives me into the pure nature of the human soul, which stands above all such concepts. It thereby leads me away from materialism, a psychological concept that is unfit for explaining anything in nature and also narrows reason in its practical use. Similarly, the cosmological ideas show that all possible knowledge of nature is visibly inadequate to satisfy reason in its legitimate inquiry. They thus serve to keep us from naturalism, which would present nature as sufficient on its own. Finally, all natural necessity in the world of sense is always conditioned, since it always presupposes that things depend on other things. Unconditioned necessity must be sought only in the unity of a cause distinct from the world of sense. Yet if this cause's causality were in turn merely nature, it could never make the existence of the contingent comprehensible as its consequence. Through the theological idea, reason therefore frees itself from fatalism: both from blind natural necessity in the connection of nature itself without a first principle, and from blind natural necessity in the causality of that principle itself. It leads to the concept of a cause through freedom, and thus of a supreme intelligence. So although the transcendental ideas do not serve to teach us positively, they do serve to remove the bold claims of materialism, naturalism, and fatalism, which narrow the field of reason. They thereby make room for moral ideas outside the field of speculation. This, I think, would explain that natural disposition to some extent.
The practical benefit that a merely speculative science may have lies outside that science's boundaries. It can therefore be regarded only as a supplementary remark. Like all such remarks, it does not belong to the science itself as one of its parts. Still, this relation lies at least within the boundaries of philosophy, especially philosophy that draws from pure sources of reason. There, reason's speculative use in metaphysics must necessarily form a unity with its practical use in morality. The unavoidable dialectic of pure reason, considered in metaphysics as a natural disposition, therefore deserves more than treatment as an illusion requiring resolution. As a natural arrangement, it also deserves to be explained in terms of its purpose, if that is possible. Admittedly, this work goes beyond what is required, and it is right not to demand it of metaphysics proper.
A second supplementary remark, but one more closely related to the content of metaphysics, would be the solution to the questions pursued in the Critique from pages 642 to 668. Certain principles of reason are presented there that determine a priori the order of nature—or rather the understanding, which is to seek nature's laws through experience. They seem to constitute experience and legislate for it. Yet they arise from reason alone, which, unlike the understanding, must not be regarded as a principle of possible experience. This agreement may rest on the following. Nature does not belong to appearances or to their source, sensibility, in themselves. It is found only in sensibility's relation to the understanding. Similarly, the understanding may possess thoroughgoing unity in its use for the purposes of all possible experience, within a system, only through its relation to reason. Experience would therefore also be indirectly subject to reason's legislation. Whether this is so may be considered further by those who want to investigate reason's nature beyond its use in metaphysics—even in the general principles for making a natural history in general systematic. I presented this problem as important in the work itself, but did not attempt its solution.364.1
This completes my analytical solution to the main question I posed: How is metaphysics possible at all? I started from what actually shows its use, at least in its results, and worked back to the grounds that make it possible.
364.1. Throughout the Critique, my constant intention was to leave out nothing, however deeply hidden, that could make the investigation of pure reason's nature complete. Afterward, everyone is free to decide how far to pursue the inquiry, provided they have been shown what investigations might still need to be made. This can reasonably be expected of someone who has made it their task to survey this entire field, then leave it to others for future cultivation and division as they choose. This includes the two supplementary remarks. Their dryness is unlikely to recommend them to amateurs, so they have been included only for experts.
About this section
Section 60 is part of Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics by Immanuel Kant. This page sets the German original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is section 70 of 72 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
Open the work page for the full contents, every edition, and the download links, or go back to Explore to browse other complete works in the European tradition. The reader keeps your place when you are signed in and lets you compare the original with each translation, one edition at a time.