Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future MetaphysicsKant, Immanuel
PhilosophyPhilosophy
Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics
Kant, Immanuel
Knowledge, Theory of -- Early works to 1800; Metaphysics -- Early works to 1800
But we stop at this boundary if we limit our judgment merely to the
relation which the world may have to a Being whose very concept lies
beyond all the knowledge which we can attain within the world. For we
then do not attribute to the Supreme Being any of the properties in
themselves, by which we represent objects of experience, and thereby
avoid dogmatic anthropomorphism; but we attribute them to his relation
to the world, and allow ourselves a symbolical anthropomorphism, which
in fact concerns language only, and not the object itself.
If I say that we are compelled to consider the world, as if it were
the work of a Supreme Understanding and Will, I really say nothing
more, than that a watch, a ship, a regiment, bears the same relation
to the watchmaker, the shipbuilder, the commanding officer, as the
world of sense (or whatever constitutes the substratum of this complex
of appearances) does to the Unknown, which I do not hereby cognise as
it is in itself, but as it is for me or in relation to the world, of
which I am a part.
§ 58. Such a cognition is one of analogy, and does not signify (as is
commonly understood) an imperfect similarity of two things, but a
perfect similarity of relations between two quite dissimilar things.{41}
By means of this analogy, however, there remains a concept of the
Supreme Being sufficiently determined for us, though we have left out
everything that could deter mine it absolutely or in itself; for we
determine it as regards the world and as regards ourselves, and more
do we not require. The attacks which Hume makes upon those who would
determine this concept absolutely, by taking the materials for so
doing from themselves and the world, do not affect us; and he cannot
object to us, that we have nothing left if we give up the objective
anthropomorphism of the concept of the Supreme Being.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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