Causation; Knowledge, Theory of; Philosophy, German; Reason
The postulate of the possibility of things requires also, that the
conception of the things agree with the formal conditions of our
experience in general. But this, that is to say, the objective form of
experience, contains all the kinds of synthesis which are requisite for
the cognition of objects. A conception which contains a synthesis must
be regarded as empty and, without reference to an object, if its
synthesis does not belong to experience—either as borrowed from it, and
in this case it is called an empirical conception, or such as is the
ground and à priori condition of experience (its form), and in this
case it is a pure conception, a conception which nevertheless belongs
to experience, inasmuch as its object can be found in this alone. For
where shall we find the criterion or character of the possibility of an
object which is cogitated by means of an à priori synthetical
conception, if not in the synthesis which constitutes the form of
empirical cognition of objects? That in such a conception no
contradiction exists is indeed a necessary logical condition, but very
far from being sufficient to establish the objective reality of the
conception, that is, the possibility of such an object as is thought in
the conception. Thus, in the conception of a figure which is contained
within two straight lines, there is no contradiction, for the
conceptions of two straight lines and of their junction contain no
negation of a figure. The impossibility in such a case does not rest
upon the conception in itself, but upon the construction of it in
space, that is to say, upon the conditions of space and its
determinations. But these have themselves objective reality, that is,
they apply to possible things, because they contain à priori the form
of experience in general.
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