Causation; Knowledge, Theory of; Philosophy, German; Reason
Of these dialectical arguments there are three kinds, corresponding
to the number of the ideas which their conclusions present. In the
argument or syllogism of the first class, I conclude, from the
transcendental conception of the subject which contains no manifold,
the absolute unity of the subject itself, of which I cannot in this
manner attain to a conception. This dialectical argument I shall
call the transcendental paralogism. The second class of sophistical
arguments is occupied with the transcendental conception of the
absolute totality of the series of conditions for a given phenomenon,
and I conclude, from the fact that I have always a self-contradictory
conception of the unconditioned synthetical unity of the series upon
one side, the truth of the opposite unity, of which I have nevertheless
no conception. The condition of reason in these dialectical arguments,
I shall term the antinomy of pure reason. Finally, according to the
third kind of sophistical argument, I conclude, from the totality of
the conditions of thinking objects in general, in so far as they can
be given, the absolute synthetical unity of all conditions of the
possibility of things in general; that is, from things which I do not
know in their mere transcendental conception, I conclude a being of all
beings which I know still less by means of a transcendental conception,
and of whose unconditioned necessity I can form no conception whatever.
This dialectical argument I shall call the ideal of pure reason.
Chapter I. Of the Paralogisms of Pure Reason
The logical paralogism consists in the falsity of an argument in
respect of its form, be the content what it may. But a transcendental
paralogism has a transcendental foundation, and concludes falsely,
while the form is correct and unexceptionable. In this manner the
paralogism has its foundation in the nature of human reason, and is the
parent of an unavoidable, though not insoluble, mental illusion.
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