If what is spoken of is cause and effect, the relation of the will to the
manifestation (or of the intelligible character to the empirical) must
never be introduced, as happens here: for it is entirely different from
causal relation. However, here also, in this solution of the antinomy, it
is said with truth that the empirical character of man, like that of every
other cause in nature, is unalterably determined, and therefore that his
actions necessarily take place in accordance with the external influences;
therefore also, in spite of all transcendental freedom (_i.e._,
independence of the will in itself of the laws of the connection of its
manifestation), no man has the power of himself to begin a series of
actions, which, however, was asserted by the thesis. Thus also freedom has
no causality; for only the will is free, and it lies outside nature or the
phenomenon, which is just its objectification, but does not stand in a
causal relation to it, for this relation is only found within the sphere
of the phenomenon, thus presupposes it, and cannot embrace the phenomenon
itself and connect it with what is expressly not a phenomenon. The world
itself can only be explained through the will (for it is the will itself,
so far as it manifests itself), and not through causality. But _in the
world_ causality is the sole principle of explanation, and everything
happens simply according to the laws of nature. Thus the right lies
entirely on the side of the antithesis, which sticks to the question in
hand, and uses that principle of explanation which is valid with regard to
it; therefore it needs no apology. The thesis, on the other hand, is
supposed to be got out of the matter by an apology, which first passes
over to something quite different from the question at issue, and then
assumes a principle of explanation which is inapplicable to it.
The fourth conflict is, as has already been said, in its real meaning
tautological with the third. In its solution Kant develops still more the
untenable nature of the thesis; while for its truth, on the other hand,
and its pretended consistency with the antithesis, he advances no reason,
as conversely he is able to bring no reason against the antithesis. The
assumption of the thesis he introduces quite apologetically, and yet calls
it himself (p. 562; V. 590) an arbitrary presupposition, the object of
which might well in itself be impossible, and shows merely an utterly
impotent endeavour to find a corner for it somewhere where it will be safe
from the prevailing might of the antithesis, only to avoid disclosing the
emptiness of the whole of his once-loved assertion of the necessary
antinomy in human reason.
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