“But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.’” Genesis 11, New International Version
There is perhaps no work more influential to the history of philosophy than Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Beyond Kant’s notion of synthetic a priori knowledge, or even his controversial argument that space and time are pure a priori mental intuitions, and not things in themselves, Kant’s analysis into the logic of illusion stands out among other enlightenment thinkers for his investigation into the “limits” of thinking itself. In Kant’s pursuit to critique (that is, to delimit and determine the scope of) reason in the “transcendental dialectic,” he outlines the ways in which reason “oversteps” what is knowable (empirically verifiable), and how “transcendental logic” can lead us to seemingly true conclusions for both sides of the argument of its cosmological ideas. In this essay, we will look at the purportedly "transcendental illusion” of Kant’s first antinomy, the world itself. Kant notably takes an anti-realist stance, where the only solution to the antinomy is to deny the world itself; notably, he comes to take a “practical” approach, where we must operate “as if” the world exists, yet the concept itself is dismissed with his transcendental idealism. In Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, we find a similar breakdown of the logic of illusion, where, conversely, he argues that the illusion comes from the questions themselves, and that to clear away the illusions of philosophy is a matter of clarifying our language. This essay will demonstrate how each thinker approaches the concept of “world,” and how Kant’s first antinomy does not prove the world as an illusion, but is itself a misuse of language.
To begin, I will give a brief outline on Kant’s project and goal with the antinomies. Kant’s aim, most generally, is to determine what logic alone can achieve. He understands there to be two kinds of logic: “general” and “transcendental.” General logic deals with logic “abstracted” from any specific empirical conditions, and only deals with the “formal validity,” that is, it concerns the validity of a proposition on its own. Conversely, transcendental logic notably works to determine “the origin, the domain, and the objective validity” of thinking in general (or general logic). This is to say that general logic is the rules of understanding in general, while transcendental logic looks to explain the possibility of these rules. When we then turn to the “transcendental dialectic,” we find a critique of the employment of transcendental logic and its illusions; perhaps most importantly, Kant notes that the critique of these illusions will never “disappear and cease to be an illusion;” the illusions generated by logic are totally unavoidable. Rather than disprove them, Kant opts to think through them, which is where we arrive at the antinomies.
Kant understands the antinomies to exhaustively demonstrate the overstepping of reason; in each case, there is a thesis and an antithesis where reason can end up on either side depending on its “interests.” We will explore the “interests” of reason shortly, but first, we will look at the antinomy itself. The first antinomy concerns the metaphysical concept of “world;” the thesis argues that there is necessarily both a beginning of time to the world, and also that it is “enclosed in boundaries.” Using reason, we know that this has to be the case, as if there were no beginning of time, an infinite series of events would have to have passed, which is impossible, as infinity can never fully elapse. In the same way, the world must have a spatial boundary, as if there were none, we can only assume that, similarly, there is an infinite amount of space; this is also impossible because there can be no totality that consists of infinity.
Conversely, the antithesis argues that there necessarily is no beginning of time, and that the world cannot be spatially enclosed. This is because if there were a beginning of time, then before time began, there would have to be an “empty time” prior for the world to begin, which is a nonsensical idea (further, how could anything occur in this empty time?). If the world were enclosed in space, then the world itself would have to be enclosed by a similar “empty space,” which would be a “relation of the world to no object,” and therefore, would be nonsensical.
Each of these arguments present logically valid conclusions about the world, so how are we to reconcile this conflict? Kant goes on to investigate the “interests” of reason, where the thesis presents a dogmatic, or, “platonistic” argument, and the antithesis as empiricist, or “epicurean.” In this way, we see how either side “says more than it knows, but in such a way that the first encourages and furthers knowledge… the second provides principles.” Each side, despite their advantages, is searching for the “unconditioned condition;” for Kant, reason is constantly seeking an unconditioned unity that can explain itself; he writes succinctly that “the proper principle of reason in general… is to find the unconditioned for the conditioned cognitions of understanding, with which its unity will be completed.” The antinomies serve as illusions generated by the desire of unity of reason, and in the case of the first antinomy, in regards to a series of events, reason is searching for something to unify all events in the unconditioned; in doing so, however, the only path for reason is to deny the other side’s validity. Therefore, Kant argues that both the thesis and antithesis are taking appearances to be things in themselves, and are then transcendental illusions (as they give us illusory knowledge of things beyond appearances). This is precisely the origin of Kant’s anti-realism, as to accept either answer would be dogmatic; instead, the only solution apparent to Kant is to deny the existence of the concept of “world,” that is, as Kant understands world, “the sum total of all appearances,” or, the unified whole of objects (which are only given through conditioned appearance). When we consider the world as a totality of conditioned things, reason cannot help but desire the unconditioned conditioned, yet upon reason’s investigation into cosmological objects (like world), as with the antinomies, we find two arguments whose (in)validity is determined by their negation of the (anti)theses. Thus, Kant writes that “the world does not exist at all… neither as an in itself infinite whole nor as an in itself finite whole.”
Now that Kant has been established as an anti-realist, insofar as it is the only way through the first antinomy is to deny the world as the common illusion amongst either side of the claim, one can only wonder if this solution is adequate. Are we all to conform to Kant’s transcendental project and deny the world if we wish to think beyond dogmatic illusions? Or is it, rather, that Kant himself has engaged in an illusory project that can never satisfy itself? When we consider early Wittgenstein’s understanding of “world” and “sense,” we find that Kant’s anti-realism is not a solution, but an illusion of a solution to “the riddle,” so to speak. Kant’s “illusion,” or, his “nonsense” begins when he misunderstands what exactly the illusion of his transcendental illusions are: for Wittgenstein, “illusions” are instances of a “misuse” of language—it is not that reason, as a foundation of the understanding (as Kant suggests), leads us to illusions, but that illusions only arise from an essentially confused dialectic.
Wittgenstein’s definition of world is deceptively simple, as no more or less than “all that is the case,” or, the “totality of facts.” A fact, essentially, is a true proposition of a state of affairs—a state of affairs is any proposition that says something about the world, or, something that gives “a picture of reality.” The phrase “the paper is on the table” is true insofar as there are things called “the paper” and “the table” and they have the corresponding relationship with each other. Wittgenstein writes that “the general form of a proposition is: this is how things stand;” a false proposition, then, is something that falsely states how things are. While both Kant and Wittgenstein each deny that the world consists of “objects,” they each get to this idea through a different method: for Kant, the world cannot consist of objects as objects in themselves cannot exist outside of our experience. Hence, objects in themselves are transcendental, and, as all concepts come from a synthesis of the manifold of intuition, mediated through the understanding (which, put simply, means our concepts come from our cognition of experience), “objects” are pure a concept of the understanding, as there are no objects in themselves we can experience, but only objects as appearances. Wittgenstein denies this approach altogether, as for him, objects cannot make up the world alone just as “paper” alone does not exist, but always within some relation or context (i.e., “on the table.”); he writes that “a state of affairs… is a combination of objects.” Objects alone are not facts, and in this same way, Kant’s idea of world as the totality of perception falls under the same critique, as even if we grant Kant the idea that all objects are mediated through perceptions, there still must be some relationship between those perceptions (as they are intelligible) that would give them the possibility for a truth value.
Wittgenstein explains that “most of the propositions and questions of philosophers arise from the failure to understand the logic of our language.” So then are the problems of the cosmological ideas in the antinomies genuine problems of philosophy, or rather a misuse of language? When considering space in a Wittgensteinian sense, we find a direct rebuttal to the notion of an “enclosed” space; he explains that “a spatial object must be situated in infinite space (a spatial point is an argument-place)./ A speck in the visual field… must have some color.” This is to say that when we consider any thing that takes up space, the space is infinite, as the thing could occupy “anywhere” in space. To elaborate, Wittgenstein understands logic to deal with “every possibility,” which is to say that any spatial object can “possibly” be located anywhere insofar as the place is spatial. In this way, there is an infinite possible space for any spatial thing, against the thesis, yet there is an actual “whole” world that is “all that is the case,” delimiting the things as they are (but not limiting what is possible). While Kant opts to “solve” the antinomies through a “practical” anti-realism, where, despite the seeming nonsense that the concept of “world” has for Kant, we must still “practically” refer to the world in day to day life, as the illusions cannot be dispelled (as they are a necessary consequent of following reason). Not only is this practical solution inadequate for Wittgenstein, but is generally unnecessary (as it follows a nonsensical project). For one, Kant explains that “the transcendental ideas too will presumably have a good and immanent use… [even if] their significance is misunderstood and they are taken for concepts of real things.” But is it impossible to imagine a use of “world” that is totally deceptive outside of metaphysics? If we say, “the world is round,” do we mean, “the totality of perceptions is round?” Conversely, we use the term “world” in cases like “the art world,” where we refer to a sphere of art works and artists coexisting. Terms like world are not to be abstracted from these uses unless we do not wish our philosophy to have any genuine practical use. A “normal” use of the word world is possible, and we only know this as the word itself arises from nowhere other than our ordinary language.
The illusion of the “world” for Kant is created the moment we engage in metaphysical confusions (as the antinomies demonstrate a confusion of world), and Kant thinking he can “think through” the illusions is itself an illusion. Wittgenstein writes that “doubt can only exist where a question exists, a question only where an answer exists, an answer only where something can be said.” Philosophy is not the invention of answers, like where Kant suggests we need a practical use of world, but the uncovering of the illusions of language.
On top of that, there is no obligation to follow Kant’s practical use: particularly, Wittgenstein writes that “the sense of the world must lie outside of the world. In the world everything is as it is… in it no value exists, and if it did, it would have no value.” This is to say that we can only say how things are, and to say how things ought to be is a value judgement. Kant, in suggesting that the concept of the world is nonsensical, yet simultaneously arguing for its normative use (and that use even as “good”) is doubly nonsensical, as why not just deny the existence of the concept of world, if it is really the case? Kant wants “to have his cake and eat it too,” as he wants to have transcendental idealism (against transcendental realism, like in Descartes), but to preserve their normal significance; this preservation is necessary as transcendental idealism otherwise cannot account for the sense of words. The only solution to the antinomies is to realize that the system we have entered itself is illusory.
Wittgenstein’s approach can be thought of as “anti-anti-realist,” as he explains that the right method of philosophy is to say only what can be said (sensibly), and “whenever someone else wanted to say something metaphysical, demonstrate to him that he had failed to give a meaning to certain signs in his propositions.” Wittgenstein is not interested in giving justification for the existence of external objects outside of the subject’s mind, and not because they are things beyond experience (and hence unknowable, like with Kant), but because each of those words in the sentence are already employed sensibly in our everyday language, and to abstract them into philosophy is to bring them into a context where they do not belong, and hence enter into an illusion.
Wittgenstein explains that “the riddle does not exist;” the “riddle” is the idea that there is a question in the world that needs answering, yet the idea that there is a riddle is already a confusion. The point of the Tractatus can be said to be an attempt to dispel the illusions of the future of philosophical critique; as he writes, “anyone who understands me eventually recognizes [the tractatus] as nonsensical… he must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.” Kant is imagining a ladder of transcendental idealism, reaching the top, and proclaiming that his ladder is the only solution to the riddle; the world already had its place in language before Kant investigated its sense, and the world continues to have meaning to us after Kant’s analysis. For Wittgenstein, we do not need to examine the world in a context abstracted from this language, but merely find the sense in which “world” is used in our everyday language.
Citations
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. and ed. Paul Guyer and Allen Wood. Cambridge University Press; 1998.
See Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Trans. David Pears and Brian McGuinness. Routledge; 1975.
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