Hegeler Institute

THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF TRANSCENDENTAL DEDUCTIONS Author(s): S. Krner Reviewed work(s): Source: The Monist, Vol. 51, No. 3, Kant Today: Part I (JULY, 1967), pp. 317-331 Published by: Hegeler Institute Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27902036 . Accessed: 26/03/2012 18:38
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THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF TRANSCENDENTAL DEDUCTIONS

The purpose of this paper is first to explain a general notion ot transcendental deductions, of which the Kantian are special cases; next to show, and to illustrate by examples from Kant's work, that no transcendental deduction can be successful; and thirdly to put one of Kant's his

in its proper light by substituting for achievements and distinction between metaphysical exposition spurious transcendental deduction, a revised notion of metaphysical expo sition and of the philosophical tasks arising out of it. oj a Transcendental Deduction

L The General Notion

statements about the external world presupposes not Making a prior distinction between oneself and that world, but also a only method for differentiating, within one's experience of it, external and relations of which external objects and attributes-properties are the bearers. I shall say that such a method of external objects differentiation is associated with, or belongs to, a categorial schema

or, briefly, a "schema" of external differentiation if, and only if, the attributes employed comprise what may be called respectively, in accordance with philosophical tradition, "constitutive" and "in attributes. An attribute is constitutive dividuating" (of external and only if, it is applicable to external objects and if, if, objects) to an object logically in addition, its applicability implies, and is the object's being an external object. I shall logically implied by, say,more briefly, that a constitutive attribute is "comprehensively to external objects. An attribute is individuating applicable" (for to every external external objects) if, and only if, it is applicable to an external object object and if, in addition, its applicability and is logically implied by, the external object's logically implies, being distinct from all other external objects. I shall say, more briefly, that an individuating attribute "exhaustively individuates" external objects.

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logic, which at this stage need not be made explicit. An individuat ing attribute the possession of which by an external object logi cally implies its being distinct from all others, must not be confused with any merely identifying attribute the possession of which by an external object happens as a matter of fact to distinguish it from all others. Lastly it should be emphasised that a method of prior external differentiation does not necessarily belong to a categorial
schema.

Some comments on these definitions may be helpful. Although view of the not yet fully general, they fit, for example, Kant's attribute 'x is a substance* as constitutive of, and his view of the attribute 6xwholly occupies a region of absolute space during a period of absolute time* as individuating for, external objects. The term "logically implies" is used to express the converse of the relation of logical deducibility with respect to some underlying

about the external world are not the only ones which presuppose a prior differentiation of experience into objects and attributes, and thus, possibly, a categorial schema consisting of constitutive and individuating attributes. We also make, at least of other kinds, presupposing prima facie, statemer prior dif Statements

moral and aesthetic differentiation, if any. Such considerations per mit us to generalize the definition of a categorial schema as follows: A method of prior differentiation of a region of experience is as sociated with, or belongs to, a categorial schema if, and only if, the attributes employed comprise attributes which are constitutive of the region's objects, and attributes which are individuating for them. For my purpose here it is not necessary to raise, much less to answer, the question why anybody uses themethods of prior differentiation which he does in fact use, or why for him experience should fall into more or less clearly distinguishable regions and should fall into them in one way rather than in any other. A transcendental deduction can now be defined quite generally as a logically sound demonstration of the reasons why a particular categorial schema is not only in fact, but also necessarily employed,

ferentiations of other gions of experience, e.g. sensory, moral to and aesthetic experience, which may or may not belong categorial schemata. A schema of sensory differentiation would con tain constitutive attributes of, and individuating attributes for, sen for schemata of sory objects. The* same would hold analogously

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definition is very in differentiating a region of experience. This wide indeed and will presently be shown to cover Kant's conception of its generality it must of a transcendental deduction. Because of vagueness as would rob the be protected against such charges can be of all cogency. Such protection discussion subsequent of the key-phrases which achieved by the following characterization occur in the definition. Although a "logically sound demonstration" need not be a deductive argument, itmay contain deductive argu ments

in which case these must not be fallacious. Again, whatever else may be meant by the statement that a schema "is necessarily it logically in differentiating a region of experience" employed or possibly employed in differ implies that any method actually entiating the region belongs to the schema. Apart from these pro visos no further restrictions are imposed on interpreting the definition. Among the most

at important and interesting examples of tempted transcendental deductions are, of course, those found in Kant's philosophy, on which I shall be drawing for illustrations of are impossible. the general thesis that transcendental deductions of schemata of ex This choice will limit me to an examination transcendental deduc ternal and practical differentiation. Kant's tions contain only such. He held that of all the methods of prior differentiation of experience which he investigated, only those of external and practical differentiation-and not, for example, any to categorial schemata. method of aesthetic differentiation-belong It would not be difficult to find, in these or other fields, many arguments easily rec simpler or more simple-minded philosophical in the sense of ognizable as attempts at transcendental deductions our definition. II. The Impossibility of Transcendental Deductions

I shall now examine the preconditions of the possibility of any transcendental deduction, and show that at least one of them is such that it cannot be satisfied; from which result, of course, the follows immediately. Be impossibility of transcendental deductions fore a transcendental deduction can be attempted for any region of experience, a method of prior differentiation of the region must first be exhibited and shown to belong to a schema. This, as was

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pointed out by and was perfectly clear to Kant, need not be the case. But if the method of prior differentiation does a belong to the task of exhibiting the schema is feasible. It consists (a) schema in searching for nonempty attributes, e.g. an attribute P such that ?x is an object of the region* logically implies and is implied by, 'x is a P\ Sometimes one may succeed in the more ambitious task of giving a complete, finite enumeration of the simplest consti tutive attributes, i.e. such as are not logically equivalent to a con junction of other constitutive attributes. We might, following Kant, call such simple and finitely enumerable attributes the "cate gories" of the region and say that they are ultimately constitutive of the region's objects. But this pleasant possibility may be ignored. The task further consists (b) in searching for at least one non to every object of such that Q is applicable empty attribute, say the region, and is such that 'x is an object of the region and a Qf

logically implies, and is logically implied by, *x is a distinct object of the region*. If another attribute say R, should also turn out to be an individuating attribute for the objects of the region then lx is an object of the region and an RJ logically implies, and is logical ly implied by, 'x is an object of the region and a Q*. We may again fulfilment of the first precondition of ignore this possibility. The the possibility of a transcendental deduction, i.e. of the above tasks the (a) and (b) may be called "the establishment of a schema"-on basis of investigating a particular method of prior differentiation of a region of experience into objects and attributes. With the establishment of a schema the preconditions for its transcendental deduction are, however, not yet satisfied. For to establish a schema is to establish that a particular method for dif ferentiating a region of experience belongs to the schema, and not that any method which might actually or possibly be thus em ployed, also belongs to it. Before one can show why any and every possible method belongs to the schema one has to show that any and every possible method
the schema's

belongs

to it. One must,

as I shall say,

demonstrate

could this be done? Prima facie three possibilities are open. First, to demonstrate the schema's uniqueness by comparing it with experience undifferentiated by any method of prior differ entiation. But this cannot be done since the statements by which the comparison would have to be made, cannot be formulated with

How

uniqueness.

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out employing some prior differentiation of experience; and even if there were undifferentiated experience, one could at best show that a certain schema "reflects" it, and not that some other schema could not also reflect it. Second, to demonstrate the schema's by comparing it with its possible competitors. But this uniqueness that they all can be exhibited, and is presupposes self-contradictory in attempting a "demonstration" of the schema's uniqueness, by con ceding that the schema was not unique. Thirdly, one might propose to examine the schema and its application entirely from within the schema itself, i.e. by means of statements belonging to it. Such an at best, could only show how the schema functions in examination, the differentiation of a region of experience, not that it is the only possible schema to which every differentiation of the region must include the possible grounds for a con between reality and its apprehension, mentioned in the to the second edition of The Critique of Pure Reason. preface In order to avoid vague appeals to demonstrations of a categorial schema's uniqueness by other methods, e.g. some mystical insight or some special Logic, I am prepared to reduce my claim to the thesis that uniqueness demonstrations of a schema by comparing it with undifferentiated experience, by comparing itwith other sche mata, or by examining it from within, are impossible. It should be noted that I am speaking not of isolated concepts, such as 'per manence* or 'change*, which may or may not be indispensable to our thinking, but which by themselves are not constitutive of, or for, the objects of a region of experience-even individuating a demonstration of their is, as I should be pre though uniqueness to argue, equally impossible. pared It is the impossibility of demonstrating a schema's uniqueness that renders transcendental deductions impossible. The general sketched rests mainly on two distinctions: the dis argument just tinction between a method of prior differentiation and its cate gorial schema, if any; and the distinction between (a) establish that a method of prior differentiation belongs to a schema and ing (b) demonstrating the uniqueness of the schema. In order to illus trate my conclusion with examples from Kant's work, I shall try to choose such as will not only serve to draw attention to errors, but will also suggest reasons why these errors are liable to escape cordance belong. The three methods

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I begin with what I consider to be a mistake which undetected. have in all the Kantian attempts at transcendental deductions
common.

Assume that we have investigated a method of prior differentia tion of a region of experience and found that it belongs to a schema. The result, as we have seen, is formulated (a) by state ments to the effect that some of the attributes employed by the method are constitutive of the objects of the region, e.g. that among

and exhaus thetic, the statements of comprehensive applicability tive individuation are all synthetic. each of these two kinds of statements in question, Moreover, that of comprehensive applicability and that of exhaustive namely individuation, is compatible with any statement about objects, i.e. with any statement expressing the applicability or inapplicability of attributes to objects-provided that such a statement is made a method of prior differentiation which belongs to the schema. by The reason for this is that in that case no attribute can be applied or refused to any objects except such as are constituted and indi viduated by the schema's constitutive and individuating attributes. Thus no incompatibility can arise between the statements of com and exhaustive individuation of a cate prehensive applicability schema on the one hand, and any statement expressed by a gorial to the schema on the method of prior differentiation belonging

to the attributes is one, say P, such that P is applicable objects an of the region and such that *x is object of the region* logically a implies, and is implied by, (x is P\ (b) by statements to the effect that one (ormore) of the attributes employed are individuating for the objects of the region, e.g. that among the attributes is an at tribute, say Q, such that Q applies to every object of the region and such that *x is an object of the region and a Q* logically implies, and is implied by, 'x is a distinct object of the region*. Let us now, as Kant did, examine the logical status of (a) statements of compre hensive applicability and (b) statements of exhaustive individuation. Each of them is a conjunction of two statements. The first ex presses that the extension of an attribute is, as a matter of fact, not empty, that something exists, the existence of which could not be guaranteed by logic or definitions alone. It is therefore a synthetic statement. The second is clearly logically necessary. Since a con of a synthetic and a logically necessary statement is syn junction

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statements of comprehensive applicability and exhaus other. The are thus a priori with respect to a particular tive individuation rschema, namely the schema which comprises them. It does not fol low that they are also a priori with respect to any schema which can be claimed to be the only one possible, i.e. that they are a method of a in establishing that priori." Thus prior "uniquely to a schema one shows eo ipso that the differentiation belongs statements of comprehensive applicability and of exhaustive indi a priori. To are synthetic and nonuniquely viduation show that a demonstration of the they are uniquely a priori would require schema's uniqueness, which I have just argued to be impossible. Kant did not see this, and he conflates uniquely a priori with a conflation not only per priori statements. This nonuniquely vades his whole philosophy, but even determines its structure, espe cially the division of all his principal arguments into metaphysical expositions and transcendental deductions.1 A metaphysical exposi tion which exhibits a concept as, or exhibits it insofar as it is, a priori is always the result of inquiry into one actually employed method of differentiation. It can thus at best establish the schema, if any, to which the method belongs. A transcendental deduction, aimed at showing that and how a priori concepts are applicable or possible, examines only the schema which has been established by the metaphysical exposition of this particular schema. It thus does not examine a schema the of which has been dem uniqueness onstrated. Kant's failure even to consider the need for interpolating a between any metaphysical uniqueness-demonstration exposition and a corresponding transcendental deduction and his conflation of and uniquely a priori statements are so intimately nonuniquely related that they deserve to be regarded as two aspects of the same
error.

The reasons why these points, which in our own day are not too difficult to see, have escaped Kant, are partly historical and The historical ones, are, of course, that like most of partly logical. his contemporaries, Kant considered the mathematics and physics of his day and the moral code by which he found himself bound, to be true beyond doubt; he felt in no way compelled to consider, therefore, the question of schemata other than those to which be
l See Critique of Pure Reason, B. 38, 80 etc.

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long the methods of differentiation employed by him in his mathe matical, physical and moral thinking. The logical reasons are that at transcendental deductions his various attempts contain sub tend to reinforce the common error sidiary assumptions which underlying all of them. The Transcendental Aesthetic which exhibits the individuat schema is based on the assumption ing attributes of the Kantian that the propositions of Euclidean geometry describe the spatial relations between external objects; also the more general assump tion that ii-per different geometries were con impossibile-two ceivable, then at most one of them would describe, and at least

one would misdescribe, these relations. However, neither Euclidean geometry, nor any other, describes the spatial structure of external objects or the spatial relations between them. A physical triangle, for example, is not an instance of the concept 'Euclidean triangle*, or for thatmatter 'non-Euclidean triangle', just as neither a Euclid ean triangle nor a non-Euclidean one is an instance of the con

cept 'physical triangle*. To "apply geometry to the external world" is not to assert geometrical attributes of external objects, but to identify external objects with instances of geometrical attributes in certain contexts and for certain purposes, i.e. to treat them as if theywere identical. The applicability, in this sense of one geometry does not exclude the applicability of another. Kant assumes the to external objects of Euclidean applicability geometry, even to establish the assumption. Yet the attempting geometry to assumption of the unique applicability of Euclidean external objects is a key premiss in the very argument by which he tries to establish that spatio-temporal location in Euclidean space and Newtonian time is the principle of individuation for all ex ternal objects-a principle which he shows to be synthetic, and non (not, as he thinks, uniquely) a priori. uniquely Again, the Transcendental Analytic, which exhibits the consti tutive attributes of the Kantian schema, assumes as a principle that the categories must be recognized as conditions a priori of the pos sibility of experience2 conceived as differentiated into distinct exter nal objects and attributes of such. Sufficient conditions are not distinguished from sufficient and necessary conditions. The former,
2 See e.g. B 126.

unique without

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transcendental deduction of the schema of external differentiation established in the Critique of Pure Reason, is simply to provide an of a different schema of external differentiation. Since example I have gone into this point in detail elsewhere,3 I may put it here quite briefly. Grant that determinate spatio-temporal location, as conceived by Newton and Kant, exhaustively individuates exter nal objects of which the Kantian categories of substance, causality and the rest, are the constitutive attributes; and grant also that the statements to this effect are synthetic a priori. The existence of us to grant relativistic quantum-mechanics that compels equally location in a spatio-temporal con determinate spatio-temporal tinuum of an altogether different kind exhaustively individuates ex ternal objects of which the constitutive attributes are quite other than the Kantian categories; and to grant equally that the state ments to this effect are synthetic a priori. But neither schema of external differentiation is unique; and the synthetic a priori state ments about the comprehensive applicability of, and the exhaustive individuation for, external objects with respect to either schema a priori. are non-uniquely In Kant's practical philosophy he investigates a method for dif ferentiating objects and attributes within the experience of the practicable. The objects might be called "morally relevant" objects since their attributes include moral attributes. By exhibiting the constitutive and individuating attributes employed by the method, the method is shown to belong to a schema. Again no attempt is to demonstrate the made of the schema. Such an at uniqueness tempt could not, as I have argued, in any case have been successful, from which circumstance the impossibility of any transcendental deduction
3'Zur

which Kant tries to establish, are satisfied by the establishment of a schema. The latter would be satisfied only if the schema's unique ness were also demonstrated. Failure to distinguish between the two thus supports the conflation of statements lands of conditions a priori, with synthetic and synthetic and nonuniquely uniquely a priori statements of comprehensive applicability. The most convincing way to expose Kant's failure to give a

of the schema immediately follows.

Begr ndung der Mathematik

Kantischen

Kant Studien, 56,No. s/4 (1966).

und

der Naturwissenschaften*

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At this point, however, Kant varies his usual procedure. Hav ing established the schema, he does not immediately attempt its transcendental deduction. Instead he tries to derive a new principle of from it, namely the categorical imperative, the applicability which does not only characterize the merely morally relevant ob are constituted and individuated by the schema, but jects, which also those among themorally relevant objects which are the bearers of moral value. Only after the alleged derivation of the cate a transcendental gorical imperative is completed, does he attempt deduction of it and the schema. Kant's belief that an examination of his schema of practical differentiation yields the categorical imperative, which he regarded as a necessary and sufficient criterion of themorality of any action, was one of the main reasons why, in his practical philosophy, he the circumstance that to establish a schema is not to overlooked and why consequently demonstrate its uniqueness; there too he a conflated synthetic statements which are nonuniquely priori with a ones. I shall not consider Kant's derivation of the priori uniquely categorical imperative from the allegedly unique schema of practi cal differentiation. Instead I shall compare that schema with a dif ferent one, thus providing the strongest possible kind of argu ment against the assumption of its uniqueness, and, therefore, against the soundness of the attempted transcendental deduction of it. Since what is practicable is practicable in the external world, any method of practical differentiation will depend on, and vary

of external differentiation and even with, the adopted method with substantive assumptions about the external world, formulated by means of this method. Let us ignore such variations, however

method

important theymay be. Kant's metaphysical exposition as a search for the constitutive and individuating attributes employed in his

type of act and x is performed in accordance with a maxim, chosen latter attribute is not only constitutive of by an agent*, (b) The morally relevant objects, but also individuates them exhaustively. The key-terms of the bilateral implication require comment.

of practical differentiation leads him to the following con a clusions: (a) the attribute 'x is morally relevant object* is not empty; and it logically implies, and is logically implied by, lx is a

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act is the intentional initiation (prevention or nonpreven a person of a change in the situation which confronts tion) by him. A maxim is a rule of the general form: 'If in a situation of type S, perform an act of type A\ S and A are not the unmanage ably long, and possibly unlimited, conjunctions of attributes which are respectively characteristic of concrete situations and particular

intentions other than the intention involved in performing the act. A need not, usually does not, and-on some interpretations of Kant's of theory-must not, comprise such a reference. Examples maxims where A does not comprise it are: If in . . . help (or don't help) your neighbour, commit (or don't commit) suicide etc. to Kant an act by itself is not a morally relevant ob According constitutes and individuates the bearers of moral at ject. What

acts. They are manageable of relevant attributes conjunctions their relevance or irrelevance being determined by the person who chooses the maxim before acting, who formulates it retrospectively or who is at least assumed to be capable of doing so. S may, and usually does, comprise some reference to the person's desires and

falsehood of his beliefs and his desires. Such a relation need not and is quite compatible depend on the person's chosen maxims; with the reasonable assumption that not every act is governed by a maxim. The Kantian schema of practical differentiation is non and its transcendental deduction therefore impossible. unique III. A Revised Notion Before ofMetaphysical Exposition

tributes, i.e. of moral value, disvalue and indifference, is the type A under which a person subsumes his act, and the maxim to which he conforms in acting. At this point a glance at the history ofmoral philosophy is sufficient to provide examples of schemata of practical differentiation, which are internally consistent, have been actually to employed and are quite different from the Kantian. According a whole class of such schemata a morally relevant is a com object plicated relation between an act, the agent's beliefs, the truth or

arguing that the spurious distinction between meta should be re physical exposition and transcendental deduction a revised notion of placed by metaphysical exposition and showing how much in harmony such replacement is with some of Kant's insights, another attempt must be briefly examined at reconstruct

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It sees the ing the strategy of the transcendental philosophy. fundamental error not in neglecting the problem of demonstrating the (undemonstrable) uniqueness of any schema of differentiation, but merely in a narrowness of the methods investigated by Kant of prior differentiation and a corresponding narrowness of the schemata established by him. mathematics, of external the post-Kantian of physics and development for example, would merely show the Kantian schema to be widened differentiation as having before a is attempted; one need not regard a transcendental deduction as in principle impossible. Thus the indi transcendental deduction viduating attribute for external objects 'x wholly occupies a region of space and an interval of time as conceived by Newton* is to be On this view

show that the available constitutive and individuating attributes exhaust all the conceivable ones, or that all those conceivable have been conceived? To show this, one would have to produce a dem onstration of the widened schema's uniqueness and, as has been argued quite generally, such a demonstration is impossible. In his metaphysical expositions of a particular method of prior external and a particular method of prior practical differentiation, Kant has established that they belong to schemata, i.e. that they employ constitutive and individuating attributes. The statements to the effect that the constitutive attributes are comprehensively ap to the objects of the differentiated region of experience plicable and that the individuating are exhaustively individuating for them, a are synthetic and nonuniquely as Kant thought priori-not a These statements do not demarcate the structure priori. uniquely of any method of external or of practical differentiation, as neces they are compatible with the assumption-and sarily unchangeable; the historical truth-that schemata of external and practical dif ferentiation can change and become obsolete. The constitutive and individuating attributes of a schema which is no longer employed, may even turn out, or be judged, to be empty. Having the Kantian schema of external e.g. abandoned

a region of space and an interval replaced by *xwholly occupies or a of time as conceived by Newton spatio-temporal region as con conceived by Einstein*. In a similar manner the Kantian stitutive attributes are to be replaced by unions of them with other constitutive attributes. But, then, how could one corresponding

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differentiation in favour of another, it becomes possible-looking assert that the Kantian as it were from the outside-to attribute a priori of substance is empty, i.e. that the synthetic, nonuniquely to external ob statement asserting its comprehensive applicability a similar manner jects is false. A social anthropologist may in a de judge that the constitutive and individuating attributes of are empty, even though a cer monology, which he has investigated,

tain way of lifemight be inseparably bound up with it. In order to do justice to such possibilities I now define a revised notion of metaphysical exposition, which relativizes the Kantian absolute notion in a number of ways. It is the analysis of methods for the differentiation of more-or-less-well-demarcated domains into and attributes which aims at the exhibition of synthetic objects a and nonuniquely priori statements, by exhibiting the schemata in respect of which the statements are a priori. The differentiated domain, as became clear in discussing geometrical statements, need not be a region of experience. It may be a domain of ideal ob of differentiation belongs, we remember, to a jects. A method schema if, and only if, it employs of all objects of the domain and of them. The constitutive and schema. A statement is synthetic valid with respect to the logic

ferentiation being considered. statements synthetic with respect to classical from those synthetic with respect to intuitionist logic. A statement is a priori with re spect to a schema if, and only if, it is compatible with any statement to one or more distinct in which an attribute is applied objects means of any method which belongs to the schema. by

if, and only if, it is not logically the methods of dif underlying we must, distinguish Thus e.g.

attributes which are constitutive attributes which individuate all attributes are the individuating

Among the kinds of schemata which a metaphysical exposition (in the revised sense) of various methods of differentiation may establish for them are the following: Schemata (a) of external differentiation, including the schema established in the Critique of Pure Reason for themethod of external differentiation investigated by it. But there are other, methods of external differentiation be longing to the same or other schemata. Schemata (b) of practical differentiation, including the schema established in the Critique of Practical Reason for the method of practical differentiation in it. But there are other methods of practical differentia vestigated by

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to the same or other schemata. Schemata tion belonging (c) of idealized external or, briefly, mathematical differentiation of a do main which is an idealization of some aspects of external experience. The methods of differentiating such a domain and the statements which are true about it, are sometimes expressed in axiomatic even though a large class of such theories mathematical theories, cannot, as G del has shown, comprise all the statements which are true about the domain. Kant, as was pointed out earlier, failed to recognize themultiplicity of mathematical schemata and possible confused mathematical with external differentiation. Schemata (d) of idealized practical differentiation, which are of interest in the study of certain normative, e.g. legal, systems. Schemata (e) of logical differentiation. Their establishment results in synthetic non a priori statements of uniquely comprehensive applicability. Such a statement is a conjunction consisting of two statements, an ana lytic statement asserting that certain statement-forms are true of all objects constituted and individuated by any of the available meth ods of differentiation, and a synthetic statement asserting that the domain of these objects is not empty. Kant, who was not faced with the problem of alternative logics, naturally did not consider this possibility. a priori statement is a Every synthetic, nonuniquely priori with statements of comprehensive respect to at least one schema. Thus applicability and exhaustive individuation are a priori with respect to the schema to whose constitutive and individuating attributes refer. Next, all synthetic, ideal statements are a they priori with respect to any schema of external differentiation, because no state ment solely about ideal objects can be incompatible with any state ments solely about external objects, however these may be consti tuted or individuated. Again the question how far statements which belong to a schema of practical differentiation are a priori with re spect to a schema of external differentiation cannot be answered in general, since methods of external differentiation and methods of practical differentiation (and their schemata, if any) may stand in a variety of relations to each other. The important Kantian distinction between synthetic a priori statements and regulative principles remains valid. We might de fine a regulative principle as being synthetic if, and only if, the statement describing the type of action prescribed by the principle

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is synthetic; and as a priori with respect to a schema of differentia tion if, and only if, the descriptive statement is compatible with any statement in which attributes are applied to objects by a method of differentiation which belongs to the schema. Regulative prin a priori dif ciples which are in this sense synthetic and nonuniquely a fer, of course, from synthetic and nonuniquely priori statements no truth-value. In the course of a metaphysical exposition by having such principles will often be uncovered, whether or not we decide to include their exhibition among its explicit aims. Epistemologi cally of greatest interest are those regulative principles which regu late the construction of theories and those which
schemata over others.

express preferences

for some

deductions of schemata and of synthetic a priori Transcendental statements are, as I have argued, impossible because their unique ness cannot be demonstrated. The Kantian question as to how synthetic and uniquely a priori judgements are possible does not arise. In its place, however, there arises another question: How are a priori statements possible? To answer synthetic and nonuniquely this question is, as we have learned from Kant, to examine the function of such statements, that is to say their relations to each task is by no other, to analytic and to empirical statements. The means simple or trivial as can be seen, for example, by considering the relation in scientific thinking between various schemata of ex since contrary ternal, ideal and logical differentiation. Moreover, to Kant's convictions, not only methods of differentiation but also the schemata to which they belong can and do change, the task cannot be completed once and for all, but must be undertaken
and over again. BRISTOL

over

S. K

RNER

THE

UNIVERSITY,