Do Principles of Reason Have "Objective But Indeterminate Validity"?

Do Principles of Reason Have Objective but Indeterminate Validity?
405
Do Principles of Reason
Have Objective but Indeterminate Validity?
by Nathaniel Jason Goldberg, Washington, DC
Reason is precariously positioned in the Critique of Pure Reason. In the Tran-

scendental Analytic, Kant investigates how the understanding, as the source of a
priori concepts, subsumes sensible intuition under these concepts, and how this sub-
sumption yields objects of cognition.1 Reason is conspicuously missing from the
process. In the Transcendental Dialectic, Kant argues that reason strives to compre-
hend totalities beyond actual objects of experience, and so the ideas or principles of
reason can lead to antinomies. To solve the antinomies Kant insists that reason can-
not be a cognitive faculty.
Thus the Transcendental Analytic leaves no clear entry for reason in the cognitive
process, and the Transcendental Dialectic restricts reason to noncognitive roles. Yet
in the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic, Kant contends that the ideas of
reason can be employed positively, at least in a limited sense:
the transcendental ideas [of reason] are never of constitutive use . On the contrary, however,
they have an excellent and indispensably necessary regulative use, namely that of directing
the understanding to take the measure of its greatest possible and uttermost extension.
(A 644.7A 645.5/B 672.7B 673.5)2
Given what Kant says in the Transcendental Analytic and Dialectic, how can prin-
ciples of reason be so employed, and how can anything in whose production they
are involved count as cognition?
One answer that Kant provides appears in the section of the Appendix A 663.11
A 666.3/B 691.11B 694.3.3 There Kant argues that principles of reason have ob-
jective but indeterminate validity (A 663.18/B 691.18). To have objective validity
1 This explains why Kant seems to use object of intuition and object of cognition corefer-
entially.
2 References to the Critique of Pure Reason are given by Academy pagination of the first
(A, 1781) and when possible second (B, 1787) edition, Guyer and Wood translation.
Numbers after the decimal point correspond to lines of the translation. I have maintained
Guyer and Woods practice of reserving italics for foreign expressions and bold face for all
other words that Kant emphasizes. (See Kant 1998, p. 76.)
References to the Critique of Judgment are given by Academy pagination, Pluhar trans-
lation. Numbers after the decimal point likewise correspond to lines of the translation.
3 Kant elsewhere provides other answers; in particular he re-explores the relation between
reason and cognition in On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy, the Critique
of Judgment, and the Opus postumum. In this paper, I limit myself to Kants answer in the
Critique of Pure Reason.
Kant-Studien 95. Jahrg., S. 405425

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406 Nathaniel Jason Goldberg
these principles must hold for objects, where according to the Transcendental Ana-
lytic objects are unities of intuition constituted by the understanding via rules or con-
cepts. Kant explains in the Appendix that the objective validity of principles of rea-
son would be indeterminate or, as he later puts it, indirect (A 665.17/B 693.17),
because principles of reason do not determine objects but the ways in which the
understanding determines objects.
In this paper, I review A 663.11A 666.3/B 691.11B 694.3 in the Appendix, when
appropriate referencing text elsewhere in the Critique of Pure Reason but because
my present aim is limited not elsewhere in the Kantian corpus. In Part I, I explain
Kants motivation. In Part II, I provide an exegesis. To reach his conclusion that
principles of reason have objective but indeterminate validity, I interpret Kant as
making three arguments from analogy: (i) reason is an analogue of the understand-
ing insofar as each takes a lower faculty for its object; (ii) the idea of a maximum is
an analogue of images and time relations insofar as each is a schema; and, using
both prior arguments as premises, (iii) principles of reason are analogues of rules of
the understanding insofar as each have objective validity, though the objectivity of
these principles is indirect.4 In Part III, I show that the first and third arguments fail.
I. Motivation
Kant identifies three principles of reason involved in empirical science: specifi-

cation, that every genus can be divided into species; aggregation, that every species
can be subsumed under a genus; and affinity, that there can be a continuous transi-
tion between species of a genus.5,6
Kants motivation for proposing that these principles have objective validity comes
from empirical science itself. Kant knows that without reason, science on his picture
4 Dister suggests what would by my reckoning be a fourth analogy concerning reason and the
understanding, though the analogy is in the texts structure rather than argument:
[iv] Just as subsequent discussion has shown that the very brief chapter on schematism to-
ward the end of the Analytic has an importance [for the constitutive character of the
understanding] far out of proportion to its cursory form, so also this seeming after-
thought to the Dialectic [its Appendix] provides, I suggest, fundamental insights into the
regulative character of reason. (Dister 1970, p. 262)
5 Kant names these principles as such at A 666.17A 668.21/B 694.17B 696.21. At
A 653.14A 657.15/B 681.14B 686.7, Kant calls the first two laws or principles of
species (or specification) and genera. At A 657.16A 658.8/B 685.16B 686.8,
he calls the three specification, homogeneity, and continuity of forms. At A 662.3
A 662.4/B 690.3B 690.4, he calls them manifoldness, unity, and affinity.
6 Butts formulates the three principles as follows, reversing the order of the first and second:
The first bids us seek unity in variety; the second, variety under unity; the third, unity in
variety and variety under unity. (Butts 1986, p. 181)
McFarland offers a useful explication of the third: For if we are to achieve systematic
unity by ascending to higher genera on the one hand, and descending to lower species on the
other, there must be no gaps in the process in either direction. (McFarland 1970, p. 18)

Do Principles of Reason Have Objective but Indeterminate Validity? 407
would be complacent. The only concepts available to the understanding are those of
actual objects. Consequently, the understanding cannot devise concepts of possible
objects. Yet without such concepts, the scientist would only be able to apply to intu-
ition concepts that she actually knows from experience, thereby determining objects
examples of which she knows already. Thus science would not be investigative.7
Reason, on the contrary, is not limited to actual objects. In the Appendix to the
Transcendental Dialectic, Kant therefore connects reason to empirical investigation.
He argues in particular that reason can devise concepts of possible objects of cog-
nition by taking concepts of actual objects and applying its three principles to them.
Suppose that the concept of one such actual object is carbon. The principle of spec-
ification might suggest the concepts carbon-12 and carbon-14; the principle of
aggregation nonmetal element; and the principle of affinity carbon-13, a transi-
tion between the concepts carbon-12 and carbon-14. Equipped with any such
concept, the understanding could then investigate whether the possible object of
cognition suggested by the concept is actually constituted in nature. Scientists have
in fact determined that carbon-12, carbon-14, and nonmetal elements are actually
constituted in nature: the understanding has determined that what began as con-
cepts of merely possible objects of cognition are in fact actual objects. Scientists
have not determined that carbon-13 is actually constituted in nature: the under-
standing has this as a concept of a merely possible object whose actual existence the
understanding might continue to investigate.8
Thus principles of reason enable scientific investigation. And Kant knows that in-
vestigation is integral to empirical science.9
7 Kemp Smith describes the situation thus:

Now since the categories of the pure understanding do not enable us to invent a priori the
concept of a dynamical connection, but only to apprehend it when presented in experi-
ence, we cannot by means of these categories invent a single object endowed with a new
quality not empirically given; and cannot, therefore, base a hypothesis upon any such
conception. (Kemp Smith 1995, pp. 5434)
Hypotheses are essential for scientific investigation. Hence the understanding alone is not
sufficient for investigative science.
8 Though Butts focuses only on the principle of affinity, his point generalizes: Thus we see
that, for Kant, affinity even permits us, as a matter of justified scientific procedure, to infer
beyond the limits of already given consequences of controlled observation and experiment.
Indeed, it warrants inference beyond the limits of any possible such consequences ; but
never, of course, beyond the limits of possible experience. (Butts 1986, p. 185; his emphasis)
9 Neiman argues that not only scientific investigation but explanation would be impossible
without reason:
The capacity to demand explanations of experience requires the capacity to go beyond
experience, for we cannot investigate the given until we refuse to take it as given. To ask a
question about some aspect of experience, we must be able to think the thought that it
could have been otherwise. Without this thought, we cannot even formulate the vaguest
why. This thought is unavailable to understanding, whose whole content is [actual] ex-
perience. (Neiman 1994, p. 59; her emphasis)

Yet Kant is constrained by his position in the Transcendental Dialectic to deny

principles of reason constitutive influence concerning objects.10 In an early section
of the Appendix (A 648.1A 650.17/B 676.1B 678.17), Kant therefore contends
that principles of reason function merely logically, as method, and not transcen-
dentally, as objectively necessary. (A 648.15A 648.16/B 676.15B 676.16) In
other words, principles of reason can be employed methodologically or heuristi-
cally, but not objectively, to acquire cognition.11
Kant realizes, however, that unless principles of reason have some sort of objec-
tivity, then they cannot be effectively used to increase knowledge of objects.12 Hence
McFarland argues that not only scientific investigation but science itself would be imposs-
ible without reason:
[T]he distinction between understanding and reason can be simply and yet accurately
described as the distinction between the activity of coming to have ordinary knowledge
and that activity of systematizing it so as to make it scientific. When [Kant] talks about
reason he is, in an important sense, talking about the scientific attitude toward ordinary
knowledge, an attitude that prevents the scientist from resting content with an aggregate
of unrelated bits of knowledge, and which leads him to attempt to discover logical re-
lations between them. (McFarland 1970, p. 20)
10 OShea pinpoints the problem: The obvious danger is that to assert that reasons (sense-
transcending) ideal of systematic unity is straightforwardly objective suggests precisely the
natural tendency toward transcendental illusion that Kant has just spent hundreds of pages
[in the Transcendental Dialectic] warning us against. (OShea 1997, p. 238; his emphasis)
11 Horstmann urges (and in Part III I ultimately agree) that after this point in the text Kants ar-
gument becomes ambiguous at best, self-contradictory at worst:
Everyone who is familiar with the first part of the Appendix to the Transcendental Dia-
lectic knows that the sentence just quoted [A 648.6A 648.16/B 676.6B 676.16] is the
last one in that little chapter that can be given an unambiguous interpretation. As for the
rest of the chapter on the Regulative Employment of the Ideas of Reason, one must agree
with Norman Kemp Smith, who states in his Commentary to Kants Critique of Pure Rea-
son: The teaching of this section is extremely self-contradictory. [Kemp Smith 1995,
p. 547] (Horstmann 1989, p. 166)
Horstmann in the article that I am citing passes over what he (and Kemp Smith) takes as
problematic. Horstmann explains: I mention that there are problems with this section in
order to avoid the impression that they are being suppressed for the sake of the argument.
(Horstmann 1989, p. 166)
12 Wartenbergs (1979) discussion of the status of scientific theories, which result from the ap-
plication of principles of reason to scientific knowledge, illustrates why this is so:
scientific theories are not regarded as simply convenient ways to package given em-
pirical knowledge. We think that science extends our knowledge [in theories] by telling us
about the actual structure of nature and we test theories to see if, in fact, nature accords
with them. [So] unless we assume that the theoretical structures that we use to unify
our knowledge have bearing on the empirical world [i.e., on objects] testing would not
make sense as a means of confirming a scientific theory. (Wartenberg 1979, p. 413; his
emphasis)
As we saw above, scientific knowledge can be theoretically extended via principles of rea-
son. Wartenberg observes that whether our knowledge has in fact been extended is deter-

at A 650.18A 663.10/B 678.18691.10, precisely bounded by this early section of

the Appendix and the section to be reviewed in this paper, Kant claims that any such
logical principles must presuppose transcendental principles.13 So to have investi-
gative science there must be transcendental principles of reason.
Now it would seem that these principles, qua transcendental, would like the tran-
scendental rules of the understanding determine objects. But Kant cannot permit
this. For if principles of reason themselves determine objects, then Kants solution
to the antinomies is invalidated. Thus his motivation for proposing that principles
of reason have indirect objective validity is to protect the solution to the antinomies.
Kant must therefore qualify the argument at A 650.18A 663.10/B 678.18
B 691.10. Though principles of reason need to be objective, lest they have no
necessary application to the investigation of nature, they cannot be objective in the
same way in which rules of the understanding are objective.
And so Kant introduces the notion of objective but indeterminate validity in
A 663.11A 666.3/B 691.11B 694.3, the section of the Appendix under review.
Thus Kant argues that principles of reason can have merely logical (or, as he calls it
in the section directly concerning us, regulative) employment while still being
mined empirically; we test theories against the empirical world, i.e., against objects. Warten-
bergs point is that it makes no sense to do so unless we assume that claims made by scientific
theories having bearing on objects. Because such claims result from the application of prin-
ciples of reason, these principles must in some way themselves have bearing on objects.
Bracketing that conclusion, Wartenberg (1992) considers whether Kant meant for prin-
ciples of reason to have merely instrumental use, i.e., for such principles to have a role to
play in science as unifiers of concepts and laws that genuinely refer to empirical reality but
that [principles of reason] do not themselves refer to such reality, because [t]hey are gen-
erated as conveniences for our own use. (Wartenberg 1992, p. 232) Krner takes this possi-
bility seriously. (See Krner 1995, pp. 1245.)
Wartenberg (1992), however, correctly denies that Kant meant this. He cites A 652.19
A 653.12/B 680.19 B 681.12 as proof:
The analysts had already done much when they were able to reduce all salts to two main
genera, acid and alkaline. One might have believed that this is merely a device of rea-
son for achieving economy, for saving as much trouble as possible, and a hypothetical
attempt that, if it succeeds, will through this unity give probability to the grounds of ex-
planation it presupposed.
One might suppose, therefore, that the principle of aggregation is merely a device or in-
strument useful for science. If the principle does increase knowledge, then this lends prob-
ability but not certainty to the theoretical concepts in whose construction the principle par-
ticipated. Yet, Kant explains, such a selfish aim can easily be distinguished from the
idea, in accordance with which everyone presupposes that this unity of reason conforms to
nature itself; and here reason does not beg but commands. Hence for Kant the selfish aim
to regard principles of reason as merely instrumental, deriving from subjective needs rather
than constituting objective features, is false. For as Kant makes clear reason does not beg
that nature be a certain way. Reason commands that it be so.
13 E.g., The logical principle of genera [or aggregation] therefore presupposes a transcenden-
tal one if it is to be applied to nature (by which I here understand only objects that are given
to us). (A 654.3A 654.5/B 682.3B 682.5)

transcendental. They therefore would not constitute objects, and so the solution to
the antinomies is saved. Yet they would nonetheless be transcendental, applying to
objects indirectly, and so principles of reason would still have objective validity and
so effective application to science.
II. Exegesis
Before turning to this section of the Appendix and what I interpret as Kants three
arguments from analogy, it will be helpful to examine what Kant means by anal-
ogy. In the Critique of Judgment, Kant tells us that an analogy is a transfer of our
reflection on an object of intuition to an entirely different concept, to which perhaps
no intuition can ever directly correspond. (V: 352.34353.2)14 An object of intu-
ition, qua object, is already subsumed under a concept. An analogy therefore
transfers our reflection on something previously conceptualized either to another
(previously conceptualized) object or, if no object exists, then merely to another
concept. Alternatively, Kant seems to indicate that an analogy involves comparing
the rules of reflection on each of two concepts to determine whether any rules are
identical. An analogy exists between the two concepts insofar as they have an ident-
ical rule of reflection. (V: 352.21352.23)
To illustrate, Kant suggests (V: 352.18352.23) that an absolute monarchy can be
understood by analogy with a hand mill. One begins with an intuition which, con-
ceptualized, yields an object: here, an absolute monarchy. One then forms a reflec-
tion on this object: e.g., that its parts have no movement independent from its
center. One next transfers this reflection to another concept possibly lacking a cor-
responding intuition: here, a hand mill. Alternatively, one compares the rules of re-
flection on an absolute monarchy to the rules of reflection on a hand mill. In either
case, there is an analogy between an absolute monarchy and a hand mill, because
one can reflect on each via the rule that it is an object the movement of whose parts
has no independence from its center.
In short, an analogy involves two concepts (either of which might be exhibited in
intuition and so refer to an object) and a reflection applicable to both. An analogue
would then be one of the concepts (or objects) of an analogy. In the above example,
a hand mill is an analogue of an absolute monarchy insofar as each is an object the
movement of whose parts has no independence from its center.
We can now turn to A 663.11A 666.3/B 691.11B 694.3 in the Appendix. Kant
starts by framing the problem. On the one hand, principles of reason
seem to be transcendental, and even though they contain mere ideas to be followed in the em-
pirical use of reason, which reason can follow only asymptotically, as it were, i.e., merely
by approximation, without ever reaching them, yet these principles, as synthetic propositions
14 This reflection would itself be a concept. Thus Kant can without contradiction speak at
times of transferring the reflection and at times of transferring the rule by which [judg-
ment] reflects (V: 352.15) because, for Kant, a concept is a rule.

a priori, nevertheless have objective but indeterminate validity, and serve as a rule of possible
experience, and can even be used with good success, as heuristic principles, in actually elabor-
ating it
Yet on the other hand: one cannot bring about a transcendental deduction
of them, which, as has been proved above, is always impossible in regard to ideas.
(A 663.12A664.1/B 691.12B 692.1)
Recall that Kant identifies three principles of reason as integral to empirical science:
specification, aggregation, and affinity. So on the one hand, Kant is saying, by suc-
cessfully guiding the understanding in acquiring objects of cognition, these principles
seem to have objective, albeit indeterminate, validity. Yet on the other hand, the ob-
jectivity of such principles can never be given a transcendental deduction.
Thus there are three options. Either principles of reason really are not objective,
their objectivity cannot be demonstrated, or their objectivity can be demonstrated by
means other than transcendental deduction. Concerning the first, if these principles
are not in fact objective, then they cannot relate to objects of cognition. Conse-
quently, the scientist would have no more reason to expand her research in light of
such principles than she would in light of guesswork. Yet the principles of specifi-
cation, aggregation, and affinity have proved invaluable to science. Kant believes
that they have not done so by accident. Hence they must in some sense be objective.15
Concerning the second, for principles of reason to be objective and yet for their
objectivity not to be capable of demonstration is, according to Kant, impossible. For
shortly after the section of the Appendix under review in this paper, Kant writes:
The ideas of reason, of course, do not permit any deduction of the same kind [i.e., transcen-
dental] as the categories; but if they are to have the least objective validity, even if it is only
an indeterminate one , then a deduction of them must definitely be possible, granted that it
must diverge quite far from the deduction one can carry out in the case of the categories.
(A 669.16A 670.3/B 697.16B 698.3)
Hence their objectivity must permit some manner of deduction.16
15 OShea observes:
One thing that Kant is struck with is the ease with which we successfully conceptual-
ize the brute empirical diversity that confronts us in experience (as usual, there will be
a deeper transcendental story behind this empirical observation.) We assume, in short,
that nature is made for the carving, and that it is even now partially revealing to us its
own multi-levelled, indefinitely complex yet well-organized structure of empirical joints.
[I]t is assumptions such as these that will fund under Kants transcendental regulative
principles of homogeneity, specification, and continuous affinity. (OShea 1997, p. 231;
his emphasis.)
16 Wartenberg (1992) interprets A 669.16A 670.3/B 697.16B 698.3 very differently. One
way of understanding his interpretation is as steps (4) (6) in the following reductio ad ab-
surdum, where (1) (3) follow from prior text:
(1) If principles of reason have proved invaluable to science, then they are (in some sense)
objective. (As Wartenberg puts it: [T]he regulative use of reason involves the attribu-
tion of transcendental knowledge to reason itself, [Wartenberg 1992, p. 245] where
such knowledge, qua transcendental, would have some sort of objectivity.)

The only viable option is the third. In the text that follows, Kant does attempt to
demonstrate the objective validity of principles of reason by some means other than
transcendental deduction.
Kants preliminary move (A 664.1A 664.13/B 692.1B 692.13) is to disqualify
one argument from analogy purporting to demonstrate their objectivity. That argu-
ment is that principles of reason are analogues of dynamical rules of the understand-
ing17 insofar as each are regulative. In the Transcendental Analytic, Kant bifurcates
(2) Principles of reason have proved invaluable to science.

(3) Hence principles of reason are objective.
(4) If principles of reason are objective, then a deduction of them is possible.
(5) No deduction of principles of reason is possible.
(6) Hence principles of reason are not objective.
Wartenberg seems tempted to reject what I have identified as (1). Perhaps principles of rea-
son have proved invaluable because they are merely instrumental. In light of A 669.16
A 670.3/B 697.16B 698.3 Wartenberg therefore asks: Doesnt this entail that my account
of the transcendental status of the regulative use of reason must be mistaken? (Wartenberg
1992, p. 245; my emphasis)
Wartenberg, however, does not think his account mistaken. So how does he avoid the
reductio? Cleverly, Wartenberg distinguishes between the referents of (1) (3) on the one
hand and those of (4) (6) on the other. (1) (3) are meant to formulate an argument prior to
A 669.16/ B 697.16, where Wartenberg takes Kant to be referring to the principles of spec-
ification, aggregation, and affinity. Though (4) is true of all principles of reason, Wartenberg
takes Kant at A 669.16A 670.3/B 697.16B 698.3 not to be referring to these familiar prin-
ciples but instead the principles of self, world, and God. Hence (1) (3) and (4) (6) refer to
different principles of reason, and so (6) does not contradict (3). Thus the reductio is
avoided and Wartenbergs account is not mistaken.
Yet clever or not, Wartenbergs solution is problematic for two reasons. First, recall that
at A 663.20/B 691.20 Kant also concludes that one cannot bring about a transcendental
deduction of principles of reason. This time the surrounding text explicitly concerns the
principles of specification, aggregation, and affinity. So even if Wartenberg is right that Kant
changes referents at A 669.16/B 697.16, Kant does not do so here. Second, recall that at
A 664.1/B 692.1 Kant concludes that a transcendental deduction is always impossible in
regard to ideas [or principles] (my emphasis). So even if Wartenberg is right that Kant later
refers to self, world, and God, Kant here tells us that a transcendental deduction of any prin-
ciple of reason is impossible; a fortiori, it is impossible for the principles of specification, ag-
gregation, and affinity. Hence by Wartenbergs own reasoning three portions of the text en-
tail that his account is mistaken.
A better solution would be to reformulate (5) thus:
(5' ) No transcendental deduction of principles of reason is possible.
This allows a positive read of the second half of A 669.16A 670.3/B 697.16B 98.3: Though
no transcendental deduction of principles of reason is possible, a deduction of them must
definitely be possible, granted that it must diverge quite far from the deduction one can carry
out in the case of the categories. (A 670.1A 670.3/B 698.1B 698.3) I interpret the section
of the Appendix under review in this paper as providing just such a deduction.
17 What in the Transcendental Analytic Kant calls rules of the understanding in the section of
the Appendix under review he renames principles of the understanding. Both to maintain
consistency and to track more explicitly the difference between what in the Appendix Kant
calls principles of the understanding and principles of reason, I employ his initial terminol-
ogy. In other words, contra the wording of the Appendix, I use rules of the understanding.

rules of the understanding into mathematical and dynamical. Mathematical rules

act upon intuition constitutively, constructing specific shapes in intuition, making
geometry possible. Dynamical rules act upon intuition regulatively, directing intu-
ition under specific concepts, making science possible. Kant has already established
in the Transcendental Dialectic that principles of reason have only regulative use.
Kant observes, however, that dynamical rules of the understanding are still consti-
tutive regarding experience, since they determine the very concepts toward which
intuition is directed. Principles of reason, although regulative like dynamical rules
of the understanding, are not constitutive regarding empirical intuition.18 In fact,
Kant tells us (A 664.10A 664.12/B 692.10B 692.12) that unlike rules of the
understanding generally, principles of reason lack any schema relating them to sen-
sibility. So this preliminary analogy fails.
Kant needs another route. In the Transcendental Dialectic, Kant alludes to an
analogy between reason and the understanding: If the understanding may be a fac-
ulty of unity of appearances [i.e., a faculty of objects] by means of rules, then reason
is the faculty of the unity of the rules of understanding under principles. (A 302.9
A 302.11/B 359.1B 359.3) Thus reason is an analogue of the understanding inso-
far as each is a faculty of unity by means of (or under) rules or principles, respect-
ively. Kant rephrases the same point:
In fact the manifold of rules and the unity of principles is a demand of reason, in order to bring
the understanding into thoroughgoing connection with itself, just as the understanding brings
the manifold of intuition under concepts and through them into connection.
But what Kant says immediately following this seems to disqualify the analogy:
Yet such a principle does not prescribe any law to objects , but rather is merely a subjective
law of economy for the provision of our understanding , without justifying us in demanding
of objects themselves any such unanimity as might make things easier for our understanding or
help it extend itself, and so give objective validity to its maxims as well. (A 305.16A 306.9/
B 362.11B 363.3)
In the Transcendental Dialectic, therefore, we are left with the possibility that rea-
son is an analogue of the understanding, but only insofar as each is a faculty of
unity by means of rules or principles, not insofar as each is concerned with objects
and objectivity. The understanding provides synthetic a priori laws governing the
ordering of intuition. Reason at most provides subjective laws governing the order-
18 As Friedman puts it, Kant distinguishes

two senses of constitutivity. The mathematical concepts (of quantity and quality) are
constitutive with respect to intuition. The dynamical concepts are constitutive with
respect to experience but only regulative with respect to intuition. The ideas [or prin-
ciples] of reason, on the other hand, are not even constitutive with respect to experience:
they are purely regulative. (Friedman 1991, p. 79; his emphasis)
For a detailed analysis of the distinction between mathematical and dynamical concepts of
the understanding, and in particular the role that the latter plays in empirical science, see
Friedman (1991).

ing of the understanding; these laws do not extend to objects, as the laws of the
understanding would.
Yet in the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic, Kant seems to reconsider.
There he contends that the analogy between reason and the understanding does
concern objectivity: The understanding constitutes an object for reason, just as
sensibility does for the understanding. (A 664.15A 664.16/B 692.15B 692.16)
Hence reason is an analogue of the understanding insofar as each takes a lower fac-
ulty for its object. The justification for this amounts to what I interpret as the First
Argument from Analogy. Here Kant merely states its conclusion, but he is presum-
ably building on his position in the Transcendental Dialectic that both reason and
the understanding are faculties of unity by means of rules or principles. The burden
falls on us to see the argument through its course.
What does it mean that the understanding constitutes an object for reason? Since
I take Kants claim to be the conclusion of an implicit First Argument from Analogy,
let us focus on its analogue.
In what sense does sensibility constitute an object for the understanding? When
Kant says that sensibility constitutes an object for the understanding, he cannot
mean that sensibility is itself an object of intuition. For if this does not involve an in-
finite regress, then it at least borders on incoherence.
Recall that the understanding via rules determines objects of intuition. One way to
comprehend how this is possible, and the way in which Kant at A 664.15A 664.16/
B 692.15B 692.16 seems to intend us to do so, is to see the understanding as taking
sensibility for its object. In other words, sensibility becomes the target of some sort
of influence on the part of the understanding: viz., the understanding determines
unities, or objects, of intuition, by means of rules. So sensibility constitutes an ob-
ject for the understanding because the understanding via its rules determines objects
of intuition.
There is support for this interpretation in the Transcendental Analytic: Sensibil-
ity gives us forms (of intuition), but the understanding gives us rules. It is always
poring through appearances with the aim of finding some sort of rule in them.
(A 126.9A 126.11) So sensibility constitutes an object for the understanding be-
cause the understanding pores through intuition to determine rules to which it
conforms, which would amount to unifying objects within it.
Also from the Transcendental Analytic, consider:
Thus as exaggerated and contradictory as it may sound to say that the understanding is itself
the source of laws of nature , such an assertion is nevertheless correct and appropriate to the
object, namely experience. (A 127.14A 127.18)
This statement may be interpreted as making at least two separate claims. First, the
understanding takes for its object experience. Second, the understanding provides
experience with laws. Factoring out this contribution of the understanding to ex-
perience, we are left with sensibility. Thus the understanding, before providing sen-
sibility with laws, must take sensibility for its object; otherwise the understanding

would not have an object with which to provide laws. Kant might here count the
understandings own contribution as part of what it takes for its object because
human beings cannot access sensible intuition divorced from the understanding. But
in a logical reconstruction of the cognitive process it would nevertheless be possible
to speak of the separate contribution of sensibility, and so of sensibility itself con-
stituting an object for the understanding. And by providing sensibility with laws,
the understanding determines objects of sensible intuition.
What does it then mean for the understanding to constitute an object for reason?
My response may seem controversial. I nonetheless ask the reader to let me explain
why I respond as I do before I offer textual support. Analogously, it would mean
that the understanding becomes the target of some sort of influence on the part of
reason. For the analogy to hold, reason would determine unities of the understand-
ing. And this agrees with what we have seen above: If the understanding may be a
faculty of unity of appearances [i.e., a faculty of objects] by means of rules, then rea-
son is the faculty of the unity of rules of understanding under principles. So the
understanding constitutes an object for reason because reason via its principles de-
termines rules of the understanding.
Before providing textual support, a matter of interpretation must be addressed.
If the analogy is to hold, then principles of reason would determine these rules of
the understanding by constituting them. Kant does say prior to A 650.18A 663.10/
B 678.18B 691.10 that principles of reason merely regulate these rules.19 But at
A 650.18A 663.10/B 678.18B 691.10 he makes clear that any such regulative use
presupposes a transcendental use. Further, in the section of the Appendix directly
concerning us, Kant needs principles of reason to have a transcendental, and so con-
stitutive, function. Otherwise, reason could not constitute new rules by which scien-
tific investigation would be possible. Merely regulating existing rules would do
nothing to determine rules for possible objects of cognition. Science would be com-
placent in the sense discussed in Part I. Hence the relation between reason and rules
of understanding, just like the one between the understanding and objects of intu-
ition, would need to be constitutive.
There is support earlier in the Appendix to interpret reason thus. At A 651.13/
B 679.13, Kant contends that without reason we would have no coherent use of
the understanding. He analogously contends in the Transcendental Analytic that
without the understanding we would have no coherent use of sensibility.
At A 654.6A 654.9/B 682.6B 682.9, using the principle of specification as an
example, Kant argues that sameness of kind is necessarily presupposed in the mani-
fold of possible experience , because without it no empirical concepts and hence
no experience would be possible (my emphasis). Thus since principles of reason are
necessarily presupposed by possible experience, these principles allow us to investi-
gate possible objects. I maintain that this is so in virtue of principles of reason con-
19 See, e.g., A 643.14/B 670.14 and A 644.11A 644.12/B 672.11B 672.12, the latter of
which is cited in the introduction of this paper.

stituting rules for possible objects; rules determine actual objects, and there is no
reason to think that they would not determine possible objects (i.e., those not exist-
ing in intuition) too. Kant analogously argues in the Transcendental Analytic that
the categories, higher-order rules, are necessarily presupposed in the manifold of ac-
tual experience, because without them no empirical objects and hence no experience
would be possible. Thus since rules of the understanding are presupposed by actual
experience, these rules allow us to know actual objects. Kant maintains that this is
so in virtue of rules of the understanding constituting these actual objects.
There is further support at A 657.16A 657.21/B 685.16B 685.21 that prin-
ciples of reason constitute rules of the understanding. There Kant writes that reason
via its principles prepares the field for the understanding. He explains in the pre-
vious sentence what this means:
For we have an understanding only under the presupposition of varieties in nature [i.e., the
principle of specification], just as we have one only under the condition that natures objects
have in themselves a sameness of kind [i.e., the principle of aggregation], because it is just the
manifoldness of what can be grasped together under a concept that constitutes use of this con-
cept and the business of the understanding.
So principles of reason allow us to have an understanding, because these principles

constitute use of concepts, i.e., rules, of the understanding. He analogously writes in
the Transcendental Analytic that the understanding via the categories and other
rules prepares the field for sensibility. For rules of the understanding allow us to
have sensible experience, because these rules constitute objects of intuition.
In short:
Reason really has as [or for] object only the understanding and its purposive application, and
just as the understanding unites the manifold into an object through concepts, so reason on
its side unites the manifold of concepts through ideas [or principles]. (A 643.19A 644.4/
B 671.19B 672.4)
The understanding through its concepts unites the manifold of sensible intuition
into unities, or objects, of intuition. Reason through its principles unites the mani-
fold of concepts into unities, or rules, of the understanding. Thus reason has for its
object the understanding, just as the understanding has sensibility. Hence reason is
an analogue of the understanding insofar as each takes a lower faculty for its object.
Now Kant realizes that he cannot conclude from this that principles of reason de-
termine rules of the understanding and so indirectly determine objects of intuition.
For Kant knows that he needs to explain how principles of reason can be applied. At
A 137.15A 139.6/B 176.15B 178.6 in the Transcendental Analytic, Kant explains
that schemata are required to mediate the application of a rule of the understanding
to intuition in order to determine objects. Kant reminds us of this in the very next
sentence (A 664.16A 665.3) of the Appendix. So Kant must locate an analogue of
these schemata that would mediate the application of a principle of reason to the
understanding in order to determine rules. He locates just such an analogue in the
Second Argument from Analogy.

Kant has established that reason does not relate directly to sensibility. So unlike
the schemata employed by the understanding, reason cannot use a schema that con-
cerns images, time relations, or any other product of sensibility. In their place, Kant
argues that reason uses the schema of the idea of the maximum of division and
unification of the understandings cognition in one principle. (A 665.6A 665.7/
B 693.6B 693.7)20 With this schema, principles of reason can be applied to the
understanding because in the rules that result, all restricting conditions, which give
indeterminate manifolds, are omitted. (A 665.8A 665.9/B 693.8B 693.9) These
rules of the understanding would lose their indetermination as follows: Reason
watches the two maxima between which any of the understandings cognitions,
which might result from applying these rules to intuition, must be confined. In other
words, reason knows that in determining rules of the understanding it must avoid
the Scylla of ordering too few and the Charybdis of ordering too many possible cog-
nitions under one principle. Thus principles of reason via the idea of a maximum
can be applied to the understanding to determine rules. Hence the idea of a maxi-
mum is an analogue of images and time relations insofar as each is a schema.
The Third Argument from Analogy takes the first two as premises. It comes in the
next two sentences of the section. First:
Thus the idea of reason is an analogue of a schema of sensibility, but with this difference, that
the application of concepts of the understanding to the schema of reason is not likewise a cog-
nition of the object itself (as in the application of the categories to their sensible schemata), but
only a rule or principle of the systematic unity of all use of the understanding. (A 665.9
A 665.14/B 693.9B 693.14)
If principles of reason are analogues of rules of the understanding insofar as each

have objective validity, then the schema by which reason is applied to the under-
standing must itself be an analogue of the schema by which the understanding is ap-
plied to sensible intuition. This is just what the Second Argument from Analogy
purports to demonstrate. Yet one cannot use this to conclude that principles of rea-
son determine objects. For reason, unlike the understanding, does not apply to ob-
jects; it applies to the understanding itself.
Recall that Kant employs just such reasoning in the Transcendental Dialectic to
conclude that principles of reason are merely subjective. How can Kant now prove
otherwise? What have the two prior arguments from analogy accomplished?
Kant responds in the next sentence:
Now since every principle that establishes for the understanding a thoroughgoing unity of its
use a priori is also valid, albeit only indirectly, for the object of experience, the principles of
pure reason will also have objective reality in regard to this object, yet not so as to determine
something in it, but only to indicate the procedure in accordance with which the empirical and
determinate use of the understanding in experience can be brought into thoroughgoing agree-
20 Dister concurs with my interpretation: Since nothing in sense intuition can provide any-
thing analogous to the schema of understanding since reason does not relate directly to
sensibility it is supplied by the idea of the maximum in the division and unification of
knowledge under one principle. (Dister 1970, p. 263; his emphasis)

ment with itself, by bringing it as far as possible into thoroughgoing agreement with the prin-
ciple of thoroughgoing unity; and from that it is derived. (A 665.14A 666.3/B 693.14B
694.3)
A great deal is bundled into this sentence. First, principles of reason determine a
thoroughgoing unity of the understandings use. (This follows from the First Argu-
ment from Analogy.) Second and in light of the previous sentence, we know that
they do this via the schema of a maximum. (This follows from the Second Argument
from Analogy.) Third, principles of reason also do this a priori. (This is analytically
true: the idea of a maximum cannot be met in experience, and its application is not
directly to objects of experience but the understanding itself.) Hence principles of
reason, which are a priori, can determine rules of the understanding. Fourth, the
understanding determines objects of experience. (This follows from the Transcen-
dental Analytic.) Hence principles of reason indirectly determine objects of experi-
ence. Fifth, these principles do so by indicating the procedure in accordance with
which the understanding can be unified. (This also follows from the First Argu-
ment from Analogy.)21
21 OShea offers a different and in many ways better informed analysis of how principles of
reason can have objective but indeterminate validity. Here I present and interpret OSheas
summary. Though OShea does not see himself as providing an exegesis specifically of the
section of the Appendix under review in this paper, the structure of his analysis nonetheless
resembles that of mine, and as we shall see I interpret our conclusions identically:
I have suggested that Kants solution is to argue, first, that the genuinely objectively valid
requirements of understanding issue directly in the demand for genuine lawfulness in the
empirical realm; second, that the pure understanding cannot itself legislate a priori what
particular forms this empirical lawfulness will take; third, that the global empirical as-
sumptions spelled out in the regulative [principles of reason] are conditions that are
necessary for the possibility of understanding (and so of experience) itself; that is, they
are necessary for the possibility of meeting the empirical demands of understanding that
issue from the transcendental laws of pure understanding themselves; and finally, that the
regulative ideal of systematic unity that is thus warranted does not flout the sensible li-
mits on understanding set by the critical philosophy, since we are warranted in presup-
posing that systematic unity obtains in nature only to an a priori indeterminable degree.
(OShea 1997, pp. 2412; his emphasis)
A great deal is bundled into this sentence, as well. OSheas first step is bolder than any of
mine. Whereas I argue that left to itself the understanding would only be able to apply to in-
tuition concepts actually known from experience, thereby determining objects examples of
which are already known, OShea argues that the understanding as the source of objectivity
is justified in demanding empirical lawfulness (if experience is to be possible), (OShea
1997, p. 240; his emphasis) even where it cannot determine any. (According to OShea this
follows from the Transcendental Analytic; see OShea 1997, pp. 21829.) OSheas second
step is that the pure understanding by itself has no access to empirical laws. (According to
OShea this also follows from the Transcendental Analytic; whether it actually does is
beyond the scope of this paper.) OSheas third step seems to have three elements. One is that
principles of reason make possible global empirical assumptions. (This follows from the
Transcendental Dialectic.) Two is that doing so answers the demand of the understanding,
thereby allowing such assumptions to be used by the understanding. (As we just saw in his
first step, according to OShea this follows from the Transcendental Analytic.) Three is that

In short, reason, in virtue of the a priori application of its principles via their
schema to the rules of the understanding, determines the unity of the understanding,
and so indirectly determines the understandings determination of objects. Hence
principles of reason are analogues of rules of the understanding insofar have objec-
tive validity, though the objectivity of these principles is indirect. Principles of rea-
son do not determine unities of intuition but of the understanding. They do not con-
stitute objects but rules of the understanding, thereby regulating the sorts of objects
that the understanding could constitute.
How exactly would principles of reason operate? I can now make more precise
the mechanism described in Part I. The scientist appeals to principles of reason to
determine concepts by which to investigate possible objects of intuition. For to de-
termine such a concept, the scientist must determine whether, if discovered to exist
in experience, the concept would constitute a new species, a member of a known
genus, or a transition between species. Once reason determines the concept, the
understanding can then investigate whether the possible object of cognition sug-
gested by the concept is actually constituted in nature. Thus reason regulates what
the object would be, without actually constituting it from sensible intuition.
In the Appendix prior to the section directly concerning us, Kant illustrates a
transcendental use of reason; keeping in mind what the Arguments from Analogy
purport to demonstrate, we can now understand how this transcendental use would
be indirect and so purportedly not jeopardize Kants solution to the antinomies:
Empirical specification soon stops in distinguishing the manifold, unless through the already
preceding transcendental law of specification as a principle of reason it is led to seek such dis-
closures and to keep on assuming them even when they do not immediately reveal themselves
to the senses. (A 657.2A 657.6/B 685.2B 685.6)
Left to itself, the understanding ceases determining objects of intuition once ex-
hausting its concepts of objects previously experienced or known.22 The principle of
specification, however, permits reason to determine concepts of possible objects.
only by answering the demand of the understanding can there be understanding. (According
to OShea this also follows the Transcendental Analytic.) Hence principles of reason, by en-
abling the discovery of empirical laws and so actual objects of cognition that obey these
laws, must themselves be objective. OSheas final step seems to have two elements. One is
that the objectivity of these principles does not violate Kants solution to the antinomies, be-
cause their objectivity derives from the understanding and not reason; they are therefore
bound by the understandings limits. (According to OShea this follows from the Transcen-
dental Analytic.) Two is that one such limit is the inability to presuppose to a determinate
degree the systematic unity of nature, because doing so lies outside the bounds of experi-
ence. (This follows from the Transcendental Dialectic.) Hence principles of reason, by de-
riving their objectivity from the understanding itself, allow the understanding to determine
objects of experience. Hence principles of reason indirectly determine objects of experience.
Unlike OShea, I contend that such reasoning ultimately contradicts Kants system. In
Part III I explain why this is so.
22 Neiman puts it well: [I]t is not despite, but because of, understandings role in shaping ex-
perience that it is incapable of looking beyond it. (Neiman 1994, p. 68)

These concepts, were the understanding to determine that they actually exist in in-
tuition, would determine species of objects whose genus the understanding already
has determined.
In the next sentence, Kant explains that this is in fact how the chemistry of his day
proceeded:
That there are absorbent earths of different species (chalky earths and muriatic earths) needed
for its discovery a foregoing rule [or principle] of reason that made it a task for the understand-
ing to seek for varieties, by presupposing nature to be so abundant that it presumes them.
(A 657.6A 657.9/B 685.6B 685.9)23
Different species of absorbent earths would not have been investigated and so dis-
covered had reason not had its principle of specification. For via that principle, rea-
son constituted for the understanding concepts of different species of absorbent
earths, which the understanding then investigated in nature. In other words, the
understanding determined whether these species actually existed; without its inves-
tigation into nature, the possible concepts would have remained empty. Had its in-
vestigation failed, then the concepts would also have remained empty.
Now Kant explains that this principle of reason is not merely regulative. For rea-
son presupposes nature actually to admit of infinite specification. Thus the principle
of specification is in some sense transcendental and so objectively necessary. What
the section of the Appendix under review allegedly shows is that reason can have
objective validity without constituting objects of nature, viz., by constituting rules
by which the understanding can investigate whether the objects actually exist.
In short:
Reason presupposes those cognitions of the understanding which are first applied to experi-
ence, and seeks the unity of these cognitions in accordance with ideas [or principles] that go
much further than experience can reach. (A 662.5A 662.8/B 690.5B 690.8)
Reason devises concepts of possible objects of cognition by taking rules of the

understanding and seeking their unity by means of principles. Reason would do so
by constituting new rules of the understanding via its three principles. The under-
standing could then determine whether these new rules constitute objects. Thus
principles of reason regulate what sorts of objects that there could be, while the
understanding constitutes the sorts of objects that there actually are. Hence prin-
ciples of reason are analogues of rules of the understanding insofar as each have ob-
jective validity, though the objectivity of these principles is indirect. Kant therefore
seems to have secured the objectivity of scientific investigation while simultaneously
safeguarding his solution to the antinomies.
23 Of examples such as this Kemp Smith writes: The psychological, chemical, and astronomi-
cal examples which Kant employs to illustrate these laws [or principles of reason] call for no
special comment. They were taken from contemporary science, and in advance of our
knowledge have become more confusing than helpful. (Kemp Smith 1995, p. 551) Contra
Kemp Smith, at least this example seems helpful, as my exegesis hopefully shows.

This completes my exegesis. In the next part of the paper, I examine whether
Kants arguments succeed.
III. Analysis
I have contended that Kant attempts to demonstrate the objective yet indetermi-
nate validity of principles of reason by arguing from analogy three times. To evalu-
ate whether Kant succeeds overall, let us see whether each Argument from Analogy
succeeds individually.
First, is reason an analogue of the understanding insofar as each takes a lower fac-
ulty for its object? Both reason and the understanding are involved in the unity of a
lower faculty. Only the understanding, however, takes a lower faculty for its object.
Recall that a consequence of sensibilitys constituting an object for the under-
standing is that the understanding via its rules determines unities, or objects, of sen-
sible intuition. These unities are objective in virtue of being determined by the
understanding, which Kant establishes in the Transcendental Analytic as a faculty
of objectivity. For the analogy to hold, a consequence of the understandings con-
stituting an object for reason would have to be that reason determines unities, or
rules, of the understanding. But these rules would have to be objective in virtue of
being determined by reason.
It is not enough to disqualify the First Argument from Analogy because reason is
not a faculty of objectivity in the sense of constituting objects of intuition. Kant
knows that it is not. His very point is that an analogous (but not necessarily ident-
ical) relation between rules of the understanding and objects of intuition neverthe-
less exists between principles of reason and rules of the understanding.
It is enough, however, to disqualify the First Argument from Analogy for a related
reason. Whereas unities of intuition get their objectivity from the understanding,
unities of the understanding do not in any sense get their objectivity from reason.
Rather, as just noted, Kant in the Transcendental Analytic explains that the under-
standing is the source of its own objectivity.24 That, after all, is how Kant there can
contend that the understanding and sensibility are together sufficient for cognition.
Thus the understanding orders sensible intuition constitutively. As we saw in Part
II, for the analogy to hold reason would have to order the understanding constitut-
ively. But because rules of the understanding are constituted by the understanding
itself, if reason bears any relation to these rules it is merely regulative. So contrary
to my attempt, Kant cannot be interpreted as granting reason powers of determi-
nation analogous to those of the understanding. For reason provides rules of the
understanding with the focus of totality but not objectivity. Thus the understanding
24 One of the clearest statements of this occurs at A 126.17A 126.19: The understanding is
thus not merely a faculty for making rules ; it is itself the legislation for nature. For an
elaboration of this point, see A 126.6A 126.19, from which the quotation is excerpted.

is not an object for reason. Though perhaps analogous in other ways, reason is not
an analogue of the understanding insofar as each takes a lower faculty for its object.
Hence the First Argument from Analogy fails.
Second, is the idea of a maximum an analogue of images or time relations insofar
as each is a schema? Borrowing my earlier phrasing, does reasons knowing to avoid
the Scylla of ordering too few and the Charybdis of ordering too many possible cog-
nitions under one principle mediate reasons determination of rules?
To return to Kants example cited in Part II, suppose that absorbent earth is a
rule or concept of the understanding. We want to order this rule under the principles
of specification, aggregation, and affinity. To do so determinately, we must keep in
mind how few and how many possible cognitions can in this case be ordered under
any of these principles. Otherwise, we would not be able to tell whether an absorb-
ent earth might admit species, be an instance of a genus, or be one of a family of
slightly dissimilar objects at the same level of specification. We therefore would not
be able to determine rules for possible related objects. Thus the idea of a maximum
does allow principles of reason to determine rules of the understanding, and so is
analogous to a schema. Hence the Second Argument from Analogy succeeds.
Third, are principles of reason analogues of rules of the understanding insofar as
each have objective validity, though the objectivity of these principles is indirect?
No, they are not. For as we shall see, Kant attributes to principles of reason both too
much and too little influence.
First, Kant attributes to them too much influence. Kant knows that on pain of vi-
olating his solution to the antinomies principles of reason cannot themselves deter-
mine objects. He therefore argues that these principles determine rules of the under-
standing, thereby only indirectly determining objects. Thus principles of reason can
be transcendental without constituting objects; instead, in virtue of determining
rules of the understanding, they would merely regulate objects. So the argument for
the regulative use of principles of reason reduces to Kants taking indirectly deter-
mine to entail regulate and not constitute. But this entailment is doubtful.
Kant knows that directly is a logically intransitive relation, i.e., that its use is
consistent with the logical form (Rab Rbc) Rac. If principles of reason di-
rectly determine rules of the understanding, and rules of the understanding directly
determine objects of intuition, then principles of reason do not directly determine
these objects. Rather, as Kant observes, they indirectly determine them, and so
would be indirectly objective. This is true simply in virtue of the meaning of di-
rectly and indirectly.
Kant seems to assume that constitute is also a logically intransitive relation, and
more generally that constitute and regulate bear a relation to one another anal-
ogous to the relation between directly and indirectly. For he seems to argue that if
principles of reason constitute rules of the understanding, and rules of the under-
standing constitute objects of intuition, then principles of reason do not constitute
these objects. Rather, Kant wants to say, they merely regulate them, leaving the
understanding to investigate whether the objects are actually constituted.

Now Kant needs constitute to be intransitive. Otherwise he would have demon-

strated too much. On the one hand, he would have shown, contra the Transcenden-
tal Dialectic, that reason has cognitive use. Like the understanding, it too would
constitute objects. On the other hand, he would have failed to qualify the argument
at A 650.18A 663.10/B 678.18B 691.10 that principles of reason are transcen-
dental. And the need to do so motivates Kant to introduce the notion of objective
but indeterminate validity in the first place. In both cases, Kant would have invali-
dated his solution to the antinomies.
Yet there is reason to think that constitute is not intransitive. Consider the fol-
lowing use of constitute not from metaphysics but physics: Subatomic particles
constitute atoms, and atoms constitute molecules. The conclusion seems to be Sub-
atomic particles constitute molecules rather than Subatomic particles do not con-
stitute molecules. Yet the latter parallels Kants conclusion concerning principles of
reason and objects of intuition. So the real issue for Kant is not whether principles of
reason indirectly determine objects of intuition. It is whether indirectly determining
them entails that principles of reason merely regulate them. And Kant provides no
evidence that this need be the case. In fact, there is evidence to the contrary. And in
the face of such evidence, the burden of proof is on Kant to convince us otherwise.
One might respond that Kant is employing all these terms in a nonstandard
manner. Hence he can take constitute and regulate to bear whatever sort of re-
lation to one another that he would like. Yet on the one hand, Kant says nothing
that would lead us to believe that this is what he is doing. On the other hand, merely
stipulating that he is using these terms in a nonstandard manner would not remove
the burden of proof, since there is reason not to accept such a stipulation, even were
Kant to make one. Hence the Third Argument from Analogy, at least as it stands,
fails.
Suppose, however, that Kant could somehow justify his taking constitute and
regulate to bear the relation that he needs in the contexts that he needs. There is
nevertheless a second problem with the Third Argument from Analogy, and this one
is fatal: Kant attributes to principles of reason too little influence. Recall that it is
not reason but the understanding itself that grounds the objectivity of the rules of
the understanding. As we saw above, this entails that the understanding is not an
object for reason, i.e., that the First Argument from Analogy fails. Consequently,
principles of reason would not determine rules of the understanding.
Now because sensibility is an object for the understanding, anything determining
rules of the understanding would indirectly determine objects of intuition. Yet be-
cause principles of reason do not determine rules of the understanding, principles of
reason do not indirectly determine objects. Hence they would not have objective but
indeterminate validity. And so without the First, the Third Argument from Analogy
fails.
In short, Kant has only one of two moves. On the one hand, he can secure the
objectivity of scientific investigation. But this would allow principles of reason too
much influence to safeguard the solution to the antinomies. On the other hand, he

can safeguard the solution to the antinomies. But this would allow principles of rea-
son too little influence to secure the objectivity of scientific investigation. So either
move individually would fail. Yet there is a further problem. For Kant makes both
moves, each of which formally contradicts a consequence of the other.25
Thus Kant is ultimately in the same position in which he finds himself prior to this
section of the Appendix. Assuming for the sake of argument the consistency of the
Critique up to the Appendix, Kant might disregard A 650.18A 663.10/B 678.18B
691.10 and settle for having demonstrated the objectivity of scientific laws and not
the objectivity of scientific investigation. But doing so would lead to another diffi-
culty.
Scientific investigation is essential to scientific progress. If scientific investigation
is not objective, therefore, then neither is scientific progress. Yet science has, at least
in some sense, progressed since its inception; in fact, it is the paradigm of progress.
So if scientific progress is not objective, then the status of contemporary science be-
comes precarious. At best, Kant throws into question how it obtained objectivity. At
worst, Kant throws into question that it obtained objectivity.26
Bibliography
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In: Butts, ed.: Kants Philosophy of Physical Science. Dordrecht 1986,
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Dister, John E.: Kants Regulative Ideas and the Objectivity of Reason. In: Lewis
White Beck, ed.: Proceedings of the Third International Kant Congress. Dor-
drecht 1970, pp. 262269.
25 Kant might be aware both that he cannot claim that reason constitutes rules of the under-
standing and that he needs to claim more than that it merely regulates them. For in the same
sentence (A 665.15A 666.3/B 693.15B 694.3) in which Kant says that every principle of
reason establishes the unity of the understanding, he explains that doing so does not itself
determine (or, presumably, constitute) but indicate procedures that would allow for the
unity of the understandings use in experience. And the difference between establishes and
constitutes on the one hand, and the difference between indicate and regulate on the
other, are suspiciously ambiguous.
26 Writing this paper would not have been possible were it not for Prof. John A. Reuscher.
Prof. Reuscher sparked my interest in the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic, pro-
vided invaluable commentary on an initial draft of this paper, and in the most genuine sense
taught me Kant. I am also greatly indebted to Thane Naberhaus for devils-advocating so ef-
fectively; though there might be as many (if not more!) interpretations of Kant as there are
interpreters, Naberhauss interpretation so well played counterpart to Prof. Reuschers that
I am confident that somewhere in our discussions the truth emerged. Special thanks go to
Matthew M. Konig and Michael Stannard for commenting on a penultimate draft, and to
the external reviewer for helpful suggestions. Finally I extend general appreciation to Maria
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Do Principles of Reason Have "Objective But Indeterminate Validity"?

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Do Principles of Reason Have "Objective But Indeterminate Validity"?

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Do Principles of Reason Have Objective but Indeterminate Validity?

by Nathaniel Jason Goldberg, Washington, DC

Reason is precariously positioned in the Critique of Pure Reason. In the Tran-

Kant-Studien 95. Jahrg., S. 405425

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Kant identifies three principles of reason involved in empirical science: specifi-

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7 Kemp Smith describes the situation thus:

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Yet Kant is constrained by his position in the Transcendental Dialectic to deny

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at A 650.18A 663.10/B 678.18691.10, precisely bounded by this early section of

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Hence their objectivity must permit some manner of deduction.16

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(2) Principles of reason have proved invaluable to science.

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rules of the understanding into mathematical and dynamical. Mathematical rules

18 As Friedman puts it, Kant distinguishes

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So principles of reason allow us to have an understanding, because these principles

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If principles of reason are analogues of rules of the understanding insofar as each

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Reason devises concepts of possible objects of cognition by taking rules of the

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Now Kant needs constitute to be intransitive. Otherwise he would have demon-

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Butts, Robert E.: The Methodological Structure of Kants Metaphysics of Science.

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