object, for we have effected a synthetical unity in the manifold of the contemplation, and the conception of this unity is the representation of the object = X. But this X is not the transcendental object (i.e. the thing per se), for of that we know not even so much.”
What, then, is this object? That which the understanding adds to the appearance, a mere thought. Now, the object affects—i.e. something which is a mere thought affects. What does this mean? If I have but a spark of logic, it means simply: it affects in so far as it is; hence it is only thought as affecting. Let us now see what Kant means when he speaks about the “power to obtain representations by the manner in which objects affect us.” Since we only think the affection itself, we doubtless only think likewise that which is common to the affection. Or: if you posit an object with the thought that it has affected you, you think yourself in this case affected; and if you think that this occurs in respect to all the objects of your perception, you think yourself as liable to be affected generally—or, in other words, you ascribe to yourself, through this your thinking, receptivity or sensuousness.
But do we not thus assume, after all, affection to explain knowledge? Let me state the difference in one word: it is true, all our knowledge proceeds from an affection, but not an affection through an object. This is Kant’s doctrine, and that of the Science of Knowledge. As Mr. Beck has overlooked this important point, and as Reinhold does not call sufficient attention to that which makes the positing of a non-Ego possible, I consider it proper to explain the matter in a few words. In doing so I shall use my own terminology, and not Kant’s, because I naturally have my own more at my command.
When I posit myself, I posit myself as a limited; in consequence of the contemplation of my self-positing, I am finite.
This, my limitedness—since it is the condition which makes my self-positing possible—is an original limitedness. Somebody might wish to explain this still further, and either deduce the limitedness of myself as the reflected, from my necessary limitedness as the reflecting; which would result in the statement: I am finite to myself, because I can think only the finite;—or he might explain the limitedness of the reflecting from that of the reflected, which would result in the statement: I can think only the finite, because I am finite. But such an explanation would explain nothing, for I am originally neither the reflecting nor the reflected, but both in their union; which union I cannot think, it is true, because I separate, in thinking, the reflecting from the reflected.
All limitedness is, by its very conception, a determined, and not a general limitedness.
From the possibility of an Ego, we have thus deduced the necessity of a general limitedness of the Ego. But the determinedness of this limitedness cannot be deduced, since it is, as we have seen, that which conditions all Egoness. Here, therefore, all deduction is at an end. This determinedness appears as the absolutely accidental, and furnishes the merely empirical of our knowledge. It is this determinedncss, for instance, by virtue of which I am, amongst all possible rational beings, a man, and amongst all men this particular person, &c., &c.
This, my limitation, in its determinedness, manifests itself as a limitation of my practical power (here philosophy is therefore driven from the theoretical to the practical sphere); and the immediate perception of this limitation is a feeling (I prefer to use this word instead of Kant’s “sensation,” for feeling only becomes sensation by being related in thinking to an object); for instance, the feeling of sweet, red, cold, &c.
To forget this original feeling, leads to a bottomless transcendental idealism, and to an incomplete philosophy, which cannot explain the simply sensible predicates of objects. Now, the endeavor to explain this original feeling from the causality of a something, is the dogmatism of the Kantians, which I have just shown up, and which they would like to put on Kant’s shoulders. This, their something, is the everlasting thing per se. All transcendental explanation, on the contrary, stops at
