Kant’s distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions has peculiarities of its own, but for present purposes it may be treated as substantially identical with Hume’s distinction set out above. Similarly, the important differences between Kant and Hume about causality may be ignored, seeing that they agreed on the central point that the concept can be properly applied only within possible experience. If it is asked whether there are substantial differences between the two as critics of metaphysics, the answer must be that there are but that these turn more on temperament and attitude than on explicit doctrine. Hume was more of a genuine iconoclast; he was ready to set aside old beliefs without regret. For Kant, however, the siren song of metaphysics had not lost its charm, despite the harsh words he sometimes permitted himself on the subject. Kant approached philosophy as a strong believer in the powers of reason; he never abandoned his conviction that some of man’s concepts are a priori, and he argued at length that the idea of the unconditioned, though lacking constitutive force, had an all-important part to play in regulating the operations of the understanding. His distinction between phenomena and noumena, objects of the senses and objects of the intelligence, is in theory a matter of conceptual possibilities only; he said that, just as one comes to think of things sensible as phenomena, so one can form the idea of a world that is not the object of any kind of sense experience. It seems clear, however, that he went beyond this in his private thinking; the noumenal realm, so far from being a bare possibility invoked as a contrast with the realm that is actually known, was there thought of as a genuine reality that had its effects in the sense world, in the shape of moral scruples and feelings. A comparison of what was said in Kant’s early essay Träume eines Geistersehers erläutert durch Träume der Metaphysik (1766; Dreams of a Spirit-Seer), with the arguments developed in the last part of his Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (1785; Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals), would seem to put this judgment beyond serious doubt.
Though Kant remained convinced of the existence of things supersensible, he, nonetheless, maintained throughout his critical writings that there can be no knowledge of them. There can be no science of metaphysics because, to be true to fact, thinking must be grounded in acquaintance with particulars, and the only particulars with which human beings are acquainted are those given in sense. Nor was this all. Attempts to construct metaphysical systems were constantly being made; philosophers repeatedly offered arguments to show that there must be a first cause, that the world must consist of simple parts, that it must have a limit in space, and so on. Kant thought that all such attempts could be ruled out of court once and for all by the simple expedient of showing that for every such proof there was an equally plausible counterproof; each metaphysical thesis, at least in the sphere of cosmology—i.e., the branch of metaphysics that deals with the universe as an orderly system—could be matched with a precise antithesis whose grounds seemed just as secure, thus giving rise to a condition that he called “the antinomy of pure reason.” Kant said of this antinomy that “nature itself seems to have arranged it to make reason stop short in its bold pretensions and to compel it to self-examination.” Admittedly, the self-examination led to more than one result: it showed on the one hand that there could be no knowledge of the unconditioned and demonstrated on the other that the familiar world of things in space and time is a mere phenomenon, thus—to Kant—clearing the way to a doctrine of moral belief. Though this doctrine could not be expunged from Kant’s philosophy without destroying it altogether, it is quite wrong to present it, as some modern German writers do, as amounting to the advocacy of an alternative metaphysics. What Kant was concerned with here is what must be thought, not what can be known. Logical Positivists
Despite what has just been said, it must be admitted that Kant’s constant talk about the supersensible makes many critics of metaphysics regard him as a dubious ally. This was certainly true in the case of the Logical Positivists, the philosophical school that has attacked metaphysical speculation most sharply in the 20th century. The Positivists derived their name from the “positive” philosophy of Auguste Comte, a 19th-century Frenchman who had represented metaphysical thought as a necessary but now superseded stage in the progression of the human mind from primitive superstition to modern science. Like Comte, the Logical Positivists thought of themselves as advocates of the cause of science; unlike Comte, they took up an attitude toward metaphysics that was uniformly hostile. The external reason for this was to be found in the philosophical atmosphere in the German-speaking world in the years following World War I, an atmosphere that seemed to a group of thinkers known as the Vienna Circle to favour obscurantism and impede rational thought. But there were, of course, internal reasons as well.
Auguste Comte, drawing by Tony Toullion, 19th century; in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.H. Roger-Viollet
According to the Positivists, meaningful statements can be divided into two kinds, those that are analytically true or false and those that express or purport to express matters of material fact. The propositions of logic and mathematics exemplify the first class, those of history and the natural and social sciences the second. To decide whether a sentence that purports to state a fact is meaningful, one must ask what would count for or against its truth; if the answer is “nothing,” it cannot have meaning, or at least not in that way. Thus, they adopted the slogan that the meaning of a (nonanalytic) statement is the method of its verification. It was this verification principle that the Positivists used as their main weapon in their attacks on metaphysics. Taking as their examples statements from actual metaphysical texts—statements such as “The Absolute has no history” and “God exists”—they asked first if they were supposed to be analytically or synthetically true, and then, after dismissing the first alternative, asked what could be adduced as evidence in their favour or against them. Many metaphysicians, of course, claimed that there was empirical support for their speculative conclusions; thus, as even Hume said, “the order of the universe proves an omnipotent mind.” The very same writers, however, proved strangely reluctant to withdraw their claims in the face of unfavourable evidence; they behaved as if no fact of any kind could count against their contentions. It followed, said the Positivists, that the theses in which they were interested were compatible with any facts whatsoever and thus were entirely lacking in significance. An analytic proposition, such as “It either will or will not rain tomorrow,” tells nothing, though there may be a point in giving voice to it. A metaphysical proposition claims to be very different; it purports to reveal an all-important truth about the world. But it is no more informative than a bare tautology, and, if there is a point in putting it forward, it has to do with the emotions rather than the understanding.
In point of fact, the Positivists experienced great difficulty in devising a satisfactory formulation of their verification principle, to say nothing of a satisfactory account of the principle’s own status. In the early days of the movement the demand for verifiability was interpreted strictly: only what could be conclusively verified could be significant. This had the effect of showing that statements about the past and propositions of unrestricted generality, to take only two instances, must be without meaning. Later a move was made toward understanding verifiability in a weak sense: a statement was meaningful if any observations bore on its truth. According to A.J. Ayer, an English disciple of the Vienna Circle, writing in 1936,