824 IMMANUELKANT
the appearances it contains, belongs to the representations whose connection, according
to laws of experience, proves their objective truth, just as the connection of the appear-
ances of the inner sense proves the actuality of my soul (as an object of the inner sense).
By means of outer experience I am conscious of the actuality of bodies as external
appearances in space, in the same manner as by means of the inner experience I am
conscious of the existence of my soul in time; but this soul is known only as an object
of the inner sense by appearances that constitute an inner state and of which the being in
itself, which forms the basis of these appearances, is unknown. Cartesian idealism
therefore does nothing but distinguish outer experience from a dream and the confor-
mity to law (as a criterion of its truth) of the former from the irregularity and false
illusion of the latter. In both it presupposes space and time as conditions of the existence
of objects, and it only inquires whether the objects of the outer senses which we, when
awake, put in space, are as actually to be found in it as the object of the internal sense,
the soul, is in time; that is, whether experience carries with it sure criteria to distinguish
it from imagination. This doubt, however, may easily be disposed of, and we always do
so in common life by investigating the connection of appearances in both space and
time according to universal laws of experience, and we cannot doubt, when the repre-
sentation of external things throughout agrees therewith that they constitute truthful
experience. Material idealism, in which appearances are considered as such only
according to their connection in experience may accordingly be very easily refuted; and
it is just as sure an experience that bodies exist outside us (in space) as that I myself
exist according to the representation of the inner sense (in time), for the concept “out-
side us” only signifies existence in space. However, as the Ego in the proposition “I am”
means not only the object of inner intuition (in time) but the subject of consciousness,
just as body means not only outer intuition (in space) but the thing in itself which is the
basis of this appearance, then the question whether bodies (as appearances of the outer
sense) exist as bodies in nature apart from my thoughts may without any hesitation be
denied. But the question whether I myself as an appearance of the inner sense (the soul
according to empirical psychology) exist apart from my faculty of representation in
time is an exactly similar one and must likewise be answered in the negative. And in this
manner everything, when it is reduced to its true meaning, is decided and certain. The
formal (which I have also called “transcendental”) actually abolishes the material, or
Cartesian, idealism. For if space be nothing but a form of my sensibility, it is as a repre-
sentation in me just as actual as I myself am, and nothing but the empirical truth of the
appearances in it remains for consideration. But if this is not the case, if space and
the appearances in it are something existing outside us, then all the criteria of experi-
ence besides our perception can never prove the actuality of these objects outside us.II. THE COSMOLOGICAL IDEAS*§ 50. This product of pure reason in its transcendent use is its most remarkable
phenomenon. It serves as a very powerful agent to rouse philosophy from its dogmatic
slumber and to stimulate it to the arduous task of undertaking a critical examination of
reason itself.
I term this Idea cosmological because it always takes its object only in the sensi-
ble world and does not need any other world than one whose object is given to sense;
consequently it remains in this respect in its native home, does not become transcen-
dent, and is therefore so far not an Idea; whereas to conceive the soul as a simple337
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*Cf. Critique of Pure Reason,“The Antinomy of Pure Reason.”