248 Kant: A Biographythe antithesis, and therefore ultimately neither. Reason cannot demonstrate
what it claims to know. Traditional metaphysics must therefore be consid¬
ered a failure.
Kant follows a similar strategy in the three other antinomies, believing
he can prove in this way that rational cosmology in its entirety amounts to
nothing but "dialectical play." Strangely enough, however, he does not
think that this proves that this kind of cosmology is useless. There may be
no ultimate answer to such metaphysical problems, yet these problems
arise inevitably from the principles of knowledge. Just as there are certain
perceptual illusions that are unavoidable, so there are these rational illu¬
sions. As the very first sentence of the Critique states: "Human reason has
the peculiar fate in one species of its cognitions that it is burdened with
questions which it cannot dismiss, since they are given to it as problems
by the nature of reason itself, but which it also cannot answer, since they
transcend every capacity of reason" (Avii). These questions are bound up
with the very essence of finite rationality and therefore also with our own
nature. We cannot help asking these questions, and we need to search for
their answers. Reason has an inevitable interest in them. Furthermore, the
totality of the theses constitutes a coherent position, and the totality of the
antitheses constitutes another coherent position. Kant calls the former
"the dogmatism of pure reason" and the latter "the principle of pure
empiricism." His sympathies ultimately seem to lie with the dogmatic
position. Empiricism is an unsatisfying position, therefore it can never be
popular. It is in reason's interest and our own that the theses be true. For
each thesis, we are better off if we believe that the position presented by
the thesis is true, and that the position expressed by the antithesis is false.
That is, according to Kant, the reason why we should believe in the dog¬
matic position. No more, no less.
The same may be said about the results of his discussion of God in the
Ideal of Pure Reason. We must assume that God exists, but we cannot
possibly prove it. Kant's arguments are original and convincing. His cri¬
tique of the traditional proofs of the existence of God are perhaps the most
persuasive part of the first Critique. Looking first at the ontological proof
of the existence of God, Kant argues that existence is not a real predicate,
and that therefore any attempt to prove God's existence from the idea that
he possesses the perfection of existence is bound to fail. Conceptually, there
is no difference between an imagined hundred dollar bill and a real one. It
is just that the imagined one will not purchase anything. An imagined per¬
fect being has no purchasing power either.