"All-Crushing" Critic of Metaphysics 261very strong and, as this concept is formed, in certain (in fact in all common) cases
irrefutable.^48Because the deistic concept of God is vague, representing "only a thing
containing all reality, without being able to determine any one reality in
it," Kant's objection to Hume's arguments against deism does not amount
to much. Kant's opposition to Hume's critique of theism is, by compari¬
son, much stronger. He believes that the common thread of all of Hume's
arguments against theism is the charge of anthropomorphism, and thus
claims that for Hume anthropomorphism is "inseparable from theism"
and that this is what makes theism "contradictory in itself." Kant agrees that
"if this anthropomorphism were really unavoidable, no proofs whatever of
the existence of a Supreme Being, even were they all granted, could de¬
termine for us the concept of this Being without involving us in contra¬
dictions." Kant also believes that he can offer an argument that does not
depend upon anthropomorphism, and that he can therefore "make the
difficulties which seem to oppose theism disappear."^49
According to Kant, Hume has overlooked a principle that may be called
the "boundary principle." It tells us that there may be things that are
beyond experience. We should therefore not expect too much from ex¬
perience. Kant claims that experience has boundaries, and that these
boundaries cannot be found within experience itself. His talk of bound¬
aries is not easily understood, yet it goes to the very heart of his philosophy:
the distinction between appearances and things in themselves. So much is
clear for Kant: boundaries (Grenzen) are different from limits (Schranken),
for "bounds (in extended beings) always presuppose a space existing out¬
side a certain definite place and enclosing it; limits do not require this, but
are mere negations which affect a quantity insofar as it is not absolutely
complete." Kant believed that mathematics and natural philosophy allow
of limits, but not of boundaries. While we can admit that there may be
things that are inaccessible to scientific study, this has no consequence for
scientific inquiry per se, since we can never arrive at them as barriers to
further enquiry, or as something beyond which we cannot go. If a scien¬
tific question can be properly formulated, then it can, in principle, be an¬
swered. We can never say that scientific knowledge is completed, or that
nothing new can be learned about nature. Science allows of continuous
progress. This is not so for metaphysics. It has both limits and boundaries.
In fact, Kant believes that metaphysics leads us necessarily toward bound¬
aries. If we push our inquiries in metaphysics far enough, we will arrive at