"All-Crushing" Critic of Metaphysics 259egories "as mere logical functions," which "can represent a thing in gen¬
eral... [or] noumena, or pure beings of the understanding (better, beings
of thought)."^41 Just because these ideas are products of thinking, they
cannot be incomprehensible. They are principles that allow us to achieve
completeness and synthetic unity in experience. The first Critique had
proved just this (at least according to Kant).
In the Conclusion, Kant argues that "Hume's principle," that is, the
admonition " 'not to carry the use of reason dogmatically beyond the field
of all possible experience,' should be combined with another "principle,
which he [Hume] quite overlooked, 'not to consider the field of experience
as one which bounds itself in the eyes of our reason.'" He further claims
that, since his first Critique effects just such a combination, it "here points
out the true mean between dogmatism, which Hume combats, and skep¬
ticism, which he would substitute for it."^42 Kant endorses here what may
be taken to be the outcome of Hume's "mitigated" or "consequent" skep¬
ticism. Although Hume's principle needs to be complemented in ways that
bring him into conflict with Hume, Kant nonetheless accepts Hume's
principle.
The formulation "not to carry the use of reason dogmatically beyond
the field of all possible experience" is very Kantian and very un-Humean,
and this is not just a matter of style. Where Kant speaks of "possible ex¬
perience," Hume would have spoken of "the usual course of experience"
or "what actually has been experienced." So it might be said that Kant's
interpretation of "Hume's principle" distorts Hume. It is clear, though,
that Kant believes that this principle sums up an important aspect of
Hume. Furthermore, it is a fair rendition of Hume's systematic intention
as expressed in a great number of passages that are meant to criticize that
"considerable part of metaphysics" that is "not properly a science, but...
which would penetrate into subjects utterly inaccessible to the understand¬
ing ..." and that present arguments for the cultivation of "true meta¬
physics ... in order to destroy the false and adulterate."^43 It is more than
clear that Hume believes that he has shown that we cannot go beyond expe¬
rience. Because "we can go beyond the evidence of our memory and senses"
only by means of the relation of cause and effect, and because this relation
itself "arises entirely from experience," all arguments in moral, political,
and physical subjects that are "supposed to be the mere effects of reason¬
ing and reflection... will be found to terminate, at last, in some general
principle or conclusion, for which we can assign no reason but observa¬
tion and experience."^44 For Hume, the principle that "all the philosophy