141. SCHOLASTICISM AND KANTIAN RELATIVISM.

 The

following is another general line of objection which would make

out the scholastic theory of knowledge to be just as deeply tinged

with subjective relativism as Kant s theory : How can the truth

of knowledge be said to be absolute and independent of sub

jective intellectual factors if the absolute necessity and univers

ality of judgments depend on the fact that the objects related in

these judgments are abstract? Is not the "abstraction" where

by intellect conceives reality in the form of " abstract " concepts

or thought-objects an intellectual function which subjectively

moulds or transforms the given extramental reality just as the

Kantian "application of the categories " does? Do not schol

astics, therefore, by teaching that the necessity and universality

of judgments are due to "abstraction," eo ipso teach that these

characteristics are imposed on the extramental reality by a sub

jective intellectual function, and are therefore due to the de facto

constitution of the intellect, which, were it otherwise constituted,

would understand or interpret the same reality otherwise than it

does ? And does not all this confirm the view that since in

all "cognition" of the extramentally real this reality must be

" mentalized " by a positive contribution of subjective or mental

factors to the " known object," this object cannot possibly be

reality as it is extramentally and independently of such con

tribution, but must always be a mental product essentially re

lative to the knowing subject? :

1 Cf. JEANNIKFK, op. cit., p. 198.

RELATIVIST THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE 229

From what was said above in reply to the first objection, in

addition to our general criticism of Kant s theory, the student

will have little difficulty in disposing of this plausible assimila

tion of the scholastic to the Kantian theory. There are very

profound and irreconcilable oppositions between the scholastic

theory of " abstraction " and the Kantian theory of the " appli

cation of the categories ". Abstraction does not add or con

tribute a positive mental product to the given extramental

reality; Kant s a priori forms do. Abstractness and consequent

universality are logical entities, " intentiones logicce" modes of

cognition, which are known to be such, and are not attributed by

the mind to the known extramental reality that forms the real

content of our concepts (75, 76); the Kantian categories, on the

contrary, are subjective, mental elements not consciously distin

guishable from the extramental reality with which they are

supposed to combine or blend for the construction or fabrication

of the mental product which is the " known object ". From the

scholastic theory that reality is known or interpreted by the

human intellect only through abstract and universal concepts

whose contents are fragmentary arid partial aspects of reality,

it follows indeed that even the fullest and truest human insight

attainable into reality is imperfect and inadequate, but never

theless that it is a genuine insight into reality in so far as the

human judgments constituting it are true ; whereas from Kant s

theory it follows that our concepts and judgments could give us

no insight whatever into reality, that it is simply an illusion

to suppose that our "knowledge" attains to reality or reveals

reality in any measure whatsoever. The scholastic theory

imposes no mental characteristics on extramental reality ;

attributes none of its own subjective modes of cognition to the

known and objective extramental reality ; and in the necessary

" mentalization " of the extramental it sees no process of mental

construction or fabrication of a mental product or tertium quid

distinct from the extramental reality, but simply a revelation,

manifestation, presentation of reality to the knowing mind,

a presentation which, however, being gradual, piecemeal, frag

mentary, demands that the presented data be represented, recon

structed, reproduced mentally, interpreted, given a meaning, by the

analytic and synthetic processes of conception, judgment and

reasoning, by which processes precisely our human understand

ing of reality is necessarily conditioned and mediated. In

230 THE OR Y O F A NO J I LED GE

Kant s theory, on the contrary, human knowing or understand

ing would consist not at all in a mental apprehension of reality,

in a revelation of reality to the mind, but in the fabrication of

a system of "objects of awareness," " phenomena " or appear

ances," by the a priori, transcendental, and therefore unknowable

co-operation of an unknowable non-Ego-r&&\\ty with an equally

unknowable Ego-rea\\X.y t which latter, without knowing either

itself or its helpmate, would be merely aware of the fabricated

product.

The differences, therefore, between the scholastic and the Kantian theories

of knowledge are fundamental in principle and far-reaching in their issues

(56). Nevertheless the existence of certain more or less remarkable parallel

isms and apparent affinities between the two theories has led to the formation

of what might perhaps be called a "right wing" among Kant s followers

themselves, and to an attempt on the part of some apologists of the Christian

Philosophy of Theism to show that Kant s philosophy is wrongly interpreted

by those who see in it the seeds of a subjectivism, relativism, scepticism,

agnosticism, utterly incompatible with any intellectually sincere and genuine

belief in God or Christianity. But apart altogether from the undeniable

historical fact that Kant s philosophy has been almost universally interpreted

in this latter sense, in which it has proved itself a disastrous solvent of

Christian faith and morals, it can easily be shown that the coincidences of

certain of Kant s doctrines with those of scholasticism are more apparent than

real. And while justice demands full recognition for all that is true in his

philosophy, as well as for the undeniable rectitude of his intentions and

sincerity of his own religious beliefs, it is certainly more charitable to warn

the student that Kant s whole system is indeed what it has been generally

interpreted to be, and what it has proved itself to be in fact, viz. a destruc

tive solvent of human certitude, than to mislead the student by forcing upon

that system an interpretation which would read into it a body of sound princi

ples which, unfortunately, are in reality alien to it. The following are the

main points urged by those who would favour such an interpretation : J

(<i) It is said, for instance, that according to Kant we have proper know

ledge only of what is found in sense intuit ion; but that scholastics also tell

us we have proper concepts only of the data of sense : Nihil est in intellectu

quod prius non fuerit in scnsii.

(/>) For Kant, all cognition the matter of which (i.e. subject and predicate)

is not sensible is knowledge only in an improper sense, and may rightly be

called faith ; but according to scholastics, similarly, suprasensible realities

can be known not properly but only analogically.

(<) According to Kant the mind has its laws of sense and intellect, laws

which it applies to things in order that these be known : in sense perception

it apprehends the given by applying to the latter the space-and-time condi

tions of its own sensibility ; and it interprets or understands sense intuitions

by subsuming and synthesizing them under the categories which intellect ap-

1 Cf. j v. : \NNIKRI;, np. fit., pp. 795-8.

RELATIVIST THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE 231

plies to them : thus forming from the extramental, according to the laws

of its own constitution, the mental domain which it comes to know. But

scholasticism likewise teaches that in all cognition the extramental must be

" mentalized " : cognitum est in cognoscente, secundum moihim cognoscen-

tis (and not secundum modiim ret) : J that the data of sense are relative to

sense : that they are in intellect, yet otherwise than in sense, being there

abstract and here concrete : that intellect understands them componendo et

dividendo, i.e. only as moulded through a system of conceptual relations im

posed upon them by intellect in the process of judgment.

(d) Kant did not regard the a priori forms and categories of cognition as

produced by, or dependent on, the individual mind : they may be interpreted

as embodied in the constitution of the mind by God. But scholastics likewise

teach that the mind has its natural modes of functioning, its forms of know

ing, with all their limitations, from the Creator.

(e) According to Kant the mind " constructs the object " which it knows ;

but this is only another way of saying that the noumenon or extramental reality

must be constructed or transposed into a phenomenon, a " something present

to the mind," an object, in order to be known. But is not scholasticism in

substantial agreement with this when it distinguishes between reality as

extramental, or in its esse reals, and the mental representation, the esse

ideale, the object present to mind and constituting the term of the mind s

awareness ?

(/) The Kantian doctrine of the Critique of Practical Reason the doctrine

of the autonomy of the will and the categorical imperative seems, indeed, the

antithesis of the ethical teaching of scholasticism. But what Kant really pro

claimed was the autonomy of the Universal Reason, not of the individual

human person. Kant s " categorical imperative " is really a dictate of the

Universal Reason, the Divine Intelligence, participated by the human intelli

gence. What Kant rejected, as incapable of ultimately grounding a moral

obligation, was an order coming from a will as such and binding us by way of

promise or threat. A promise or a threat can never ground a duty, but only

a sanction. Reason alone can bind the conscience : and ultimately the

Divine Reason. But in all this there is nothing antagonistic to, or incom

patible with, Christian Ethics. It must, however, be admitted that Kant really,

if unintentionally, pointed the way to unbelief by " relegating religion to the

domain of personal affective needs and yearnings, and confidences built

thereon, while at the same time reducing Christianity to a symbolism which

empties the Sacred Scriptures of all dogmatic content ". 2

In what we have already written the student will find the principles

which will enable him to see the futile character of these attempts to recon

cile Kantism with philosophical orthodoxy. To answer each of them ex

plicitly here would be tedious and needless repetition. We may merely

observe, with Jeanniere," that such a novel interpretation of Kantism would

sound exceedingly strange to the vast majority of his disciples ; that for them

this pretended discovery of Aristotle in Kant would be something like finding

1 Cf. ST. THOMAS, Summa Theol., I., 85, 5, ad 3, apud JEANNIERE, op. cit.,

p. 196, n. i.

2 C/. ibid., p. 197, n. 2. " Ibid., pp. 197-8.

232 THEOR Y OF KNO WLEDGE

the Koran in the Gospel of St. John ; and that anyhow it will be time enough

for us to reconsider our criticism of Kant when philosophers generally begin

to find Aristotle in his pages.

 The

following is another general line of objection which would make

out the scholastic theory of knowledge to be just as deeply tinged

with subjective relativism as Kant s theory : How can the truth

of knowledge be said to be absolute and independent of sub

jective intellectual factors if the absolute necessity and univers

ality of judgments depend on the fact that the objects related in

these judgments are abstract? Is not the "abstraction" where

by intellect conceives reality in the form of " abstract " concepts

or thought-objects an intellectual function which subjectively

moulds or transforms the given extramental reality just as the

Kantian "application of the categories " does? Do not schol

astics, therefore, by teaching that the necessity and universality

of judgments are due to "abstraction," eo ipso teach that these

characteristics are imposed on the extramental reality by a sub

jective intellectual function, and are therefore due to the de facto

constitution of the intellect, which, were it otherwise constituted,

would understand or interpret the same reality otherwise than it

does ? And does not all this confirm the view that since in

all "cognition" of the extramentally real this reality must be

" mentalized " by a positive contribution of subjective or mental

factors to the " known object," this object cannot possibly be

reality as it is extramentally and independently of such con

tribution, but must always be a mental product essentially re

lative to the knowing subject? :

1 Cf. JEANNIKFK, op. cit., p. 198.

RELATIVIST THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE 229

From what was said above in reply to the first objection, in

addition to our general criticism of Kant s theory, the student

will have little difficulty in disposing of this plausible assimila

tion of the scholastic to the Kantian theory. There are very

profound and irreconcilable oppositions between the scholastic

theory of " abstraction " and the Kantian theory of the " appli

cation of the categories ". Abstraction does not add or con

tribute a positive mental product to the given extramental

reality; Kant s a priori forms do. Abstractness and consequent

universality are logical entities, " intentiones logicce" modes of

cognition, which are known to be such, and are not attributed by

the mind to the known extramental reality that forms the real

content of our concepts (75, 76); the Kantian categories, on the

contrary, are subjective, mental elements not consciously distin

guishable from the extramental reality with which they are

supposed to combine or blend for the construction or fabrication

of the mental product which is the " known object ". From the

scholastic theory that reality is known or interpreted by the

human intellect only through abstract and universal concepts

whose contents are fragmentary arid partial aspects of reality,

it follows indeed that even the fullest and truest human insight

attainable into reality is imperfect and inadequate, but never

theless that it is a genuine insight into reality in so far as the

human judgments constituting it are true ; whereas from Kant s

theory it follows that our concepts and judgments could give us

no insight whatever into reality, that it is simply an illusion

to suppose that our "knowledge" attains to reality or reveals

reality in any measure whatsoever. The scholastic theory

imposes no mental characteristics on extramental reality ;

attributes none of its own subjective modes of cognition to the

known and objective extramental reality ; and in the necessary

" mentalization " of the extramental it sees no process of mental

construction or fabrication of a mental product or tertium quid

distinct from the extramental reality, but simply a revelation,

manifestation, presentation of reality to the knowing mind,

a presentation which, however, being gradual, piecemeal, frag

mentary, demands that the presented data be represented, recon

structed, reproduced mentally, interpreted, given a meaning, by the

analytic and synthetic processes of conception, judgment and

reasoning, by which processes precisely our human understand

ing of reality is necessarily conditioned and mediated. In

230 THE OR Y O F A NO J I LED GE

Kant s theory, on the contrary, human knowing or understand

ing would consist not at all in a mental apprehension of reality,

in a revelation of reality to the mind, but in the fabrication of

a system of "objects of awareness," " phenomena " or appear

ances," by the a priori, transcendental, and therefore unknowable

co-operation of an unknowable non-Ego-r&&\\ty with an equally

unknowable Ego-rea\\X.y t which latter, without knowing either

itself or its helpmate, would be merely aware of the fabricated

product.

The differences, therefore, between the scholastic and the Kantian theories

of knowledge are fundamental in principle and far-reaching in their issues

(56). Nevertheless the existence of certain more or less remarkable parallel

isms and apparent affinities between the two theories has led to the formation

of what might perhaps be called a "right wing" among Kant s followers

themselves, and to an attempt on the part of some apologists of the Christian

Philosophy of Theism to show that Kant s philosophy is wrongly interpreted

by those who see in it the seeds of a subjectivism, relativism, scepticism,

agnosticism, utterly incompatible with any intellectually sincere and genuine

belief in God or Christianity. But apart altogether from the undeniable

historical fact that Kant s philosophy has been almost universally interpreted

in this latter sense, in which it has proved itself a disastrous solvent of

Christian faith and morals, it can easily be shown that the coincidences of

certain of Kant s doctrines with those of scholasticism are more apparent than

real. And while justice demands full recognition for all that is true in his

philosophy, as well as for the undeniable rectitude of his intentions and

sincerity of his own religious beliefs, it is certainly more charitable to warn

the student that Kant s whole system is indeed what it has been generally

interpreted to be, and what it has proved itself to be in fact, viz. a destruc

tive solvent of human certitude, than to mislead the student by forcing upon

that system an interpretation which would read into it a body of sound princi

ples which, unfortunately, are in reality alien to it. The following are the

main points urged by those who would favour such an interpretation : J

(<i) It is said, for instance, that according to Kant we have proper know

ledge only of what is found in sense intuit ion; but that scholastics also tell

us we have proper concepts only of the data of sense : Nihil est in intellectu

quod prius non fuerit in scnsii.

(/>) For Kant, all cognition the matter of which (i.e. subject and predicate)

is not sensible is knowledge only in an improper sense, and may rightly be

called faith ; but according to scholastics, similarly, suprasensible realities

can be known not properly but only analogically.

(<) According to Kant the mind has its laws of sense and intellect, laws

which it applies to things in order that these be known : in sense perception

it apprehends the given by applying to the latter the space-and-time condi

tions of its own sensibility ; and it interprets or understands sense intuitions

by subsuming and synthesizing them under the categories which intellect ap-

1 Cf. j v. : \NNIKRI;, np. fit., pp. 795-8.

RELATIVIST THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE 231

plies to them : thus forming from the extramental, according to the laws

of its own constitution, the mental domain which it comes to know. But

scholasticism likewise teaches that in all cognition the extramental must be

" mentalized " : cognitum est in cognoscente, secundum moihim cognoscen-

tis (and not secundum modiim ret) : J that the data of sense are relative to

sense : that they are in intellect, yet otherwise than in sense, being there

abstract and here concrete : that intellect understands them componendo et

dividendo, i.e. only as moulded through a system of conceptual relations im

posed upon them by intellect in the process of judgment.

(d) Kant did not regard the a priori forms and categories of cognition as

produced by, or dependent on, the individual mind : they may be interpreted

as embodied in the constitution of the mind by God. But scholastics likewise

teach that the mind has its natural modes of functioning, its forms of know

ing, with all their limitations, from the Creator.

(e) According to Kant the mind " constructs the object " which it knows ;

but this is only another way of saying that the noumenon or extramental reality

must be constructed or transposed into a phenomenon, a " something present

to the mind," an object, in order to be known. But is not scholasticism in

substantial agreement with this when it distinguishes between reality as

extramental, or in its esse reals, and the mental representation, the esse

ideale, the object present to mind and constituting the term of the mind s

awareness ?

(/) The Kantian doctrine of the Critique of Practical Reason the doctrine

of the autonomy of the will and the categorical imperative seems, indeed, the

antithesis of the ethical teaching of scholasticism. But what Kant really pro

claimed was the autonomy of the Universal Reason, not of the individual

human person. Kant s " categorical imperative " is really a dictate of the

Universal Reason, the Divine Intelligence, participated by the human intelli

gence. What Kant rejected, as incapable of ultimately grounding a moral

obligation, was an order coming from a will as such and binding us by way of

promise or threat. A promise or a threat can never ground a duty, but only

a sanction. Reason alone can bind the conscience : and ultimately the

Divine Reason. But in all this there is nothing antagonistic to, or incom

patible with, Christian Ethics. It must, however, be admitted that Kant really,

if unintentionally, pointed the way to unbelief by " relegating religion to the

domain of personal affective needs and yearnings, and confidences built

thereon, while at the same time reducing Christianity to a symbolism which

empties the Sacred Scriptures of all dogmatic content ". 2

In what we have already written the student will find the principles

which will enable him to see the futile character of these attempts to recon

cile Kantism with philosophical orthodoxy. To answer each of them ex

plicitly here would be tedious and needless repetition. We may merely

observe, with Jeanniere," that such a novel interpretation of Kantism would

sound exceedingly strange to the vast majority of his disciples ; that for them

this pretended discovery of Aristotle in Kant would be something like finding

1 Cf. ST. THOMAS, Summa Theol., I., 85, 5, ad 3, apud JEANNIERE, op. cit.,

p. 196, n. i.

2 C/. ibid., p. 197, n. 2. " Ibid., pp. 197-8.

232 THEOR Y OF KNO WLEDGE

the Koran in the Gospel of St. John ; and that anyhow it will be time enough

for us to reconsider our criticism of Kant when philosophers generally begin

to find Aristotle in his pages.