§36How is Nature itself possible?
This question—the highest point that transcendental philosophy can ever reach, and to which, as its boundary and completion, it must proceed—properly contains two questions.
First: How is nature at all possible in the material sense, by intuition, considered as the totality of appearances; how are space, time, and that which fills both—the object of sensation, in general possible? The answer is: By means of the constitution of our Sensibility, according to which it is specifically affected by objects, which are in themselves unknown to it, and totally distinct from those phenomena. This answer is given in the Critique itself in the transcendental Aesthetic, and in these Prolegomena by the solution of the first general problem.
Secondly: How is nature possible in the formal sense, as the totality of the rules, under which all phenomena must come, in order to be thought as connected in experience? The answer must be this: It is only possible by means of the constitution of our Understanding, according to which all the above representations of the sensibility are necessarily referred to a consciousness, and by which the peculiar way in which we think (viz., by rules), and hence experience also, are possible, but must be clearly distinguished from an insight into the objects in themselves. This answer is given in the Critique itself in the transcendental Logic, and in these Prolegomena, in the course of the solution of the second main problem.
But how this peculiar property of our sensibility itself is possible, or that of our understanding and of the apperception which is necessarily its basis and that of all thinking, cannot be further analysed or answered, because it is of them that we are in need for all our answers and for all our thinking about objects.
There are many laws of nature, which we can only know by means of experience; but conformity to law in the connexion of appearances, i.e., in nature in general, we cannot discover by any experience, because experience itself requires laws which are a priori at the basis of its possibility.
The possibility of experience in general is therefore at the same time the universal law of nature, and the principles of the experience are the very laws of nature. For we do not know nature but as the totality of appearances, i.e., of representations in us, and hence we can only derive the laws of its connexion from the principles of their connexion in us, that is, from the conditions of their necessary union in consciousness, which constitutes the possibility of experience.
Even the main proposition expounded throughout this section—that universal laws of nature can be distinctly cognised a priori—leads naturally to the proposition: that the highest legislation of nature must lie in ourselves, i.e., in our understanding, and that we must not seek the universal laws of nature in nature by means of experience, but conversely must seek nature, as to its universal conformity to law, in the conditions of the possibility of experience, which lie in our sensibility and in our understanding. For how were it otherwise possible to know a priori these laws, as they are not rules of analytical cognition, but truly synthetical extensions of it?
Such a necessary agreement of the principles of possible experience with the laws of the possibility of nature, can only proceed from one of two reasons: either these laws are drawn from nature by means of experience, or conversely nature is derived from the laws of the possibility of experience in general, and is quite the same as the mere universal conformity to law of the latter. The former is self-contradictory, for the universal laws of nature can and must be cognised a priori (that is, independent of all experience), and be the foundation of all empirical use of the understanding; the latter alternative therefore alone remains.{21}
=================================== {21} Crusius alone thought of a compromise: that a Spirit, who can neither err nor deceive, implanted these laws in us originally. But since false principles often intrude themselves, as indeed the very system of this man shows in not a few examples, we are involved in difficulties as to the use of such a principle in the absence of sure criteria to distinguish the genuine origin from the spurious, as we never can know certainly what the Spirit of truth or the father of lies may have instilled into us. ===================================
But we must distinguish the empirical laws of nature, which always presuppose particular perceptions, from the pure or universal laws of nature, which, without being based on particular perceptions, contain merely the conditions of their necessary union in experience. In relation to the latter, nature and possible experience are quite the same, and as the conformity to law here depends upon the necessary connexion of appearances in experience (without which we cannot cognise any object whatever in the sensible world), consequently upon the original laws of the understanding, it seems at first strange, but is not the less certain, to say:
The understanding does not derive its laws (a priori) from, but prescribes them to, nature.
§37We shall illustrate this seemingly bold proposition by an example, which will show, that laws, which we discover in objects of sensuous intuition (especially when these laws are cognised as necessary), are commonly held by us to be such as have been placed there by the understanding, in spite of their being similar in all points to the laws of nature, which we ascribe to experience.
§38If we consider the properties of the circle, by which this figure combines so many arbitrary determinations of space in itself, at once in a universal rule, we cannot avoid attributing a constitution (eine Natur) to this geometrical thing. Two right lines, for example, which intersect one another and the circle, howsoever they may be drawn, are always divided so that the rectangle constructed with the segments of the one is equal to that constructed with the segments of the other. The question now is: Does this law lie in the circle or in the understanding, that is, Does this figure, independently of the understanding, contain in itself the ground of the law, or does the understanding, having constructed according to its concepts (according to the quality of the radii) the figure itself, introduce into it this law of the chords cutting one another in geometrical proportion? When we follow the proofs of this law, we soon perceive, that it can only be derived from the condition on which the understanding founds the construction of this figure, and which is that of the equality of the radii. But, if we enlarge this concept, to pursue further the unity of various properties of geometrical figures under common laws, and consider the circle as a conic section, which of course is subject to the same fundamental conditions of construction as other conic sections, we shall find that all the chords which intersect within the ellipse, parabola, and hyperbola, always intersect so that the rectangles of their segments are not indeed equal, but always bear a constant ratio to one another. If we proceed still farther, to the fundamental laws of physical astronomy, we find a physical law of reciprocal attraction diffused over all material nature, the rule of which is: "that it decreases inversely as the square of the distance from each attracting point, i.e., as the spherical surfaces increase, over which this force spreads," which law seems to be necessarily inherent in the very nature of things, and hence is usually propounded as cognisable a priori. Simple as the sources of this law are, merely resting upon the relation of spherical surfaces of different radii, its consequences are so valuable with regard to the variety of their agreement and its regularity, that not only are all possible orbits of the celestial bodies conic sections, but such a relation of these orbits to each other results, that no other law of attraction, than that of the inverse square of the distance, can be imagined as fit for a cosmical system.
Here accordingly is a nature that rests upon laws which the understanding cognises a priori, and chiefly from the universal principles of the determination of space. Now I ask:
Do the laws of nature lie in space, and does the understanding learn them by merely endeavoring to find out the enormous wealth of meaning that lies in space; or do they inhere in the understanding and in the way in which it determines space according to the conditions of the synthetical unity in which its concepts are all centred?
Space is something so uniform and as to all particular properties so indeterminate, that we should certainly not seek a store of laws of nature in it. Whereas that which determines space to assume the form of a circle or the figures of a cone and a sphere, is the understanding, so far as it contains the ground of the unity of their constructions.
The mere universal form of intuition, called space, must therefore be the substratum of all intuitions determinable to particular objects, and in it of course the condition of the possibility and of the variety of these intuitions lies. But the unity of the objects is entirely determined by the understanding, and on conditions which lie in its own nature; and thus the understanding is the origin of the universal order of nature, in that it comprehends all appearances under its own laws, and thereby first constructs, a priori, experience (as to its form), by means of which whatever is to be cognised only by experience, is necessarily subjected to its laws. For we are not now concerned with the nature of things in themselves, which is independent of the conditions both of our sensibility and our understanding, but with nature, as an object of possible experience, and in this case the understanding, whilst it makes experience possible, thereby insists that the sensuous world is either not an object of experience at all, or must be nature [viz., an existence of things, determined according to universal laws{22}].
=================================== {22} The definition of nature is given in the beginning of the Second Part of the "Transcendental Problem," in § 14. ===================================
How is Nature itself possible?
This question—the highest point that transcendental philosophy can ever reach, and to which, as its boundary and completion, it must proceed—properly contains two questions.
First: How is nature at all possible in the material sense, by intuition, considered as the totality of appearances; how are space, time, and that which fills both—the object of sensation, in general possible? The answer is: By means of the constitution of our Sensibility, according to which it is specifically affected by objects, which are in themselves unknown to it, and totally distinct from those phenomena. This answer is given in the Critique itself in the transcendental Aesthetic, and in these Prolegomena by the solution of the first general problem.
Secondly: How is nature possible in the formal sense, as the totality of the rules, under which all phenomena must come, in order to be thought as connected in experience? The answer must be this: It is only possible by means of the constitution of our Understanding, according to which all the above representations of the sensibility are necessarily referred to a consciousness, and by which the peculiar way in which we think (viz., by rules), and hence experience also, are possible, but must be clearly distinguished from an insight into the objects in themselves. This answer is given in the Critique itself in the transcendental Logic, and in these Prolegomena, in the course of the solution of the second main problem.
But how this peculiar property of our sensibility itself is possible, or that of our understanding and of the apperception which is necessarily its basis and that of all thinking, cannot be further analysed or answered, because it is of them that we are in need for all our answers and for all our thinking about objects.
There are many laws of nature, which we can only know by means of experience; but conformity to law in the connexion of appearances, i.e., in nature in general, we cannot discover by any experience, because experience itself requires laws which are a priori at the basis of its possibility.
The possibility of experience in general is therefore at the same time the universal law of nature, and the principles of the experience are the very laws of nature. For we do not know nature but as the totality of appearances, i.e., of representations in us, and hence we can only derive the laws of its connexion from the principles of their connexion in us, that is, from the conditions of their necessary union in consciousness, which constitutes the possibility of experience.
Even the main proposition expounded throughout this section—that universal laws of nature can be distinctly cognised a priori—leads naturally to the proposition: that the highest legislation of nature must lie in ourselves, i.e., in our understanding, and that we must not seek the universal laws of nature in nature by means of experience, but conversely must seek nature, as to its universal conformity to law, in the conditions of the possibility of experience, which lie in our sensibility and in our understanding. For how were it otherwise possible to know a priori these laws, as they are not rules of analytical cognition, but truly synthetical extensions of it?
Such a necessary agreement of the principles of possible experience with the laws of the possibility of nature, can only proceed from one of two reasons: either these laws are drawn from nature by means of experience, or conversely nature is derived from the laws of the possibility of experience in general, and is quite the same as the mere universal conformity to law of the latter. The former is self-contradictory, for the universal laws of nature can and must be cognised a priori (that is, independent of all experience), and be the foundation of all empirical use of the understanding; the latter alternative therefore alone remains.{21}
=================================== {21} Crusius alone thought of a compromise: that a Spirit, who can neither err nor deceive, implanted these laws in us originally. But since false principles often intrude themselves, as indeed the very system of this man shows in not a few examples, we are involved in difficulties as to the use of such a principle in the absence of sure criteria to distinguish the genuine origin from the spurious, as we never can know certainly what the Spirit of truth or the father of lies may have instilled into us. ===================================
But we must distinguish the empirical laws of nature, which always presuppose particular perceptions, from the pure or universal laws of nature, which, without being based on particular perceptions, contain merely the conditions of their necessary union in experience. In relation to the latter, nature and possible experience are quite the same, and as the conformity to law here depends upon the necessary connexion of appearances in experience (without which we cannot cognise any object whatever in the sensible world), consequently upon the original laws of the understanding, it seems at first strange, but is not the less certain, to say:
The understanding does not derive its laws (a priori) from, but prescribes them to, nature.
Diese Frage, welche der höchste Punkt ist, den transzendentale Philosophie nur immer berühren mag, und zu welchem sie auch, als ihrer Grenze und Vollendung, geführt werden muß, enthält eigentlich zwei Fragen.
Erstlich: Wie ist Natur inmateriellerBedeutung, nämlich der Anschauung nach, als der Inbegriff der Erscheinungen, wie ist Raum, Zeit, und das, was beide erfüllt, der Gegenstand der Empfindung, überhaupt möglich? Die Antwort ist: vermittelst der Beschaffenheit unserer Sinnlichkeit, nach welcher sie, auf die ihr eigentümliche Art, von Gegenständen, die ihr an sich selbst unbekannt, und von jenen Erscheinungen ganz unterschieden sind, gerührt wird. Diese Beantwortung ist, in dem Buche selbst, in der transzendentalen Ästhetik, hier aber in den Prolegomenen durch die Auflösung der ersten Hauptfrage gegeben worden.
Zweitens: Wie ist Natur in formeller Bedeutung, als der Inbegriff der Regeln, unter denen alle Erscheinungen stehen müssen, wenn sie in einer Erfahrung als verknüpft gedacht werden sollen, möglich? Die Antwort kann nicht anders ausfallen, als: sie ist nur möglich vermittelst der Beschaffenheit unseres Verstandes, nach welcher alle jene Vorstellungen der Sinnlichkeit auf ein Bewußtsein notwendig bezogen werden, und wodurch allererst die eigentümliche Art unseres Denkens, nämlich durch Regeln, und vermittelst dieser die Erfahrung, welche von der Einsicht der Objekte an sich selbst ganz zu unterscheiden ist, möglich ist. Diese Beantwortung ist, in dem Buche selbst, in der transzendentalen Logik, hier aber, in den Prolegomenen, in dem Verlauf der Auflösung der zweiten Hauptfrage gegeben worden.
Wie aber diese eigentümliche Eigenschaft unsrer Sinnlichkeit selbst, oder die unseres Verstandes und der ihm und allem Denken zum Grunde liegenden notwendigen Apperzeption, möglich sei, läßt sich nicht weiter auflösen und beantworten, weil wir ihrer zu aller Beantwortung und zu allem Denken der Gegenstände immer wieder nötig haben.
Es sind viele Gesetze der Natur, die wir nur vermittelst der Erfahrung wissen können, aber die Gesetzmäßigkeit in Verknüpfung der Erscheinungen, d.i. die Natur überhaupt, können wir durch keine Erfahrung kennen lernen, weil Erfahrung selbst solcher Gesetze bedarf, die ihrer Möglichkeit a priori zum Grunde liegen.
Die Möglichkeit der Erfahrung überhaupt ist also zugleich das allgemeine Gesetz der Natur, und die Grundsätze der erstern sind selbst die Gesetze der letztern. Denn wir kennen Natur nicht anders, als den Inbegriff der Erscheinungen, d.i. der Vorstellungen in uns, und können daher das Gesetz ihrer Verknüpfung nirgend anders, als von den Grundsätzen der Verknüpfung derselben in uns, d.i. den Bedingungen der notwendigen Vereinigung in einem Bewußtsein, welche die Möglichkeit der Erfahrung ausmacht, hernehmen.
Selbst der Hauptsatz, der durch diesen ganzen Abschnitt ausgeführt worden, daß allgemeine Naturgesetze a priori erkannt werden können, führt schon von selbst auf den Satz: daß die oberste Gesetzgebung der Natur in uns selbst, d.i. in unserm Verstande liegen müsse, und daß wir die allgemeinen Gesetze derselben nicht von der Natur vermittelst der Erfahrung, sondern umgekehrt die Natur, ihrer allgemeinen Gesetzmäßigkeit nach, bloß aus den in unserer Sinnlichkeit und dem Verstande liegenden Bedingungen der Möglichkeit der Erfahrung suchen müssen; denn wie wäre es sonst möglich, diese Gesetze, da sie nicht etwa Regeln der analytischen Erkenntnis, sondern wahrhafte synthetische Erweiterungen derselben sind, a priori zu kennen? Eine solche und zwar notwendige Übereinstimmung der Prinzipien möglicher Erfahrung mit den Gesetzen der Möglichkeit der Natur kann nur aus zweierlei Ursachen stattfinden: entweder diese Gesetze werden von der Natur vermittelst der Erfahrung entlehnt, oder umgekehrt die Natur wird von den Gesetzen der Möglichkeit der Erfahrung überhaupt abgeleitet, und ist mit der bloßen allgemeinen Gesetzmäßigkeit der letzteren völlig einerlei. Das erstere widerspricht sich selbst, denn die allgemeinen Naturgesetze können und müssen a priori (d.i. unabhängig von aller Erfahrung) erkannt, und allem empirischen Gebrauche des Verstandes zum Grunde gelegt werden, also bleibt nur das zweite übrig.12
Wir müssen aber empirische Gesetze der Natur, die jederzeit besondere Wahrnehmungen voraussetzen, von den reinen, oder allgemeinen Naturgesetzen, welche, ohne daß besondere Wahrnehmungen zum Grunde liegen, bloß die Bedingungen ihrer notwendigen Vereinigung in einer Erfahrung enthalten, unterscheiden, und in Ansehung der letztern ist Natur undmöglicheErfahrung ganz und gar einerlei, und, da in dieser die Gesetzmäßigkeit auf der notwendigen Verknüpfung der Erscheinungen in einer Erfahrung (ohne welche wir ganz und gar keinen Gegenstand der Sinnenwelt erkennen können), mithin auf den ursprünglichen Gesetzen des Verstandes beruht, so klingt es zwar anfangs befremdlich, ist aber nichts desto weniger gewiß, wenn ich in Ansehung der letztern sage:der Verstand schöpft seine Gesetze(a priori)nicht aus der Natur, sondern schreibt sie dieser vor.
We shall illustrate this seemingly bold proposition by an example, which will show, that laws, which we discover in objects of sensuous intuition (especially when these laws are cognised as necessary), are commonly held by us to be such as have been placed there by the understanding, in spite of their being similar in all points to the laws of nature, which we ascribe to experience.
Wir wollen diesen dem Anscheine nach gewagten Satz durch ein Beispiel erläutern, welches zeigen soll: daß Gesetze, die wir an Gegenständen der sinnlichen Anschauung entdecken, vornehmlich wenn sie als notwendig erkannt worden, von uns selbst schon vor solche gehalten werden, die der Verstand hinein gelegt, ob sie gleich den Naturgesetzen, die wir der Erfahrung zuschreiben, sonst in allen Stücken ähnlich sind.
If we consider the properties of the circle, by which this figure combines so many arbitrary determinations of space in itself, at once in a universal rule, we cannot avoid attributing a constitution (eine Natur) to this geometrical thing. Two right lines, for example, which intersect one another and the circle, howsoever they may be drawn, are always divided so that the rectangle constructed with the segments of the one is equal to that constructed with the segments of the other. The question now is: Does this law lie in the circle or in the understanding, that is, Does this figure, independently of the understanding, contain in itself the ground of the law, or does the understanding, having constructed according to its concepts (according to the quality of the radii) the figure itself, introduce into it this law of the chords cutting one another in geometrical proportion? When we follow the proofs of this law, we soon perceive, that it can only be derived from the condition on which the understanding founds the construction of this figure, and which is that of the equality of the radii. But, if we enlarge this concept, to pursue further the unity of various properties of geometrical figures under common laws, and consider the circle as a conic section, which of course is subject to the same fundamental conditions of construction as other conic sections, we shall find that all the chords which intersect within the ellipse, parabola, and hyperbola, always intersect so that the rectangles of their segments are not indeed equal, but always bear a constant ratio to one another. If we proceed still farther, to the fundamental laws of physical astronomy, we find a physical law of reciprocal attraction diffused over all material nature, the rule of which is: "that it decreases inversely as the square of the distance from each attracting point, i.e., as the spherical surfaces increase, over which this force spreads," which law seems to be necessarily inherent in the very nature of things, and hence is usually propounded as cognisable a priori. Simple as the sources of this law are, merely resting upon the relation of spherical surfaces of different radii, its consequences are so valuable with regard to the variety of their agreement and its regularity, that not only are all possible orbits of the celestial bodies conic sections, but such a relation of these orbits to each other results, that no other law of attraction, than that of the inverse square of the distance, can be imagined as fit for a cosmical system.
Here accordingly is a nature that rests upon laws which the understanding cognises a priori, and chiefly from the universal principles of the determination of space. Now I ask:
Do the laws of nature lie in space, and does the understanding learn them by merely endeavoring to find out the enormous wealth of meaning that lies in space; or do they inhere in the understanding and in the way in which it determines space according to the conditions of the synthetical unity in which its concepts are all centred?
Space is something so uniform and as to all particular properties so indeterminate, that we should certainly not seek a store of laws of nature in it. Whereas that which determines space to assume the form of a circle or the figures of a cone and a sphere, is the understanding, so far as it contains the ground of the unity of their constructions.
The mere universal form of intuition, called space, must therefore be the substratum of all intuitions determinable to particular objects, and in it of course the condition of the possibility and of the variety of these intuitions lies. But the unity of the objects is entirely determined by the understanding, and on conditions which lie in its own nature; and thus the understanding is the origin of the universal order of nature, in that it comprehends all appearances under its own laws, and thereby first constructs, a priori, experience (as to its form), by means of which whatever is to be cognised only by experience, is necessarily subjected to its laws. For we are not now concerned with the nature of things in themselves, which is independent of the conditions both of our sensibility and our understanding, but with nature, as an object of possible experience, and in this case the understanding, whilst it makes experience possible, thereby insists that the sensuous world is either not an object of experience at all, or must be nature [viz., an existence of things, determined according to universal laws{22}].
=================================== {22} The definition of nature is given in the beginning of the Second Part of the "Transcendental Problem," in § 14. ===================================
Wenn man die Eigenschaften des Zirkels betrachtet, dadurch diese Figur so manche willkürliche Bestimmungen, des Raums in ihr, so fort in einer allgemeinen Regel vereinigt, so kann man nicht umhin, diesem geometrischen Dinge eine Natur beizulegen. So teilen sich nämlich zwei Linien, die sich einander und zugleich den Zirkel schneiden, nach welchem Ohngefähr sie auch gezogen werden, doch jederzeit so regelmäßig: daß das Rektangel aus den Stücken einer jeden Linie dem der andern gleich ist. Nun frage ich: »liegt dieses Gesetz im Zirkel, oder liegt es im Verstande«, d.i. enthält diese Figur, unabhängig vom Verstande, den Grund dieses Gesetzes in sich, oder legt der Verstand, indem er nach seinen Begriffen (nämlich der Gleichheit der Halbmesser) die Figur selbst konstruiert hat, zugleich das Gesetz der einander in geometrischer Proportion schneidenden Sehnen in dieselbe hinein? Man wird bald gewahr, wenn man den Beweisen dieses Gesetzes nachgeht, daß es allein von der Bedingung, die der Verstand der Konstruktion dieser Figur zum Grunde legte, nämlich der Gleichheit der Halbmesser könne abgeleitet werden. Erweitern wir diesen Begriff nun, die Einheit mannigfaltiger Eigenschaften geometrischer Figuren unter gemeinschaftlichen Gesetzen noch weiter zu verfolgen, und betrachten den Zirkel als einen Kegelschnitt, der also mit andern Kegelschnitten unter eben denselben Grundbedingungen der Konstruktion steht, so finden wir, daß alle Sehnen, die sich innerhalb der letztern, der Ellipse, der Parabel und Hyperbel schneiden, es jederzeit so tun, daß die Rektangel aus ihren Teilen zwar nicht gleich, aber doch immer in gleichen Verhältnissen gegen einander stehen. Gehen wir von da noch weiter, nämlich zu den Grundlehren der physischen Astronomie, so zeigt sich ein über die ganze materielle Natur verbreitetes physisches Gesetz der wechselseitigen Attraktion, deren Regel ist, daß sie umgekehrt mit dem Quadrat der Entfernungen von jedem anziehenden Punkt eben so abnehmen, wie die Kugelflächen, in die sich diese Kraft verbreitet, zunehmen, welches als notwendig in der Natur der Dinge selbst zu liegen scheint, und daher auch als a priori erkennbar vorgetragen zu werden pflegt. So einfach nun auch die Quellen dieses Gesetzes sein, indem sie bloß auf dem Verhältnisse der Kugelfläche von verschiedenen Halbmessern beruhen, so ist doch die Folge davon so vortrefflich in Ansehung der Mannigfaltigkeit ihrer Zusammenstimmung und Regelmäßigkeit derselben, daß nicht allein alle mögliche Bahnen der Himmelskörper in Kegelschnitten, sondern auch ein solches Verhältnis derselben unter einander erfolgt, daß kein ander Gesetz der Attraktion, als das des umgekehrten Quadratverhältnisses der Entfernungen zu einem Weltsystem als schicklich erdacht werden kann.
Hier ist also Natur, die auf Gesetzen beruht, welche der Verstand a priori erkennt, und zwar vornehmlich aus allgemeinen Prinzipien der Bestimmung des Raums. Nun frage ich: liegen diese Naturgesetze im Raume, und lernt sie der Verstand, indem er den reichhaltigen Sinn, der in jenem liegt, bloß zu erforschen sucht, oder liegen sie im Verstande und in der Art, wie dieser den Raum nach den Bedingungen der synthetischen Einheit, darauf seine Begriffe insgesamt auslaufen, bestimmt? Der Raum ist etwas so Gleichförmiges und in Ansehung aller besondern Eigenschaften so Unbestimmtes, daß man in ihm gewiß keinen Schatz von Naturgesetzen suchen wird. Dagegen ist das, was den Raum zur Zirkelgestalt, der Figur des Kegels und der Kugel bestimmt, der Verstand, so fern er den Grund der Einheit der Konstruktion derselben enthält. Die bloße allgemeine Form der Anschauung, die Raum heißt, ist also wohl das Substratum aller auf besondere Objekte bestimmbaren Anschauungen, und in jenem liegt freilich die Bedingung der Möglichkeit und Mannigfaltigkeit der letztern; aber die Einheit der Objekte wird doch lediglich durch den Verstand bestimmt, und zwar nach Bedingungen, die in seiner eigenen Natur liegen, und so ist der Verstand der Ursprung der allgemeinen Ordnung der Natur, indem er alle Erscheinungen unter seine eigene Gesetze faßt, und dadurch allererst Erfahrung (ihrer Form nach) a priori zu Stande bringt, vermöge deren alles, was nur durch Erfahrung erkannt werden soll, seinen Gesetzen notwendig unterworfen wird. Denn wir haben es nicht mit der Naturder Dinge an sich selbstzu tun, die ist sowohl von Bedingungen unserer Sinnlichkeit als des Verstandes unabhängig, sondern mit der Natur, als einem Gegenstande möglicher Erfahrung, und da macht es der Verstand, indem er diese möglich macht, zugleich, daß Sinnenwelt entweder gar kein Gegenstand der Erfahrung oder eine Natur ist.
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Diderot, Denis
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In einem belebten Café plaudert der Neffe des bekannten Komponisten Rameau mit dem Erzähler über die unauflösliche Widersprüchlichkeit von Individuum und Gesellschaft, von Kunst und Moral. Der Text erschien zuerst 1805 in der deutschen Übersetzung von Goethe, das französische Original galt lange als verschollen, bis es 1891 - 130 Jahre nach seiner Entstehung - durch Zufall in einem Pariser Antiquariat entdeckt wurde.
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Geschichten aus dem Biedermeier. Neun Erzählungen
Biedermeier - das klingt in heutigen Ohren nach langweiligem Spießertum, nach geschmacklosen rosa Teetässchen in Wohnzimmern, die aussehen wie Puppenstuben und in denen es irgendwie nach »Omma« riecht. Zu Recht. Aber nicht nur. Biedermeier ist auch die Zeit einer zarten Literatur der Flucht ins Idyll, des Rückzuges ins private Glück und der Tugenden. Die Menschen im Europa nach Napoleon hatten die Nase voll von großen neuen Ideen, das aufstrebende Bürgertum forderte und entwickelte eine eigene Kunst und Kultur für sich, die unabhängig von feudaler Großmannssucht bestehen sollte. Dass das gelungen ist, zeigt Michael Holzingers Auswahl von neun Meistererzählungen aus der sogenannten Biedermeierzeit.
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