Chapter II: The Logical, a Priori Synthesis

[Sidenote: _The identity of the judgment of definition and of the individual judgment, as synthesis a priori._]

If analysis apart from synthesis, the _a priori_ apart from the _a posteriori,_ be inconceivable, and if synthesis apart from analysis, the _a posteriori_ apart from the _a priori,_ be equally inconceivable, then the true act of thought will be a synthetic analysis, an analytic synthesis, an _a posteriori-a priori,_ or, if it be preferred, an _a priori synthesis._

In this manner, the identity that we have established between the judgment of definition and the individual judgment comes to assume a name celebrated in the annals of modern philosophy. And by assuming it at this point, it is also able to affirm, since it has already demonstrated, the truth of the _a priori_ synthesis, and to determine its exact content.

[Sidenote: _Objections raised by abstractionists and empiricists against the a priori synthesis._]

This is not the place to enter again into the objections which the Kantian concept elicited (indeed could not fail to elicit): objections which in Italy too gave rise to very acute attempts at confutation, and which ended in the partial absorption of that concept into the mental organism of its opponents. Suffice it to say that all the objections to the _a priori_ synthesis, when thoroughly examined, seem to be derived, as was to be expected, from the upholders of the two one-sided doctrines which were surpassed by the synthesis. Thus the dogmatists or abstractionists believed the concept to be thinkable apart from or above the facts (simple analysis); the empiricists perceived only the representative element and claimed to obtain the concept from mere facts (simple synthesis). Both failed to explain perception, or the individual judgment. The former found it to arise from the external and almost accidental contact between pure concepts and given facts; the latter sometimes assumed it without explanation, sometimes confused it with pure intuition, if not altogether with sensibility and emotion. It can be said that whoever does not accept the _a priori_ synthesis is outside the path of modern philosophy, indeed of all philosophy. Strive to find or to rediscover that path, unless you wish to incur the punishment of trifling with empiricism, of lying to yourself with mysticism, or of wandering in the void with scholasticism.

[Sidenote: _False interpretation of the a priori synthesis._]

Instead of noting and of examining all the objections made to the _a priori_ synthesis (which we have already substantially discussed in the development of our treatise), it will be of assistance to add some explanations, which will prevent false interpretations of that concept. These false interpretations sometimes (as often happens) mingle with the true even in the philosopher who discovered it, and confer force and authority upon several of the objections to the very reality of the _a priori_ synthesis.

[Sidenote: _A priori synthesis in general and logical a priori synthesis._]

In the first place, in accordance with the formula given in Logic we must not speak of the _a priori_ synthesis in general, but of the _logical a priori synthesis._ The _a priori_ synthesis belongs to all the forms of the Spirit; indeed, the Spirit, considered universally, is nothing but _a priori_ synthesis. The synthesis is operative in the æsthetic activity, not less than in the logical. For how could a poet create a pure intuition, if he did not proceed from a given fact, from some passionate moment of his own, conditioned and constituted in a particular way? Without something to intuite and to express could there ever be a poet? And would he be a poet, if he were to repeat that something mechanically, without transforming it into pure intuition? In his pure intuition, there is and there is not matter: not as brute matter, but as formed matter, or form. Thus it is said with reason that art is pure form, or that matter and form, content and form, in art are wholly one (_a priori_ æsthetic synthesis). The _a priori_ synthesis is not less operative in the practical activity than in the æsthetic and logical (that is, in the theoretic activity). It is impossible to will without material to will, or to will outside the given material. The practical man accepts actual conditions, and at the same time transforms them with his volitional act, creating something new, in which those conditions are and are not. They are, because the action achieved is in relation to them; they are not, because being new, it has transformed them. _A priori_ synthesis, in general, then, means spiritual activity; not abstract but concrete spiritual activity, that is to say, the spirit itself, which is _condition_ to itself and _conditioned_ by itself. Thus the _a priori_ synthesis, which is constituted by the coincidence or identity of the judgment of definition with the individual judgment, is not _a priori_ synthesis in general, but logical _a priori_ synthesis.

[Sidenote: _Non-logical a priori syntheses._]

Having clearly established this point we are enabled to eliminate the confusion caused by the citation of certain spiritual formations, which do not correspond with that logical act, as examples of _a priori_ synthetic judgments. Such for instance is the case of the famous example: "5 + 7 = 12," concerning which it was long disputed whether it were an _a priori_ synthetic judgment or simply analytical; the synthetic element being found or not found in it, according to the point of view. The same thing has occurred in the case of other examples of a different nature, as in the judgment: "Snow is white." Here the dispute has been as to whether it be _a priori_ synthetic, or simply synthetic. The truth is, on the contrary, that in neither of these two cases is there _logical a priori_ synthesis, because the judgment "5 + 7= 12" is the expression of abstract or numerical concepts, and "snow is white" is the expression of empirical or classificatory concepts. This amounts to saying that both are products, not of a logical nature, nor of a theoretic nature, but, as we know, of an arbitrary or practical nature. For this reason, we have denied the very possibility of simply analytic or simply synthetic judgments in pure logic. On the other hand, both these kinds of spiritual formations are _a priori_ syntheses, precisely because, being spiritual formations (though of a practical nature), they cannot fail to be produced by a creative (synthetic) act of the spirit. This explains why they sometimes appear as _a priori_ syntheses, sometimes as something altogether different from the _a priori_ synthesis. It suffices to add to the affirmative solution the adjective "practical" and to the negative the adjective "logical" to obtain agreement and truth.

[Sidenote: _The a priori synthesis, as synthesis, not of opposites but of distincts._]

A question of no less importance is whether the logical _a priori_ synthesis (we might say, the _a priori_ synthesis in general) is to be conceived as a synthesis of opposites; if, in other words, intuition and concept, matter and form, exist in the _a priori_ synthesis in the same way as Being and not Being exist in true Being, which is Becoming; or as good and evil, true and false, and so on, exist in the special forms of the Spirit. The affirmative reply to this question finds, as is well known, its chief representative in the doctrine of Hegel. We do not wish to deny the great truth contained in this doctrine, in so far as by considering the _a priori_ synthesis as a synthesis of opposites, it insists upon this essential point: that intuition and concept matter and form, do not exist in the logical act as two separable elements, merely externally connected. Outside the synthesis the subject does not exist as subject, and the predicate does not exist in any way. We must banish altogether the idea of the _a priori_ synthesis, conceived as the reuniting of two facts existing separately. But having recognized the true side of the doctrine, we must correct the inexactness it contains. This arises from the confusion already criticized, by which the relation of opposition is unduly extended to distinct concepts, and the unity of effectual distinction is confused with the dialectic unity, which declares itself synthetic, only in so far as it makes war against an abstract distinction.[1] The _a priori_ synthesis is a unity of distinct concepts and not of opposites. That which is the material of the logical synthesis and which outside it has no logical character (is not subject), yet in another and inferior grade of the spirit is form and not matter, and is called intuition. Hence, there is distinction and unity together; form is not without matter; but the new matter was already form and, therefore, had its own matter. The logical _a priori_ synthesis presupposes an æsthetic _a priori_ synthesis. When considered in the logical sphere, this is certainly no longer a synthesis, but an indispensable element of the new synthesis. But outside the logical sphere, it possesses its own proper and peculiar autonomy. In the logical act intuition is _blind_ without the concept, as the concept is _void_ without the intuition. But pure intuition is not blind, because it has its own proper intuitive light. The concept contains the intuition, but the intuition transfigured. It is a synthesis, not of itself and its opposite, but of itself and its distinct concept which is indistinguishable from itself, save by an act of abstraction. In this way we satisfy the demand expressed in the formula of the synthesis as unity of opposites, and at the same time repress its tendency to usurpation. This tendency leads to the rejection of the concept of æsthetic synthesis, in favour of the concept of logical synthesis; it means the negation of art by philosophy, not only in the philosophical field (which would be just), but in the whole spiritual field. Extending itself from this to other usurpations and led on by the mirage of an ill-understood unity, it claims all the other syntheses for logical synthesis, and produces a great spiritual desert, in which logical thought itself at length dies of starvation.

[Sidenote: _The category in the judgment. Difference between category and innate idea._]

The logical element, the pure concept or judgment of definition considered in itself, is given the name of _category_ in the logical _a priori_ synthesis. This term is nothing but the Greek equivalent for the word "predicate," which we have hitherto employed. It has been asked if the category is what used to be called an _inniate idea._ The answer must be that it is both that and also something profoundly different. The innate idea was indeed the category, but the category taken as possessed and thought _prior_ to experience, according to the view that we have described as abstract or dogmatic. First the music, then the words; first definitions, then individual judgments or perceptions. The category, on the contrary, is neither the mother nor the first-born. It is born at one birth with the individual judgment, not as its twin, but as that judgment itself. From this aspect the category or the _a priori_ is not the innate, but the perpetually new-born. From this we see the vanity of the question, whether the judgment or the concept be logically _prior,_ not only in the relation, which we have already examined, of concept with verbal form (judgment of definition), but also in the relation of concept with individual judgment. We can say indifferently that to _think_ is to _conceive,_ or that to _think_ is to _judge,_ because the two formulæ are reduced to one. Equally vain is the question as to whether the categories precede the judgment or are obtained from it. They not only do not precede the judgment, but are not even obtained from it. We never issue forth from the judgment, as we never issue forth from reality and history.

[Sidenote: _The a priori synthesis, the destruction of transcendency, and the objectivity of knowledge._]

A final explanation, not less important than those already given, concerns the _importance_ of the logical _a priori_ synthesis. This too has been diminished by the very man who discovered and defined that mental act, and even more by those who have repeated him, without being capable of reviving again the moment of discovery, and of understanding the intimate reasons that brought it about. When the concept was placed outside and prior to the representative element, and thought prior to and outside the world, so that the former was applied to the latter, the world was bound to appear to be something inferior to the concept, a degradation or an impure contact, which thought had to undergo. When, on the other hand, the representative element was placed outside and prior to the concept, the latter seemed to be inferior to it, almost as though it were an expedient for taking hold of the world, without truly being able to do so, and thus in its turn a degradation or defilement of it. Hence the sigh that we hear already in antiquity and more strongly in modern times: oh, if _words_ (that is to say _concepts,_ because concepts were called words) were not, how directly should we apprehend things! Oh, if _thought_ were not, how vigorously should we embrace genuine reality!

In the first instance, reality is inferior to the concept, in the second the concept to reality; but in both alike, the two elements are always thought--as mutually external and truth as undiscoverable. Thus both these one-sided tendencies end in mystery. According to the former, the world is created by a God external to it, and will be disintegrated when it shall seem good to him, while the latter holds that the truth of things is plunged in impenetrable darkness. But granted the idea of the _a priori_ synthesis, reality is not inferior to thought nor thought to reality, nor is the one external to the other. Representations are docile to thought, and thought conceals representations even less than the tenuous and scanty veil concealed the beauty of Alcina. The interpenetration of the two elements is perfect, and they constitute unity. The false belief in the externality and heterogeneity of reality and thought can only arise when for the pure concept and the _a priori_ synthesis there are substitutes, either abstract concepts with their related analytic judgments, which are void of all representative content, or empirical concepts with their related and merely synthetic judgments, which are without logical form. The value of the _a priori_ synthesis lies in its efficacy in putting an end to doubts as to the _objectivity_ of thought and the _cognizability_ of reality, and in making triumphant the power of thought over the real, which is the power of the real to know itself.

[Sidenote: _Power of the a priori synthesis never known to its discoverer._]

But this efficacy of the _a priori_ synthesis remained obscure to its discoverer (and most obscure to his orthodox followers). To such an extent was this the case, that even to Kant the category did not seem to be immanent in the real and to be the thinking of its reality, but an extrinsic, though necessary adjunct, an inevitable alteration introduced into reality to make it thinkable, an anticipatory renunciation of the knowledge of genuine reality. Reality itself lay outside every category and judgment, a _thing in itself._ Even in Kant, the _a priori_ synthesis was confused with simple analysis and with simple synthesis. These being manipulations of the real, extrinsic and not intrinsic, practical and not logical, useful, but without truth, so the _a priori_ synthesis appeared to him to be an expedient to which man has recourse and cannot but have recourse, but which constitutes, not his power, but his weakness. Kant, too, dreamed of an ideal of knowledge, which was not _a priori_ synthesis, but the _intellectual intuition,_ the perfect adequacy of thought to reality, unattainable by the human spirit. He did not perceive that the intellectual intuition, which he longed for as an impossible ideal, was precisely the continuous operation of the _a priori_ synthesis, nor did he think that what is necessary and insuperable cannot be defective. He never knew that the _a priori_ synthesis, which he had discovered, is alone the true concept and the true judgment, and, therefore, operates in an altogether different way from simple analysis and simple synthesis, which are neither concept nor judgment; nor finally that if these last postulate a _thing in itself,_ the _a priori_ synthesis cannot postulate it, because it has _it in itself._

To understand all the richness of the _a priori_ synthesis is to pay honour to the genius of Emmanuel Kant; but it is also to recognize that the systematic construction of Kant showed itself altogether unequal to the great principle he laid down, but whose value he insufficiently estimated.

[Footnote 1: See above, Sect. I. Chap. VI.]