Chapter 3 Chapter 2 An Overview of the Most Important Ideas So far Concerning the Law of Sufficient Reason

Section 6 Concerning the Principle and the Difference Between Its Two Significances The more or less definite abstract expression of such a fundamental principle of the whole of cognition must have appeared at such an early age that it is difficult to determine when it first began, but then again, even if it could be ascertained Nor is there much need.Although Plato and Aristotle often mentioned it as a self-evident truth, neither of them formally expressed it as a major fundamental law.Therefore, in stark contrast to the critical studies of our time, Plato favored naivety as opposed to the knowledge of good and evil, saying in a simple tone: "Everything that comes into being comes into being from a cause. Yes, it is necessary; for, otherwise, how could it come into being?" Then he added: "Everything that comes into being must come into being from a cause, because nothing can come into being without a cause. ②Plutarch quotes from the main thesis of the Stoics at the end of his work "On Fate" as follows: "It seems that the principle of particular importance should be: Nothing comes into existence without a cause, and (anything) It all depends on the previous reasons."

-------- ①See Plato: Philipbus, p. 240. ② See Plato: "Timaeus" p. 302. Aristotle in his "Postanalysis" i. 2, which discusses the principle of sufficient reason to some extent, he puts it this way: "We think we understand a thing completely when we think we know the cause by which it lives, and only this cause Otherwise, it is impossible." And in it, he has divided the causes or principles into different categories①, and he thinks there are 8 categories.However, this division is neither profound nor accurate.Nevertheless, it makes sense to say: "What all principles have in common is that they are the first things from which things either exist, or arise, or are known." In the following chapter, he Dividing causes into several categories appears superficial and confusing.In his "Post-analysis" Ⅱ. In 11, he discusses the four types of causes in a more satisfactory way: "There are four kinds of causes: first, the essence of the thing itself; second, the conditions necessary for the existence of things; driving force; finally, the purpose or goal of matter." This is the source of the division of cause into four types, material cause, formal cause, efficient cause, and final cause, generally adopted by scholastics. This division can be seen in ”—a true compendium of scholasticism.Even Hobbes still quotes and explains this division.We can also find a more clear and comprehensive discussion in another passage in Aristotle's book (I.3).And there is also a brief exposition in the second chapter of "Dream and Waking".However, when it comes to the most important distinction between ground and cause, Aristotle is undoubtedly in "Postanalysis" I. 13, where he shows in detail that knowing and verifying the existence of a thing is quite different from knowing and verifying "why" it exists: cognition; as for the former, it is a cognition of grounds.If, however, he was really aware of the difference very clearly, he would never have overlooked it, and would certainly seep it into his work.But that is not the case.For, as in the passages already mentioned above, even if he tried to distinguish causes from one another, it was no longer possible for him to think that the chapter just mentioned also contained An unresolved essential difference.Moreover, he uses the term "alTlov" indiscriminately for every cause, indeed frequently for the grounds of knowledge, and sometimes even for the premises of the conclusion "aitias," as he does in IV. This is what he said in 18③; but it is particularly obvious in "Post-Analysis", where he simply calls the premise of a conclusion the cause of the conclusion.The use of the same word to express two closely related concepts undoubtedly shows that the difference between the two concepts is not recognized, or at least not thoroughly grasped; To be called, should be another matter.However, this error of his is most evident in his account of the sophistry, which he explains in Chapter 5 of The Sophistical Refutation Argument in this way: to treat what is not the cause as reasoning for reasons.Here he understands "aitiov" fully as the reason, the premise, the ground of knowledge; for this sophistry consists in the impossibility of correctly proving something, even though the evidence has nothing to do with the proposition in question.Undoubtedly, there is nothing to do with natural causes here.In the hands of modern logicians, the word "aitiov" is still popular, and it is used exclusively to account for misunderstandings on the basis of language, and to interpret fallacies arising from plausible causes as certainties of natural causes, while This is not the case.Reimarous, for example, thinks so, and so does Schulz and Fries—everyone I know thinks so.The first work on which this sophistry was rightly stated was Twiston's Logic, and in all other scientific writings and controversies the accusation of "fallacy from plausible causes" generally refers to the insertion of one error cause.

Sestus Empirico gives us yet another example of how very generally the ancients were apt to confuse the logical laws of the grounds of knowledge with the a priori laws of causality in nature, and always regarded them as One as the other. In Section 204 of Volume 9 of The Anti-Mathematician, the Anti-Physicist, he states, when he proceeds to prove the law of causality: "He who asserts that there is no cause either asserts that there is no cause, or that there is one. Cause. If the former, his assertion is itself contradictory and has no truth; if the latter, the assertion itself proves that there is a cause."

-------- ①Ⅳ. c. 1. ② See Hobbes: "On Objects", Part 2, Chapter 10, Section 7. ③ See "Botany" Ⅰ.Page 816. ④Sextus Empiricus (Sextus Empiricus, active about the beginning of the 3rd century), philosopher and historian. From this we can see that the ancients could not correctly distinguish between looking for a basis as a basis for a conclusion and asking about the cause of a real event.As for the later scholastic philosophers, the law of causality seemed to them an undoubted axiom, Suatz said: "We do not study whether the cause exists, because nothing is really for itself." ① At the same time, They faithfully adhere to the Aristotelian classification cited above.But, at least as far as I know, they also failed to get a clear idea of ​​the inevitability of the distinction we are talking about here.

-------- ① See Suatz: "Suatz's Metaphysical Controversy" Controversy 12, Section 1. Section 7 Descartes Even the eminent Descartes, who was the father of modern philosophy by giving subjective reflection the first impetus, we find himself in inexplicable confusion; What grave and lamentable consequences has chaos had on metaphysics.In Axiom 1 of the "Response to the Second Group of Objections" in Meditations on First Philosophy, he says: "There is nothing that exists for which one cannot ask what causes it to exist. For even God, too, may ask why he exists, not because he needs a cause to exist, but because the infinity of his nature is the cause or reason for his being without any cause.” He should have said: God The infinity of God is a logical reason, and thus God needs no cause; however, he confuses reason and cause and is completely unaware of the difference between them.But, to be fair, it was his intentions that spoiled his understanding.For wherever the law of causality requires a cause, he substitutes a ground, since the use of the latter does not directly lead to anything beyond it, as the former does not.Thus, by virtue of this axiom, he cleared the way to the ontological proof of the existence of God.It was indeed his first, and Anselm merely presented the proof in a synthetic fashion.Immediately after these axioms (I quote only one of them) began a formal, very serious treatise on the ontological proof, which, in fact, is already contained in the axioms as the chicken is contained in the It is the same among eggs that hatch for a certain period of time.Infinity, therefore, is already contained in the concept of God—introduced to us by the cosmological proof—sufficiently in the place of the cause when something else requires a cause of existence, or, as the proof itself has shown: "In all consummation Its existence is contained in the concept of its essence."2 It thus becomes a trick of the conjurer, and it is for this reason that the confusion of the two main meanings of the principle of sufficient reason is expressed directly in "God's Exalted Honor "Among them, even Aristotle was no exception.

However, if we examine this famous ontological proof carefully without any prejudice, we will find that this proof is indeed a charming joke.On one occasion or another, in a concept conceived, various attributes are packed into it, and among all these attributes, in any case, the reality or existence of the essence is included, regardless of the declared Form, or face is hidden in other attributes, such as perfection, infinity, or something like that.Then, it is well known that from a given concept, these essential properties of the concept (that is, without which the concept cannot be conceived), and properties which are themselves still essential for these properties, can be obtained by purely logical Analytical, and thus logical truths, that is, their ground of knowledge lies in this given concept.The property of reality or existence is thus now derivable from this arbitrary concept of thought, and the corresponding object is immediately assumed to have a real existence independent of this concept.

-------- ① See "Meditations on the First Philosophy", The Commercial Press, 1986 edition, translated by Pang Jingren. ② Axiom X in Meditations on First Philosophy has been changed. "If the mind were not so keen, Will not be called stupid? "① -------- ①See Act 2, Scene 7 of Schiller's Wallenstein Trilogy Piccolo. After all, the simplest answer to this kind of ontological proof is: everything depends on the source of the concept from which it is derived: if it is derived from experience, all is well said, because in this case its There is no need for further proof that the object exists; if it were the contrary, it was born from your mind, and all its attributes are rendered useless because it is a pure fantasy.But theology, in order to gain a foothold in the field of philosophy, needs recourse to proofs of this kind, which, though irrelevant to philosophy, always seek to strike, and we thus form an unpleasant prejudice against the claims of theology .But, oh, we can't help but marvel at the prophetic wisdom of Aristotle!Although he had never heard of this ontological proof, yet he seemed to be able to perceive this academic deception through the shadow of darkness that was falling, and was eager to cut off the way to it. He solemnly stated, Explaining a thing is not the same as proving its existence, and the two never coincide; for we use the one to know what it says, and the other to know that there is such a thing.He solemnly declares, as if foretelling the future, that "existence can never belong to the essence of things".On the other hand, we can see how extraordinary the reverence Mr. Schelling expresses in his lengthy note on ontology in his Philosophical Works, Vol. I, p. 152, 1809.We can even see in it something, still very instructive, about how easily the Germans deceive themselves with rash and arrogant boasting.But for a very poor fellow like Hegel, whose pseudo-philosophy is nothing more than an overstretched ontological proof, which leaves him with the task of defending against Kant an ontological proof which itself should be for having this alliance Feeling ashamed, no matter how minor.How can I speak with any respect to those who bring disgrace to philosophy?

-------- ① See Aristotle: Chapter 7 of "Post-Analysis". Section 8 Spinoza Although Spinoza's philosophy mainly consists in denying the double dualism between God and the world and between soul and body established by his teacher Descartes, however, in the confusion and interchange between ground and inference and between cause and effect In relation to his teacher, Spinoza still inherited the characteristics of his teacher.In constructing his own metaphysics he draws even more than Descartes from this confusion, which forms the basis of his whole pantheism. A concept inherently contains all its properties, so that these essential properties can be clearly obtained by purely analytical judgment: the sum of these essential properties is the definition of this concept.This definition, therefore, differs from the concept itself only in form and not in content; since the judgments of which it is composed are contained in it, so far as they express the essence of the concept, they are Each has its own basis.We can thus regard these judgments as corollaries of the concept which is regarded as the ground of these judgments.This relation between a concept and the judgments based on it and easily analytically derivable from it is precisely what Spinoza calls the relation of God to the world, or the unique entity relation to its innumerable attributes (God, or entity, has infinitely many attributes—God, or all attributes of God).This is, therefore, the relation of knowledge according to inference.But true monotheism (Spinoza's is only nominal) assumes that the cause is related to its effect, and in this relation the cause is distinct and distinct from the inference, not only insofar as we consider them in the manner in which they exist, and indeed in their nature, so that they are never the same in their own right.For the word God, in its legitimate usage, should be the cause of a world as it is, but it is already personified.In contrast, an impersonal God is a contradiction in terms.Even so, however, according to Spinoza, he reserved the word God for substance, and explicitly called it the cause of the world, so that he, besides by radically distinguishing the two relations There is no other way than to confuse and confuse the law of sufficient reason and causal law of cognition.We need only consider the following passages to confirm this statement.

"(3) It should be noted that everything that exists must have a definite cause by which it exists. (4) Finally, it must be noted that the cause by which all things exist is not contained in the nature or definition of the thing. (for being belongs to the nature of that thing), must be contained outside that thing itself."2 In the last argument he speaks of a "cause capable of producing effects"33 which itself proceeds from It appears in the results, but at the beginning, what he said was a purely cognitive basis.However, to him both are the same, and in this way he can go on to see God and the world as one, which is his purpose.This is his usual method, inherited from Descartes.He substitutes a cause independent of other things for a ground of knowledge in a given concept. "From the necessity of the divine nature, an infinite number of things in an infinite number of ways (that is to say, everything that can be the object of an infinite intellect) must be deduced." ④

-------- ①See Part I of Spinoza's "Ethics", Proposition 11, refer to the Chinese translation of "Ethics", published in 1960 by Commerce and Business Library, translated by He Lin, p. 10. ② See Spinoza: "Ethics", Part I, Proposition 3, Note 3.Refer to the Chinese translation of "Ethics", ibid., p. 8. ③Mr. He Lin translated it as "causaefficiente", and the Latin is "causaefficiente". See the Chinese translation of "Ethics", p. the causaeffieiente of all things." ④ See the first part of Spinoza's "Ethics", Proposition 16, pages 17-18 of the Chinese translation.

At the same time, he calls the omnipresent God the cause of the world. "Everything that exists expresses the power of God in a certain way, and the power of God is the cause of all things." ① "God is the internal cause of all things, not the external cause of all things." ② "God is not only the cause of all things The cause of existence, and the cause of the essence of all things." ③ "From any concept, there must be some kind of result." ④ and "If there is no external cause, a thing cannot be destroyed." ⑤ prove. "The definition of any thing affirms the essence of the thing without denying the essence of the thing. That is to say, its definition establishes its essence, but does not cancel its essence. Therefore, as long as we only pay attention to the essence of a thing itself , without reference to its external causes, we shall never find in it something that would annihilate itself.”6 This means that if a concept contains nothing that contradicts its definition, that is, the sum of all its properties nor can a being contain anything that would be the cause of its destruction.This view culminates in the twentieth somewhat lengthy proof of Proposition 11.Here he confuses the cause sufficient to destroy or annihilate an existence with the contradiction contained in its definition and thus destroying it.Here his confusion of cause and reason becomes so urgent that he can never say "causa" or "ratio" alone, but always feels the need to express "ratio" or "causa"⑦ .Therefore, on the same page number, this situation occurs 8 times. Why is this not for concealment?Of course, when Descartes dealt with the axioms mentioned above, it is impossible to have other wonderful methods. -------- ①Ibid., Proposition 36, proof, page 33 of the Chinese translation. ②Ibid, Proposition 18, page 21 of the Chinese translation. ③Ibid., Proposition 25, page 25 of the Chinese translation. ④ Ibid., Part III, Proposition 1, proof, page 91 of the Chinese translation. ⑤ Same as above, Part III, Proposition 4, page 97 of the Chinese translation. ⑥ See Spinoza: "Ethics", Part 1, Proposition 4, Proof, page 97 of the Chinese translation. ⑦The original text is "causaorratio", "ratioseucausa", "seu" is equivalent to "or" in English, "causa" is equivalent to "cause" in English, and "ratio" is equivalent to "reason" in English. We can thus justly say that Spinoza's pantheism is nothing but the realization of Cartesian ontological proofs.First of all, he adopted the theological proposition of Cartesian ontology, which we have mentioned above, "it is the infinity of God's nature that is the reason or reason for his existence without any reason", ① at the beginning Substance is always substituted for God; then he ends with "Substance cannot be produced by anything else; therefore it must be self-caused".Thus, the very same argument that Descartes used to prove God is used by Spinoza to prove the existence of the world—the world, therefore, does not need God.In the second note to Proposition 8, he further expresses this idea more clearly: "Because existence belongs to the nature of substance, its definition must include its existence, so only the definition of substance can be Deduce its existence." ③ But we know that this entity is the world.He expresses the same meaning in the proof of Proposition 24: that is, in its definition "for a thing is a self-causal if it contains being in itself." -------- ①See Spinoza: "Ethics", Part I, Proposition 4, page 5 of the Chinese translation. ②See Part I of Spinoza's Ethics, Proposition 7, page 6 of the Chinese translation. ③See Part I of Spinoza's Ethics, Proposition 8, Note 2, page 9 of the Chinese translation. Therefore, "causaorratio" can be understood as "reason or basis", and "ratioseucausa" can be understood as "based or reason". What Descartes had stated only in an ideal and subjective sense, that is, for us only for cognitive purposes—in this case to prove the existence of God—Spinoza took Real and objective meaning, used to explain the real relationship between God and the world.For Descartes, the existence of God is contained in the concept of God, and thus it becomes the reason for the actual existence; for Spinoza, God himself is contained in the world.In this way, what Descartes saw as the basis of knowledge becomes the basis of fact for Spinoza.If the former explained in the ontological proof that the existence of God is the derivation of the essence of God, the latter transforms this into a self-cause, and explicitly uses "the so-called self-cause, I understand it as something whose essence [concept] That is, contains being." As the opening sentence of his "Ethics", he is by no means deaf to Aristotle's warning that being is not essence!Thus he completely confuses ground with cause.If the neo-Spinozaists (Schellingians, Hegelians, etc.) often show an overly serious and unrealistic admiration for self-cause, because they are accustomed to think of speech as thought, and in In my opinion, self-causation is completely self-contradictory, and it asks us not to distinguish between "before" and "after". The way people do it is because they can't reach the buttons on the flat-topped military cap worn on the head tightly. If they want to button the buttons, they have to climb on the chair to button them.Our self-causal label is best suited to Lord Munchhower: Baron Minchhowerson on horseback is sinking into the water, clamping his legs together in order to pull himself and his horse out of the water. He got off the horse and pulled it up with his braid.Its principle is the maxim: cause itself. -------- ① Baron Muunchhausen (Baron Muunchhausen, 1729.5-1797.2), a German country gentleman, is famous for his good storytelling. Finally, let us look at Proposition 16 of Part I of Ethics.Here we find Spinoza's conclusion from this proposition: "From the definition of any thing, the intellect can deduce the many qualities that this definition in fact necessarily entails, the infinite number of forms of infinite things. It comes from the necessity of God's nature." ① Therefore, there is no doubt that the relationship between God and the world is the same as the relationship between the concept and its definition.The inference, "God is the cause of all things," is directly related to this.This has confused grounds and reasons to the extreme, and has caused the most serious consequences.On the contrary, this shows the importance of the paper at hand. In the third step, which culminated in the confusion, Mr. Schelling did help a little.Two great minds of the past fell into these fallacies because of a lack of clarity of thought.Descartes, faced with the irresistible demands of the law of causality, replaced the cause he needed with grounds, in order to solve the problem and save his God from embarrassment; Spinoza found a real cause in grounds, That is, self-causation, whereby his God becomes the essence of the world: now Schelling wants to separate reason and inference in God himself②.Thus he gives greater coherence to the confusion by raising the question to the real, substantial level of grounds and inferences, and by leading to something in God, which he says "is not God himself." , but his original grounds, or grounds beyond (abyss: abyss)".That's really a well-deserved compliment. - We know that all Schelling's nonsense comes from Jacob Bohm's "General Interpretation of the Puzzle of the Earth and the Celestial Bodies", but it seems to me that Bohm's fallacy is less known Where did it come from, and where is the real birthplace of the so-called "Abyss".Therefore, I now venture to say: it is "βCθos", that is, "abyssus", "vorago", the bottomless pit, the ground beyond the ground of the Valentinian, in silence - co-essence with the abyss —produced intellect and the world, as stated in the following words of Ironus: "For, according to them, there was a pre-existing Eon on a height unseen and nameless; Call it the primordial, the primordial, the abyss.—it exists, formless, incomprehensible, neither born nor destroyed, passing endless ages in absolute serenity; thought was with him, they Calls thought again elegance and silence. This abyss thought to throw from itself the principle of all things, and send what was thrown—what he intended to throw—into the silence that was with itself, As the sperm enters the womb. Silence is impregnated by the sperm, which produces reason, like and equal to the projectile, which alone can receive the greatness of the father. And they call reason the sole begotten, the source of all things." -------- ①See Part I of Spinohol's Ethics, Proposition 16, page 18 of the Chinese translation. ②See Schelling: "Essay on Human Freedom". ③Valentinians (valentinians), a religious heresy in the second century. This is certainly what Jacob Bohm managed to learn from "The History of Heresy," and Mr. Schelling has inherited it from him without thinking. Section 9 Leibniz Leibniz was the first to formally formulate the principle of sufficient reason as a central law of the whole of cognition and science.In his writings, you can see everywhere his exaggerated explanations of this law, and he is as self-satisfied as if he had invented this law of sufficient reason.However, all his explanations of the principle of sufficient reason are nothing more than this: there must be a sufficient reason for everything to be the way it is, otherwise it does not exist.Perhaps someone else had discovered this law before him.Needless to say, he occasionally mentions the difference between its two main meanings, however, he does not emphasize this particularly, or aptly explain it elsewhere.The most relevant to this law is section 32 of his "Principles of Philosophy", but it is better explained in the French text titled "Monadism": "According to the principle of sufficient reason, we hold that without a sufficient reason, any Nothing can be true; stated plainly, the principle of sufficient reason is the reason why a thing is what it is and not something else.”1 -------- ① See Leibniz: Section 44 of Theodicy, and Fifth Letter to Clarke in Section 125. Section 10 Wolfe The first to clearly distinguish the two main implications of this law and to elaborate on the differences between them was Wolfe.However, Wolf placed the principle of sufficient reason not in logic, but in ontology, as is now customary.Indeed, in section 71 he insists on the necessity of confusing the law of sufficient reason and causality of knowledge, but he also does not clarify the difference between them.It was he himself, none other than anyone else, who had reversed the distinction between them; Examples of cause and effect, which he should have cited in the "Cause" chapter of this book if he really wished to preserve the distinction.In the chapter we are dealing with, he again presents quite similar examples, and again gives the grounds for knowledge (Section 876, Laws of knowledge), which we have already said are certainly not suitable for this part, These examples, however, help to illustrate the clear and definite distinction between the laws of knowledge and the laws of causation that can be drawn directly in Sections 881-884.He went on to say: "The so-called principle of sufficient reason means that it itself contains the reason of another thing"; and he divided it into three categories: 1.Reason (cause) of happening, defined as the reason for the actuality of another thing; for example, when a stone becomes hot, then fire or the sun's rays are the reason why the heat exists in the stone; 2.The reason for existence is defined as the reason for the possibility of another thing. In the above example, the reason for this possibility is that the stone can absorb heat according to the essence or characteristics of its own composition.This last concept is unacceptable to me.If it makes any sense at all, it is that possibility consists in conformity with the general conditions of our a priori knowledge, as Kant has made quite clear.From these conditions, in the case of Wolfe's stone example, we know that change is possible because the effect follows the cause, that is, one state follows another if the former state contains the latter. A condition of a state.In this example we find that, as a result, the stone assumes a state of heat; as a cause, the state in which the stone resides is that the stone has a certain heat capacity and is in contact with free heat before it becomes hot.In this state, Wolfe called the nature of the state mentioned first as the reason for being, and the latter as the reason for happening. The reason for naming this is due to an illusion caused by the following facts: In stone, these conditions last longer and therefore wait longer for other conditions to occur.The stone should be such that it has such a quality in terms of chemical composition that it has a certain degree of specific heat in itself, so that it has a heat capacity inversely proportional to its own specific heat; Contact becomes the consequence of a series of previous reasons, and these reasons are all "causes of occurrence"; however, this is just a coincidence of the various circumstances of the two parties, the conditions formed by the two parties are the cause, and the heat that depends on this condition is the result.None of this explains Wolfe's "raison d'être" so his account is wrong and part of the reason I'm going to bother to discuss it so closely is that I intend to use the word in a completely different sense ; Another part of the reason is that this explanation helps advance the understanding of causality; 3.As we have said, Wolfe demarcates a reason for knowing, and also relates it in the active cause to the motivating cause, or reason determining the will. Section 11 The Philosophers Between Wolf and Kant Baumgarden repeats Wolff's distinction in his verses 20-24, and 306-313. Reimalus in his "Intellectualism" section 81 is divided into: 1.Intrinsic basis, consistent with Wolff's "reason for being" explanation, if you do not transfer what is only applied to concepts to things, this explanation can even be applied to "reason for knowing"; 2.The external ground, i.e., the cause—Sections 120 et seq., he rightly defines "reasons for knowing" as a condition of this proposition; The reasons are mixed. Lambert, in The New Organism, makes no mention of Wolf's distinction; however, he shows that he has recognized the distinction between grounds and causes of knowing. ①Because he said that God is the "reason for existence" of truth, and truth is the "reason for knowing" of God. -------- ①Lambert: "New Organism", Volume 1, p. 572. Plattner says in section 868 of his Aphorisms: "What we call grounds and conclusions in cognition are actually causes and effects. Every cause is a ground, and every effect a Inference." Therefore, he believes that cause and effect are actually consistent with the concept of basis and inference in our thinking; The relation of the property of the property to our sense of that property, and so on.I think there is no need to refute this view, because we can easily see that the relationship between the premise and conclusion of a judgment is completely different from that of causal knowledge; although in individual cases the knowledge of a cause can be used to explain the result. . -------- ①Compare the thirty-sixth section of this book. Section 12 Hume Before this serious thinker, no one doubted that the principle of sufficient reason, which appears as the law of causality, is first and prior to everything.For it is an "eternal truth," that is, in God and Destiny, and transcends them by itself; and anything else, such as the understanding that thinks this principle, and the whole world, and whatever can be Its causative things—atoms, motions, creators, and so on—are consistent with this principle and depend upon it.休谟是第一个想到探究这一因果律何以有如此权威，它的根据何在的人。我们都知道他得出的结论：因果是指我们在时间中经验地直观到的事物和状态的继起，习惯使我们熟悉它们。这些结论的荒谬之处显而易见，也不难以批驳，但它的价值很值得一提，那就是问题本身为康德的深入研究起到了推动作用，从而成为康德研究的起点，由此形成了一种更加深刻彻底的唯心论观点，这是此前的所有唯心论，主要是以贝克莱为代表的唯心论无法比拟的。由此所导致的先验唯心论引发了这样一个信念，即世界作为整体依赖于我们，就如我们在细节上依赖于世界，两者在程度上是一样的。因为，康德提出这些如是的先验原理，使我们先天地即在一切经验之前确立了某些有关客体及它们的可能性的要点，从而他证实了如果这些事物在向我们呈现自身时脱离开我们的认识，那么，这些事物就不可能存在。很显然，这无异于把这个世界比喻为一个梦。 第13节康德和他的学派 康德关于充足根据律的主要论述包含在一本被取名为《论允许我们省却整个纯粹理性批判的发现》这本小册子中的第一节A中。他在这里极力强调“认识的逻辑（形式）原则'每一个命题都必须具有根据'，和先验（内容）原则'任何事物都必须具有原因'”之间的区别，他在与埃伯哈德的争论中提出这种观点，反对埃伯哈德把两者看作是同一的。——我打算在给出唯一正确的证明之后，专门找地方进一步批判康德关于因果律的先天证明以及由此引出的先验特征。 由于这些先决条件的引导，致使一批逻辑学家投入到康德学派中；霍夫鲍尔、玛斯、雅各布、凯斯维特，还有其他的人，都严格地明确了根据和原因之间的区别。特别是凯斯维特，十分令人满意地说道①：“认识根据不能与事实（原因）根据相混淆。充足根据律属于逻辑，因果律属于形而上学。② -------- ①凯斯维特：《逻辑》第一卷，第16页。 ②同上，第60页。 前者是思维的根本法则；后者是经验的根本法则。原因与现实事物相关，逻辑根据则只与表象相关。 " 康德的论敌甚至更加强调这种区别。舒尔茨③对把充足根据律与因果律相混淆怨气十足。萨洛蒙·梅蒙④对人们奢谈充足根据律而不予说明表示遗憾。同时指责康德⑤不该从假设判断的逻辑形式中得出因果律。 -------- ③G． E．舒尔茨：《逻辑》第19节，注释1，以及第63节。 ④Sal．梅蒙：《逻辑》第20～21页。 ⑤同上“序言”第XXIV页。 雅可比说⑥，由于混淆了根据和原因这两个概念，幻象就产生了，因此而导致各种错误的推测；随后，他以自己的方式指出了两者之间的区别。然而，我们在他这里发现，较之严肃哲学，他更多地喜欢使用自鸣得意的文字游戏，对他来说这是一贯的。 -------- ⑥雅可比：《关于斯宾诺莎学说的信》，附录7第414页。 我们在谢林的《自然哲学导入格言》第184节中可以看到他是如何最终把根据和原因区别开的，这一思路展开在马库斯和谢林的《医学年鉴》第1卷第1册中。我们从这里知道，重力是万物的根据，光是万物的原因。我之所以在这里谈到这个问题只是出于好奇；因为这类随意的谈话本来不屑在真正严肃坦诚的探索者那里占据一席之地。 第14节论根据律的各种证明 我们仍要记述对于充足根据律所进行过的各种证明之没有成果的尝试，这些证明大都含糊不清：例如，沃尔夫在他的《本体论》第70页中的证明，以及鲍姆加登在他的第20节中的重复，都是如此。我们没有必要在这里重复、反驳，因为很显然，这种证明是一种文字游戏。普拉特纳①和雅各布②尝试使用其它证明，然而，我们很容易看出证明所陷入的魔圈。我打算进一步论述康德的证明，这在前面已经说过。因为我希望在这篇论文里，指出我们认识能力的不同法则，而充足根据律则是这些法则的共同表述，这样，我们将会理所当然地得出一个结论：根据律是不能证明的，相反，亚里士多德的评论③：“他们寻求没有理由的理由，寻求不是证明的证明原则”可以同样地运用于所有的这些证明。因为每一个证明都与已被确立了的某些东西有关；而且假如我们又继续追求对这些东西的证明，无论这些东西是什么，最终我们会得到某些表达整个思维和整个认识的形式和法则的命题，因而也就是它们的条件、一切思维和认识就在于运用了这些形式和法则，其确定性就在于与这些条件、形式和法则相一致，因此，它们自身的确定性就不再通过其他的命题得到。在第五章中，我打算讨论这类真理，它们属于如是命题。 -------- ①普拉特纳：《格言》，第828页。 ②雅各布：《逻辑学和形而上学》第38页（1794年）。 ③亚里士多德：iii．6，并与“后分析篇”i．2相对照。 寻求充足根据律的证明是件荒谬绝伦的事情，这种想法表现出了理智的匮乏。每一个证明都是对已被确定了的判断之根据的论证，此判断完全是凭着这一论证获得其属性的真。这样一种根据的必然性是由充足根据律确切表达了的。假如我们寻求根据律的证明，或换言之，论证它的根据，那么，我们即已假定了它是真的，而且，我们的需要完全建立在这种假设上，因而，发现自身迷惑在我们需要证明的证明之魔圈中。