| If, on the other hand, it has its ground in the particular character of the subject, it is termed a persuasion. |
| Persuasion is a mere illusion, the ground of the judgement, which lies solely in the subject, being regarded as objective. |
| Hence a judgement of this kind has only private validity--is only valid for the individual who judges, and the holding of a thing to be true in this way cannot be communicated. |
| But truth depends upon agreement with the object, and consequently the judgements of all understandings, if true, must be in agreement with each other (consentientia uni tertio consentiunt inter se). |
| Conviction may, therefore, be distinguished, from an external point of view, from persuasion, by the possibility of communicating it and by showing its validity for the reason of every man; for in this case the presumption, at least, arises that the agreement of all judgements with each other, in spite of the different characters of individuals, rests upon the common ground of the agreement of each with the object, and thus the correctness of the judgement is established. |
| Persuasion, accordingly, cannot be subjectively distinguished from conviction, that is, so long as the subject views its judgement simply as a phenomenon of its own mind. |
| But if we inquire whether the grounds of our judgement, which are valid for us, produce the same effect on the reason of others as on our own, we have then the means, though only subjective means, not, indeed, of producing conviction, but of detecting the merely private validity of the judgement; in other words, of discovering that there is in it the element of mere persuasion. |
| If we can, in addition to this, develop the subjective causes of the judgement, which we have taken for its objective grounds, and thus explain the deceptive judgement as a phenomenon in our mind, apart altogether from the objective character of the object, we can then expose the illusion and need be no longer deceived by it, although, if its subjective cause lies in our nature, we cannot hope altogether to escape its influence. |
| I can only maintain, that is, affirm as necessarily valid for every one, that which produces conviction. |
| Persuasion I may keep for myself, if it is agreeable to me; but I cannot, and ought not, to attempt to impose it as binding upon others. |
| Holding for true, or the subjective validity of a judgement in relation to conviction (which is, at the same time, objectively valid), has the three following degrees; opinion, belief, and knowledge. |
| Opinion is a consciously insufficient judgement, subjectively as well as objectively. |
| Belief is subjectively sufficient, but is recognized as being objectively insufficient. |
| Knowledge is both subjectively and objectively sufficient. |
| Subjective sufficiency is termed conviction (for myself); objective sufficiency is termed certainty (for all). |
| I need not dwell longer on the explanation of such simple conceptions. |
| I must never venture to be of opinion, without knowing something, at least, by which my judgement, in itself merely problematical, is brought into connection with the truth--which connection, although not perfect, is still something more than an arbitrary fiction. |
| Moreover, the law of such a connection must be certain. |
| For if, in relation to this law, I have nothing more than opinion, my judgement is but a play of the imagination, without the least relation to truth. |
| In the judgements of pure reason, opinion has no place. |
| For, as they do not rest on empirical grounds and as the sphere of pure reason is that of necessary truth and a priori cognition, the principle of connection in it requires universality and necessity, and consequently perfect certainty--otherwise we should have no guide to the truth at all. |