Oyonale - 3D art and graphic experiments
Fun things Image mixer TrueSpam ShakeSpam ThinkSpam

ThinkSpam

Click on the phrases to see them in context. The original texts by Immanuel Kant and David Hume are available from the Gutenberg Projet.

.

I answer; It is absurd to introduce--under whatever term disguised--into the conception of a thing, which is to be cogitated solely in reference to its possibility, the conception of its existence.

 
For neither coexistence nor succession would be perceived by us, if the representation of time did not exist as a foundation a priorI. Without this presupposition we could not represent to ourselves that things exist together at one and the same time, or at different times, that is, contemporaneously, or in succession.
 But in this case the conception of the contingent is cogitated as involving not the category of modality (as that the non-existence of which can be conceived) but that of relation (as that which can exist only as the consequence of something else), and so it is really an identical proposition; "That which can exist only as a consequence, has a cause." In fact, when we have to give examples of contingent existence, we always refer to changes, and not merely to the possibility of conceiving the opposite.* But change is an event, which, as such, is possible only through a cause, and considered per se its non-existence is therefore possible, and we become cognizant of its contingency from the fact that it can exist only as the effect of a cause. If this be the case even in natural philosophy, how much more in moral, where there is a much greater complication of circumstances, and where those views and sentiments, which are essential to any action of the mind, are so implicit and obscure, that they often escape our strictest attention, and are not only unaccountable in their causes, but even unknown in their existence? I am much afraid lest the small success I meet with in my enquiries will make this observation bear the air of an apology rather than of boasting. SECT. VI. OF THE IDEA OF EXISTENCE, AND OF EXTERNAL EXISTENCE. An interrupted appearance to the senses implies not necessarily an interruption in the existence. They are nothing more than principles of the determination of the existence of phenomena in time, according to the three modi of this determination; to wit, the relation to time itself as a quantity (the quantity of existence, that is, duration), the relation in time as a series or succession, finally, the relation in time as the complex of all existence (simultaneity). The answer is; It is the existence of the world which renders this hypothesis necessary. It is, in fact, the same as the empirical consciousness of my existence, which can only be determined in relation to something, which, while connected with my existence, is external to me. 
  • The object of the ideal of reason--an object existing only in reason itself--is also termed the primal being (ens originarium); as having no existence superior to him, the supreme being (ens summum); and as being the condition of all other beings, which rank under it, the being of all beings (ens entium).