The Noumenal and Phenomenal Realms in Perspective
by Stephen Palmquist (stevepq@hkbu.edu.hk)
In several passages Kant makes comments such as that our moral experience enables us to 'transport ourselves into the intelligible world as members of it' [Kt5:453; s.a. Kt4:42-3,106]. Elsewhere he refers on occasion to 'intelligible action, cognizable by pure reason alone, apart from every temporal condition' [Kt8:31(26-7)]; such action, he says 'precedes all experience' [39n (34n)]. Interpreters who take such passing comments as representative of Kant's official Critical theory often assume he is positing 'two irreconcilable natures, the one abstractly rational and noumenal, the other phenomenal and purely sentient' [G14:lxii]. Yet this interpretation ignores his emphasis on the principle of perspective. For Kant's usual way of expressing this duality is that we possess not two natures, but two perspectives from which one and the same experience can be viewed. Hence, the word 'world' in such contexts ought to be taken not ontologically, but epistemologically, as referring to 'that which a human perspective creates'.[1] 'The idea of a moral world has...objective reality', he insists, 'as referring to the sensible world, viewed, however, as being an object of pure reason in its practical standpoint' [Kt1:836]. Our experience of the world, therefore, can be regarded as having two sides or aspects to it: the phenomenal (or sensible), which is examined in systemt, and the noumenal (or intelligible), which is examined in systemp. But this does not mean Kant requires us to believe in the literal existence of two ontologically separate worlds.
Kant not only describes systemp generally as the outworking of an immanent metaphysics [Kt5:387-8], but also states specifically that, with the move from the speculative perspective in systemt to the practical standpoint of systemp, reason's 'transcendent use is changed into an immanent use' [Kt4:48; cf. 16,105]. Something which 'for understanding' is 'transcendent' can be 'immanent' for reason because of the different standpoint it adopts [Kt7:403]. For instance, even the 'transcendent conceptions' (i.e., the ideas) of systemt can be 'regulative principles whose function is immanent and reliable, and which are adapted to the [properly] human Perspective' [403]. For systemp the most important of these ideas is freedom, which, as 'a noumenon...is knowable...from a practical standpoint, even though it is supersensible'; yet 'theoretically it would not be knowable' [Kt69:292e.a.]. As such, the noumenal 'world' of freedom can be regarded simply as the phenomenal world viewed from the standpoint of freedom.
This means freedom is found in immediate experience, though not as 'an object of experience' [Kt7i:195], but 'by its possible effect ['in nature']' [Kt7: 474]; its effect is undetectable only when experience is viewed from the standpoint of systemt [Kt1:843]. As Vleeschauwer puts it in V4:120-1: 'If the subject is considered in so far as he is temporally conditioned, his acts are physically determined...; but when his [temporal!] acts are considered outside this temporal conditioning, there is no reason why the causality exercised by the subject...should be any longer physically conditioned.' Even though we come to know our moral actions by observing 'the existence of the effect' in time and space, their moral character must stem from some other source [Kt8: 40(35)]: 'To seek the temporal origin of free acts as such (as though they were natural effects) is thus a contradiction.' Yet the resulting timelessness of such 'free acts' need not be conceived in some mysterious way, in terms of a 'noumenal, timeless choice' [W10:144], because the 'moral world [is] a consequence of our conduct in the world of sense' [Kt1:839]: that is, the immediate experience out of which all our acts arise can be analyzed in terms of systemt and so revealed to be in space and time; but it can also be analyzed in terms of its moral implications, in which case the theoretical considerations relating to time (and space) are irrelevant [cf. P3:273-5].
That the phenomenon-noumenon distinction as employed in systemp is not intended to transcend, or 'undo', the theories of systemt is also made evident by Kant [see e.g., Kt7:482-5]. For each of his systems 'is grounded in and limited to human experience' [S11:lxxxvi]. Therefore, a proper understanding of the perspectival relationship between systemt and systemp can resolve 'the enigma of the critical philosophy' [Kt4:5], viz., the problem of how the categories (especially the principle of causality) can properly refer to a supersensible object: 'The inconsistency vanishes because the use which is now made of these concepts [i.e., the standpoint from which they are now viewed] is different from that required by speculative reason' [5-6]. The chief difference is that the 'practical standpoint', as Kant declares in Kt4:5, requires 'no theoretical determination of the categories and no extension of our knowledge to the supersensible.' Because it is concerned only with our action and its moral basis, not with our knowledge, 'the application of the categories to the supersensuous, which occurs only from a practical standpoint, gives to pure theoretical reason not the least encouragement to run riot into the transcendent' [57].
The same holds true for the concept of 'the intelligible world': 'although I have a well-founded idea of it, still I do not have the least knowledge of it' [Kt5:462]. Instead, the intelligible world should be regarded as 'the supreme limit of all moral inquiry', for two reasons:
both in order that reason may not seek around, on the one hand, in the world of sense, in a way harmful to morals, for the supreme motive [of action]...; and so that it will not, on the other hand, impotently flap its wings in the space...of transcendent concepts which we call the intelligible world... [462]
Whereas a 'supersensible world' would be limitless, systemp is all about the limiting conditions imposed by the agent on a freely chosen object in the process of performing moral actions. The only thing supersensible about this is the a priori conditions themselves, which, as limitations of experience, point beyond themselves to an unknowable (limitless) reality, just as do the limiting conditions which constitute systemt.[2]
Why so many interpreters and critics have ignored Kant's firm and precise warnings about the proper interpretation of the phenomenon-noumenon distinction as it applies to the relation between systemt and systemp is difficult to say. It usually has to do, at least in part, with an insufficient appreciation of how the principle of perspective operates in Kant's thought, resulting in the condemnation of such warnings as unintelligible. For without a clear grasp of the derivation of the phenomenon-noumenon contrast from the perspectival powers of the agent, the interpreter is bound to misinterpret this key distinction. A typical example is Smart's condemnation of 'Kant's relegation of freedom to the noumenal self, which cannot be found in experience' [S13: 3.60], along with his 'mysterious' theory about 'a choice made in an individual human outside space and time' [3.37]. We have seen, on the contrary, that the elements of systemp in no way depend on such an interpretation of Kant's theories. With the exception of a few isolated passages, where he slips into a less precise way of expressing his views, Kant clearly portrays the noumenal as a concept whose only value (even for systemp) is as a 'negative', or 'limiting', concept [Kt5:458; s.a. P3:269]-i.e., a concept which tells us nothing about any theoretically knowable transcendent objects, but which merely defines the boundary of the phenomenal world and provides us with a practical way of talking about the sources of moral action which we all experience within that (phenomenal) world.
England treats the distinction between phenomena and noumena as the central doctrine of Kt4: 'The co-existence of freedom and necessity in one and the same action is rendered possible through the distinction between phenomena and their noumenal grounds' [E3:172]. While this may be true, it is unintelligible if this doctrine is not interpreted in terms of the principle of perspective. Thus England, neglecting that principle, is bound to be pessimistic: 'If we ask how...the intelligible world is related to the empirical series, we are without any clear answer' [172]; 'We look in vain for any clear guidance as to the true character of the intelligible world' [174]. Yet England's difficulties all stem from his own assumption that Kant is making a 'violent separation of the phenomenal and noumenal realms' [140]; he quite rightly concludes on this basis that such a 'violent opposition...calls for rejection' [186]. But what he fails to see is that it is not Kant, but he himself and commentators like him, who, by neglecting the principle of perspective, have 'so completely divorced the phenomenal and noumenal realms that [they are] unable to bring them together again' [208]. Kant brings them together by the very theory of man's 'two-fold character' (i.e., one person's ability to adopt two opposing standpoints) which England thinks separates them [170; see note VIII.3].
Silber's criticisms reveal his failure to grasp the principle of perspective, which in turn leads him to propose some unnecessary revisions of Kant's theory [see e.g., S11:cii-iii]. He argues that 'Kant erred either in designating the moral realm as the noumenal realm or in denying that the noumenal realm is temporal, for moral volition is ineluctably temporal' [xcviii], and suggests that 'the conception of the phenomenal world' be broadened 'to include all aspects of human experience' [cii]. Yet Kant's conception of the phenomenal world already includes all aspects of human experience which can be viewed as participating in systemt; to extend it to cover the entire System would be to rob it of its distinctively perspectival character. Moreover, as stated above, moral acts can be regarded as temporal, provided that in so doing one is not seeking to establish what makes them moral. So it is no wonder that Silber, not having recognized this, finds it impossible to accept the timelessness of moral 'acts' [xcviii-ciii].
Michalson's otherwise instructive account of the 'historical dimensions' of Kant's theory of religion (which I shall discuss further in Pq20) likewise suffers unnecessarily from its repeated references to the absolute dichotomy which supposedly exists between the phenomenal and noumenal worlds. Michalson's whole book is devoted to the task of explaining how Kant tried unsuccessfully to overcome the disastrous implications of this basic presupposition. According to Michalson [M11:4-5], Kant believed historical religion serves as a 'vehicle' for the progress of pure moral religion even though 'one of the critical philosophy's most basic principles' states 'that man's moral and religious life is to be lived out in the noumenal realm only'; this gives rise to an unresolvable contradiction, since 'the temporal span represented by history can have no influence on moral and religious "progress," given the radically a-temporal nature of the noumenal.' After carefully examining many of Kant's hopeless attempts 'to bridge the gap between the worlds of nature and freedom' [see e.g., 141,158], he concludes by simply restating the basic contradiction [168] and explaining why all Kant's solutions are fundamentally incoherent [181]: 'Kant has preserved morals and religion from the threats of Newtonian science by invoking a phenomenon-noumenon distinction. But this very distinction denies Kant the conceptual means of ever articulating the genuinely worldly manifestation of moral ends.' Unfortunately, what Michalson never considers is that the utterly hopeless nature of the task he expects Kant to perform is a result of his own incorrect interpretative assumptions. For Michalson's entire argument is undermined if, as I have argued, Kant's distinction between the noumenal and the phenomenal realms is properly regarded as a perspectival distinction.
Fortunately, not all interpreters have neglected the implications of the principle of perspective in this way [see e.g., B20:18-35]. Sandberg gives it due recognition by saying in S2:279 that Kant's distinction between phenomenal and noumenal causality is 'one between explanatory levels' and implies 'a practical rather than a theoretical dualism, a dualism of reasons and explanations rather than one of objects.' Indeed, as Sandberg rightly argues, the whole notion of noumenal causality as a supposedly timeless act of practical reason 'is the work of the commentators rather than of Kant himself' [270]. This means that, as Sandberg aptly puts it in S2:276-7: 'To worry about the existence or non-existence of this [noumenal] "world" is to miss the point.... The important thing to keep in mind...is that this intelligible world only has reality in a practical sense.'
[1] In his Lectures on Metaphysics [q.i. S10:33], Kant says '"another world" means nothing more than "another way of seeing things."'Even in his early works Kant sometimes hints at such a distinction between two 'worlds'. In Kt18:337(67-8) he refers to mankind as 'at the same time a member of the visible and of the invisible world'; he then relates this distinction to 'the contradiction between the moral and physical relations [cf. standpoints] of men here on earth' [335-6(64-5)]. And of course, this distinction is the main subject of Kt19, where Kant already regards 'space and time' as the 'formal principles of the phenomenal universe' [398].
[2] In P3:256 Paton says Kant's view of the two 'worlds', one of which establishes timeless principles for the other, 'is not so different from that of some of the theologically minded who gibe at it, inasmuch as they too regard the activity of God as timeless and the temporal universe as the manifestation of a timeless will.' It is important to point out, however, that for Kant the noumenal world does not establish the timeless principles; rather, the principles (i.e., the a priori conditions of systemp) themselves define the boundary between the phenomenal and the noumenal. Thus, the line which describes the circles in Figures VII.5 and VIII.2 can be regarded as representing the conditions through which the unknowable meets the knowable.
