The Subreptive Axioms of Kant's Dissertation

Towards the end of his Inaugural Dissertation, Kant presents his three subreptive axioms which create a formula that encompasses all "pretenses of sensitive cognition masquerading as intellectual knowledge."

The first subreptive axiom according to Kant is "The same sensitive cognition under which alone the intuition of an object is possible is a condition of the possibility of the object itself."

Kant explains this by stating that: "What is, is somewhere and somewhen." That is to say that anything that exists is defined by its occupation of space, and location in time. These objects are found to exist only because they can be identified through our subjective knowledge of space and time. Therefore, according to Kant, is impossible for us to know about things such as the "seat of the soul" or other intuitive ideas that are being mistaken for sensitive ones, because the "seat of the soul" is an immaterial idea, which can not be placed in space. As a result, Kant compares any intellectual effort put forth to prove things like this would be as wasteful as "milking a he-goat with a sieve under it." Kant believes a proof for God etc. is impossible because He is defined as omnipresent, which Kant sees as impossible because in order to be defined the object must be able to be placed within a specific space.

The second subreptive axiom states: "The same sensitive condition under which alone data can be collected and compared for the formation of an intellectual concept of an object is a condition of the object itself."

Kant attempts to tackle the idea of the rule of contradictions here in saying that while we may be able to say that "whatever is and is not at the same time is impossible" because this is inherently contradictory and therefore impossible, when this assertion is converted it does not hold as true. In another form the rule of contradiction could be stated as "everything impossible both is and is not at the same time." This suggests that the conditions of sensitive knowledge control the realm of possibility relating to intellectual knowledge. This suggests that nothing can exist unless there is sensitive knowledge about it. This means that if contradiction isn't present it is much more difficult for us to determine possibility or impossibility.

The third subreptive axiom according to Kant is: "The same sensitive condition under which alone the subsumption of any presented object under a given intellectual concept is possible is also a condition of the possibility of the object itself."

Kant explains this axiom by stating that some schools of thought believe that "whatever exists contigently has at some time not existed." That is to say that, unless it can be proven that something has at some time not existed, it is impossible to determine its contigency. Kant therefore believes that a more succinct way of expressing this subjective law would be "if there is no evidence that there was a time when a certain thing did not exist the common intelligence does not supply sufficient marks for us to infer its contingency." Kant is saying that being unable to prove that something did not exist at one time is not grounds to declare it impossible, but instead leaves us incapable of a conclusion.