f we consider Kant's real position, we see that these views
are only verbally contrary, since the word object refers to something
different in each case. On the ordinary view objects are something
outside the mind, in the sense of independent of it, and the ideas,
which must conform to objects, are something within the mind, in the
sense of dependent upon it. The conformity then is of something within
the mind to something outside it. Again, the conformity means that one
of the terms, viz. the object, exists first and that then the other
term, the idea, is fitted to or made to correspond to it. Hence the
real contrary of this view is that ideas, within the mind, exist first
and that objects outside the mind, coming into existence afterwards,
must adapt themselves to the ideas. This of course strikes us as
absurd, because we always think of the existence of the object as the
presupposition of the existence of the knowledge of it; we do not
think the existence of the knowledge as the presupposition of the
existence of the object. Hence Kant only succeeds in stating the
contrary of the ordinary view with any plausibility, because in doing
so he makes the term object refer to something which like 'knowledge'
is within the mind. His position is that objects within the mind must
conform to our general ways of knowing. For Kant, therefore, the
conformity is not between something within and something without the
mind, but between two realities within the mind, viz. the individual
object, as object of perception, i. e. a phenomenon, and our general
ways of perceiving and thinking. But this view is only verbally the
contrary of the ordinary view, and consequently Kant does not succeed
in reversing the ordinary view that we know objects independent of or
outside the mind, by bringing our ideas into conformity with them. In
fact, his conclusion is that we do not know this object, i. e. the
thing in itself, at all. Hence his real position should be stated by
saying not that the ordinary view puts the conformity between mind and
things in the wrong way, but that we ought not to speak of conformity
at all. For the thing in itself being unknowable, our ideas can never
be made to conform to it. Kant then only reaches a conclusion which is
apparently the reverse of the ordinary view by substituting another
object for the thing in itself, viz. the phenomenon or appearance of
the thing in itself to us.

Further, this second line of critici