ious'.[7] _Lastly_, Kant distinguishes 'objectively
real' and 'fictitious' conceptions in two ways. He speaks of
establishing the objective reality of a conception as consisting in
establishing the possibility of a corresponding object,[8] implying
therefore that a fictitious conception is a conception of which the
corresponding object is not known to be possible. Again, he describes
as fictitious new conceptions of substances, powers, and interactions,
which we might form from the material offered to us by perception
without borrowing from experience itself the example of their
connexions, e. g. the conception of a power of the mind to perceive
the future; and he says that the possibility of these conceptions
(i. e. the possibility of corresponding objects) cannot, like that of
the categories, be acquired _a priori_ through their being conditions
on which all experience depends, but must be discovered empirically or
not at all. Of such conceptions he says that, without being based upon
experience and its known laws, they are arbitrary syntheses which,
although they contain no contradiction, have no claim to objective
reality, and therefore to the possibility of corresponding objects.[9]
He implies, therefore, that the object of a conception can be said to
be possible only when the conception is the apprehension of a complex
of elements together with the apprehension--which, if not _a priori_,
must be based upon experience--that they are connected. Hence a
conception may be regarded as 'objectively real', or as 'fictitious'
according as it is the apprehension of a complex of elements
accompanied by the apprehension that they are connected, or the
apprehension of a complex of elements not so accompanied.

[4] The view that 'in the mere conception of a thing no sign
of its existence is to be found' (B. 272, M. 165) forms, of
course, the basis of Kant's criticism of the ontological
argument for the existence of God. Cf. _Dialectic_, Bk. II,
Ch. III, Sec. 4.

[5] Cf. 'a conception which includes in itself a synthesis'
(B. 267 med., M. 162 med.).

[6] E. g. B. 269 fin., M. 163 fin.; B. 270 med., M. 164 init.
The formulation which really expresses Kant's thought is to
be found B. 266 med., M. 161 fin.; B. 268 init., M. 162 fin.;
B. 268 med., M. 163 init.; and B. 270 med., M. 164 init.

[7] _Gedichtete._

[8] B. 268 init., M. 162 fin.

[9] B. 269-70, M. 163-4.