VII. Are There Limits to Knowledge?

It is from a dualism such as this that there arises the distinction between the perceived object and the thing-in-itself which Kant[^1] introduced into science and which so far has not been expelled. From our discussion can be seen that it is due to the nature of our intellectual organization that a particular thing can be given us only as perception. Thinking then overcomes this separateness by referring each perception to its rightful place in the world whole. As long as the separated parts of the world whole are defined as perceptions, in this elimination we are simply following a law of our subjectivity. If, however, we consider the sum-total of all perceptions as constituting one part, and confront it with the “thing-in-itself” as a second part, then our philosophizing loses all foundation. It then becomes a mere playing with concepts. An artificial opposition is constructed, but it is not possible to attain a content for the second part of this opposition, since such content for a particular thing can be drawn only from perception.