That which limits must be different from what it limits (the sea does not limit the sea). Kant knows and writes this, yet does not apply it consistently when developing his critique, in which reason is asked to limit itself.
Indeed, it is necessarily a higher faculty than reason that can perceive the limits of reason.
This faculty is intelligence.
More precisely
A limit marks a separation or distinction between two domains, levels, or states. It establishes the relation between an inside and an outside, or more broadly between the determined and the undetermined.
A limit determines something by making it finite; in this respect, it is intrinsic to form, which bounds and configures. Yet from a metaphysical perspective, the limit of any order can only be known from an instance superior to that order.
No faculty can define its own essential boundaries from within.
To perceive the limits of reason, one must surpass reason.
Reason operates discursively; intelligence grasps meaning intuitively.
To command reason to establish its own limits — as in Kantian critique — results in self-limitation without any transcendent ground, thus remaining circular.
Every determination is a kind of negation: to mark an essence is also to distinguish it from others. Recognizing a limit therefore presupposes a supradiscursive principle capable of discernment.
To recognize a limit is already to stand on the plane of intelligence, the principle of the faculties.
For further reading
- Plato, Republic; Phaedrus — On dialectic and intellectual distance.
- Aristotle, Metaphysics; Physics — On determination by form and the definition of limit.
- Plotinus, Enneads — On the distinction between the One, Intellect, Soul, and degrees of determination.
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae — On the relation between intellect, reason, and limitation.
- Kant, Critique of Pure Reason — On the limits of reason, though defined discursively by reason itself.
- Jean Borella, La crise du symbolisme religieux (Paris, L’Harmattan, 2008) — On the “Kantian critical slumber.”
- Jean Borella, Amour et Vérité (Paris, L’Harmattan, 2022) — On the distinction between reason and intelligence, and the surpassing of discursive thought.
- Bruno Bérard, Metaphysics for Everyone (Angelico Press); fr. Métaphysique pour tous (Paris, L’Harmattan, 2022); it. Sui sentieri della metafisica ; es. ¿Qué es la metafísica? ; de. Was ist Metaphysik? — On limit, the distinction between reason and intelligence, and the hierarchy of faculties.