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PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 1781
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 1781
Human reason, in one sphere of its cognition, is called upon to consider questions, which it cannot decline, as they are presented by its own nature, but which it cannot answer, as they transcend every faculty of the mind. It falls into this difficulty without any fault of its own. It begins with principles, which cannot be dispensed with in the field of experience, and the truth and sufficiency of which are, at the same time, insured by experience. With these principles it rises, in obedience t
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PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 1787
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 1787
Whether the treatment of that portion of our knowledge which lies within the province of pure reason advances with that undeviating certainty which characterizes the progress of science , we shall be at no loss to determine. If we find those who are engaged in metaphysical pursuits, unable to come to an understanding as to the method which they ought to follow; if we find them, after the most elaborate preparations, invariably brought to a stand before the goal is reached, and compelled to retra
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II. The Human Intellect, even in an Unphilosophical State, is in Possession of Certain Cognitions “à priori”.
II. The Human Intellect, even in an Unphilosophical State, is in Possession of Certain Cognitions “à priori”.
Not only in judgements, however, but even in conceptions, is an à priori origin manifest. For example, if we take away by degrees from our conceptions of a body all that can be referred to mere sensuous experience—colour, hardness or softness, weight, even impenetrability—the body will then vanish; but the space which it occupied still remains, and this it is utterly impossible to annihilate in thought. Again, if we take away, in like manner, from our empirical conception of any object, corporea
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III. Philosophy stands in need of a Science which shall Determine the Possibility, Principles, and Extent of Human Knowledge “à priori”
III. Philosophy stands in need of a Science which shall Determine the Possibility, Principles, and Extent of Human Knowledge “à priori”
Of far more importance than all that has been above said, is the consideration that certain of our cognitions rise completely above the sphere of all possible experience, and by means of conceptions, to which there exists in the whole extent of experience no corresponding object, seem to extend the range of our judgements beyond its bounds. And just in this transcendental or supersensible sphere, where experience affords us neither instruction nor guidance, lie the investigations of reason, whic
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IV. Of the Difference Between Analytical and Synthetical Judgements.
IV. Of the Difference Between Analytical and Synthetical Judgements.
In all judgements wherein the relation of a subject to the predicate is cogitated (I mention affirmative judgements only here; the application to negative will be very easy), this relation is possible in two different ways. Either the predicate B belongs to the subject A, as somewhat which is contained (though covertly) in the conception A; or the predicate B lies completely out of the conception A, although it stands in connection with it. In the first instance, I term the judgement analytical,
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V. In all Theoretical Sciences of Reason, Synthetical Judgements “à priori” are contained as Principles.
V. In all Theoretical Sciences of Reason, Synthetical Judgements “à priori” are contained as Principles.
1. Mathematical judgements are always synthetical. Hitherto this fact, though incontestably true and very important in its consequences, seems to have escaped the analysts of the human mind, nay, to be in complete opposition to all their conjectures. For as it was found that mathematical conclusions all proceed according to the principle of contradiction (which the nature of every apodeictic certainty requires), people became persuaded that the fundamental principles of the science also were rec
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VI. The Universal Problem of Pure Reason.
VI. The Universal Problem of Pure Reason.
It is extremely advantageous to be able to bring a number of investigations under the formula of a single problem. For in this manner, we not only facilitate our own labour, inasmuch as we define it clearly to ourselves, but also render it more easy for others to decide whether we have done justice to our undertaking. The proper problem of pure reason, then, is contained in the question: “How are synthetical judgements à priori possible?” That metaphysical science has hitherto remained in so vac
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VII. Idea and Division of a Particular Science, under the Name of a Critique of Pure Reason.
VII. Idea and Division of a Particular Science, under the Name of a Critique of Pure Reason.
From all that has been said, there results the idea of a particular science, which may be called the Critique of Pure Reason. For reason is the faculty which furnishes us with the principles of knowledge à priori. Hence, pure reason is the faculty which contains the principles of cognizing anything absolutely à priori. An organon of pure reason would be a compendium of those principles according to which alone all pure cognitions à priori can be obtained. The completely extended application of s
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SECTION I. Of Space. § 2. Metaphysical Exposition of this Conception.
SECTION I. Of Space. § 2. Metaphysical Exposition of this Conception.
By means of the external sense (a property of the mind), we represent to ourselves objects as without us, and these all in space. Herein alone are their shape, dimensions, and relations to each other determined or determinable. The internal sense, by means of which the mind contemplates itself or its internal state, gives, indeed, no intuition of the soul as an object; yet there is nevertheless a determinate form, under which alone the contemplation of our internal state is possible, so that all
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§ 3. Transcendental Exposition of the Conception of Space.
§ 3. Transcendental Exposition of the Conception of Space.
By a transcendental exposition, I mean the explanation of a conception, as a principle, whence can be discerned the possibility of other synthetical à priori cognitions. For this purpose, it is requisite, firstly, that such cognitions do really flow from the given conception; and, secondly, that the said cognitions are only possible under the presupposition of a given mode of explaining this conception. Geometry is a science which determines the properties of space synthetically, and yet à prior
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§ 4. Conclusions from the foregoing Conceptions.
§ 4. Conclusions from the foregoing Conceptions.
(a) Space does not represent any property of objects as things in themselves, nor does it represent them in their relations to each other; in other words, space does not represent to us any determination of objects such as attaches to the objects themselves, and would remain, even though all subjective conditions of the intuition were abstracted. For neither absolute nor relative determinations of objects can be intuited prior to the existence of the things to which they belong, and therefore no
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SECTION II. Of Time. § 5. Metaphysical Exposition of this Conception.
SECTION II. Of Time. § 5. Metaphysical Exposition of this Conception.
1. Time is not an empirical conception. For neither coexistence nor succession would be perceived by us, if the representation of time did not exist as a foundation à priori. Without this presupposition we could not represent to ourselves that things exist together at one and the same time, or at different times, that is, contemporaneously, or in succession. 2. Time is a necessary representation, lying at the foundation of all our intuitions. With regard to phenomena in general, we cannot think
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§ 6 Transcendental Exposition of the Conception of Time.
§ 6 Transcendental Exposition of the Conception of Time.
I may here refer to what is said above (§ 5, 3), where, for or sake of brevity, I have placed under the head of metaphysical exposition, that which is properly transcendental. Here I shall add that the conception of change, and with it the conception of motion, as change of place, is possible only through and in the representation of time; that if this representation were not an intuition (internal) à priori, no conception, of whatever kind, could render comprehensible the possibility of change,
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§ 7. Conclusions from the above Conceptions.
§ 7. Conclusions from the above Conceptions.
(a) Time is not something which subsists of itself, or which inheres in things as an objective determination, and therefore remains, when abstraction is made of the subjective conditions of the intuition of things. For in the former case, it would be something real, yet without presenting to any power of perception any real object. In the latter case, as an order or determination inherent in things themselves, it could not be antecedent to things, as their condition, nor discerned or intuited by
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§ 8. Elucidation.
§ 8. Elucidation.
Against this theory, which grants empirical reality to time, but denies to it absolute and transcendental reality, I have heard from intelligent men an objection so unanimously urged that I conclude that it must naturally present itself to every reader to whom these considerations are novel. It runs thus: “Changes are real” (this the continual change in our own representations demonstrates, even though the existence of all external phenomena, together with their changes, is denied). Now, changes
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§ 9. General Remarks on Transcendental Æsthetic.
§ 9. General Remarks on Transcendental Æsthetic.
I. In order to prevent any misunderstanding, it will be requisite, in the first place, to recapitulate, as clearly as possible, what our opinion is with respect to the fundamental nature of our sensuous cognition in general. We have intended, then, to say that all our intuition is nothing but the representation of phenomena; that the things which we intuite, are not in themselves the same as our representations of them in intuition, nor are their relations in themselves so constituted as they ap
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§ 10. Conclusion of the Transcendental Æsthetic.
§ 10. Conclusion of the Transcendental Æsthetic.
We have now completely before us one part of the solution of the grand general problem of transcendental philosophy, namely, the question: “How are synthetical propositions à priori possible?” That is to say, we have shown that we are in possession of pure à priori intuitions, namely, space and time, in which we find, when in a judgement à priori we pass out beyond the given conception, something which is not discoverable in that conception, but is certainly found à priori in the intuition which
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Second Part—TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC INTRODUCTION. Idea of a Transcendental Logic. I. Of Logic in General.
Second Part—TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC INTRODUCTION. Idea of a Transcendental Logic. I. Of Logic in General.
Our knowledge springs from two main sources in the mind, first of which is the faculty or power of receiving representations (receptivity for impressions); the second is the power of cognizing by means of these representations (spontaneity in the production of conceptions). Through the first an object is given to us; through the second, it is, in relation to the representation (which is a mere determination of the mind), thought. Intuition and conceptions constitute, therefore, the elements of a
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II. Of Transcendental Logic.
II. Of Transcendental Logic.
General logic, as we have seen, makes abstraction of all content of cognition, that is, of all relation of cognition to its object, and regards only the logical form in the relation of cognitions to each other, that is, the form of thought in general. But as we have both pure and empirical intuitions (as transcendental æsthetic proves), in like manner a distinction might be drawn between pure and empirical thought (of objects). In this case, there would exist a kind of logic, in which we should
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III. Of the Division of General Logic into Analytic and Dialectic.
III. Of the Division of General Logic into Analytic and Dialectic.
The old question with which people sought to push logicians into a corner, so that they must either have recourse to pitiful sophisms or confess their ignorance, and consequently the vanity of their whole art, is this: “What is truth?” The definition of the word truth, to wit, “the accordance of the cognition with its object,” is presupposed in the question; but we desire to be told, in the answer to it, what is the universal and secure criterion of the truth of every cognition. To know what que
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Section I. Of the Logical Use of the Understanding in General § 4
Section I. Of the Logical Use of the Understanding in General § 4
The understanding was defined above only negatively, as a non-sensuous faculty of cognition. Now, independently of sensibility, we cannot possibly have any intuition; consequently, the understanding is no faculty of intuition. But besides intuition there is no other mode of cognition, except through conceptions; consequently, the cognition of every, at least of every human, understanding is a cognition through conceptions—not intuitive, but discursive. All intuitions, as sensuous, depend on affe
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Section II. Of the Logical Function of the Understanding in Judgements § 5
Section II. Of the Logical Function of the Understanding in Judgements § 5
If we abstract all the content of a judgement, and consider only the intellectual form thereof, we find that the function of thought in a judgement can be brought under four heads, of which each contains three momenta. These may be conveniently represented in the following table: As this division appears to differ in some, though not essential points, from the usual technique of logicians, the following observations, for the prevention of otherwise possible misunderstanding, will not be without
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Section III. Of the Pure Conceptions of the Understanding, or Categories § 6
Section III. Of the Pure Conceptions of the Understanding, or Categories § 6
General logic, as has been repeatedly said, makes abstraction of all content of cognition, and expects to receive representations from some other quarter, in order, by means of analysis, to convert them into conceptions. On the contrary, transcendental logic has lying before it the manifold content of à priori sensibility, which transcendental æsthetic presents to it in order to give matter to the pure conceptions of the understanding, without which transcendental logic would have no content, an
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Chapter II. Of the Deduction of the Pure Conceptions of the Understanding Section I. Of the Principles of a Transcendental Deduction in general § 9
Chapter II. Of the Deduction of the Pure Conceptions of the Understanding Section I. Of the Principles of a Transcendental Deduction in general § 9
Teachers of jurisprudence, when speaking of rights and claims, distinguish in a cause the question of right (quid juris) from the question of fact (quid facti), and while they demand proof of both, they give to the proof of the former, which goes to establish right or claim in law, the name of deduction. Now we make use of a great number of empirical conceptions, without opposition from any one; and consider ourselves, even without any attempt at deduction, justified in attaching to them a sense
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Transition to the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories § 10
Transition to the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories § 10
There are only two possible ways in which synthetical representation and its objects can coincide with and relate necessarily to each other, and, as it were, meet together. Either the object alone makes the representation possible, or the representation alone makes the object possible. In the former case, the relation between them is only empirical, and an à priori representation is impossible. And this is the case with phenomena, as regards that in them which is referable to mere sensation. In
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Section II Transcendental Deduction of the pure Conceptions of the Understanding Of the Possibility of a Conjunction of the manifold representations given by Sense § 11.
Section II Transcendental Deduction of the pure Conceptions of the Understanding Of the Possibility of a Conjunction of the manifold representations given by Sense § 11.
The manifold content in our representations can be given in an intuition which is merely sensuous—in other words, is nothing but susceptibility; and the form of this intuition can exist à priori in our faculty of representation, without being anything else but the mode in which the subject is affected. But the conjunction (conjunctio) of a manifold in intuition never can be given us by the senses; it cannot therefore be contained in the pure form of sensuous intuition, for it is a spontaneous ac
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Of the Originally Synthetical Unity of Apperception § 12
Of the Originally Synthetical Unity of Apperception § 12
The “I think” must accompany all my representations, for otherwise something would be represented in me which could not be thought; in other words, the representation would either be impossible, or at least be, in relation to me, nothing. That representation which can be given previously to all thought is called intuition. All the diversity or manifold content of intuition, has, therefore, a necessary relation to the “I think,” in the subject in which this diversity is found. But this representa
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The Principle of the Synthetical Unity of Apperception is the highest Principle of all exercise of the Understanding § 13
The Principle of the Synthetical Unity of Apperception is the highest Principle of all exercise of the Understanding § 13
The supreme principle of the possibility of all intuition in relation to sensibility was, according to our transcendental æsthetic, that all the manifold in intuition be subject to the formal conditions of space and time. The supreme principle of the possibility of it in relation to the understanding is that all the manifold in it be subject to conditions of the originally synthetical unity or apperception. [17] To the former of these two principles are subject all the various representations of
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Observation § 17
Observation § 17
[19] The proof of this rests on the represented unity of intuition, by means of which an object is given, and which always includes in itself a synthesis of the manifold to be intuited, and also the relation of this latter to unity of apperception. But there is one thing in the above demonstration of which I could not make abstraction, namely, that the manifold to be intuited must be given previously to the synthesis of the understanding, and independently of it. How this takes place remains her
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In Cognition, its Application to Objects of Experience is the only legitimate use of the Category § 18
In Cognition, its Application to Objects of Experience is the only legitimate use of the Category § 18
To think an object and to cognize an object are by no means the same thing. In cognition there are two elements: firstly, the conception, whereby an object is cogitated (the category); and, secondly, the intuition, whereby the object is given. For supposing that to the conception a corresponding intuition could not be given, it would still be a thought as regards its form, but without any object, and no cognition of anything would be possible by means of it, inasmuch as, so far as I knew, there
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Of the Application of the Categories to Objects of the Senses in general § 20
Of the Application of the Categories to Objects of the Senses in general § 20
The pure conceptions of the understanding apply to objects of intuition in general, through the understanding alone, whether the intuition be our own or some other, provided only it be sensuous, but are, for this very reason, mere forms of thought, by means of which alone no determined object can be cognized. The synthesis or conjunction of the manifold in these conceptions relates, we have said, only to the unity of apperception, and is for this reason the ground of the possibility of à priori
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Transcendental Deduction of the universally possible employment in experience of the Pure Conceptions of the Understanding § 22
Transcendental Deduction of the universally possible employment in experience of the Pure Conceptions of the Understanding § 22
In the metaphysical deduction, the à priori origin of categories was proved by their complete accordance with the general logical of thought; in the transcendental deduction was exhibited the possibility of the categories as à priori cognitions of objects of an intuition in general (§ 16 and 17).At present we are about to explain the possibility of cognizing, à priori, by means of the categories, all objects which can possibly be presented to our senses, not, indeed, according to the form of the
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Result of this Deduction of the Conceptions of the Understanding § 23
Result of this Deduction of the Conceptions of the Understanding § 23
We cannot think any object except by means of the categories; we cannot cognize any thought except by means of intuitions corresponding to these conceptions. Now all our intuitions are sensuous, and our cognition, in so far as the object of it is given, is empirical. But empirical cognition is experience; consequently no à priori cognition is possible for us, except of objects of possible experience. [25] [25] Lest my readers should stumble at this assertion, and the conclusions that may be too
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BOOK II. Analytic of Principles
BOOK II. Analytic of Principles
General logic is constructed upon a plan which coincides exactly with the division of the higher faculties of cognition. These are, understanding, judgement, and reason. This science, accordingly, treats in its analytic of conceptions, judgements, and conclusions in exact correspondence with the functions and order of those mental powers which we include generally under the generic denomination of understanding. As this merely formal logic makes abstraction of all content of cognition, whether p
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INTRODUCTION. Of the Transcendental Faculty of judgement in General
INTRODUCTION. Of the Transcendental Faculty of judgement in General
If understanding in general be defined as the faculty of laws or rules, the faculty of judgement may be termed the faculty of subsumption under these rules; that is, of distinguishing whether this or that does or does not stand under a given rule (casus datae legis). General logic contains no directions or precepts for the faculty of judgement, nor can it contain any such. For as it makes abstraction of all content of cognition, no duty is left for it, except that of exposing analytically the me
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TRANSCENDENTAL DOCTRINE OF THE FACULTY OF JUDGEMENT OR, ANALYTIC OF PRINCIPLES Chapter I. Of the Schematism at of the Pure Conceptions of the Understanding
TRANSCENDENTAL DOCTRINE OF THE FACULTY OF JUDGEMENT OR, ANALYTIC OF PRINCIPLES Chapter I. Of the Schematism at of the Pure Conceptions of the Understanding
In all subsumptions of an object under a conception, the representation of the object must be homogeneous with the conception; in other words, the conception must contain that which is represented in the object to be subsumed under it. For this is the meaning of the expression: “An object is contained under a conception.” Thus the empirical conception of a plate is homogeneous with the pure geometrical conception of a circle, inasmuch as the roundness which is cogitated in the former is intuited
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Chapter II. System of all Principles of the Pure Understanding
Chapter II. System of all Principles of the Pure Understanding
In the foregoing chapter we have merely considered the general conditions under which alone the transcendental faculty of judgement is justified in using the pure conceptions of the understanding for synthetical judgements. Our duty at present is to exhibit in systematic connection those judgements which the understanding really produces à priori. For this purpose, our table of the categories will certainly afford us the natural and safe guidance. For it is precisely the categories whose applica
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Section I. Of the Supreme Principle of all Analytical Judgements
Section I. Of the Supreme Principle of all Analytical Judgements
Whatever may be the content of our cognition, and in whatever manner our cognition may be related to its object, the universal, although only negative conditions of all our judgements is that they do not contradict themselves; otherwise these judgements are in themselves (even without respect to the object) nothing. But although there may exist no contradiction in our judgement, it may nevertheless connect conceptions in such a manner that they do not correspond to the object, or without any gro
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Section II. Of the Supreme Principle of all Synthetical Judgements
Section II. Of the Supreme Principle of all Synthetical Judgements
À priori synthetical judgements are possible when we apply the formal conditions of the à priori intuition, the synthesis of the imagination, and the necessary unity of that synthesis in a transcendental apperception, to a possible cognition of experience, and say: “The conditions of the possibility of experience in general are at the same time conditions of the possibility of the objects of experience, and have, for that reason, objective validity in an à priori synthetical judgement.”...
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Section III. Systematic Representation of all Synthetical Principles of the Pure Understanding
Section III. Systematic Representation of all Synthetical Principles of the Pure Understanding
That principles exist at all is to be ascribed solely to the pure understanding, which is not only the faculty of rules in regard to that which happens, but is even the source of principles according to which everything that can be presented to us as an object is necessarily subject to rules, because without such rules we never could attain to cognition of an object. Even the laws of nature, if they are contemplated as principles of the empirical use of the understanding, possess also a characte
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Chapter III Of the Ground of the Division of all Objects into Phenomena and Noumena
Chapter III Of the Ground of the Division of all Objects into Phenomena and Noumena
We have now not only traversed the region of the pure understanding and carefully surveyed every part of it, but we have also measured it, and assigned to everything therein its proper place. But this land is an island, and enclosed by nature herself within unchangeable limits. It is the land of truth (an attractive word), surrounded by a wide and stormy ocean, the region of illusion, where many a fog-bank, many an iceberg, seems to the mariner, on his voyage of discovery, a new country, and, wh
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APPENDIX
APPENDIX
Of the Equivocal Nature or Amphiboly of the Conceptions of Reflection from the Confusion of the Transcendental with the Empirical use of the Understanding. Reflection (reflexio) is not occupied about objects themselves, for the purpose of directly obtaining conceptions of them, but is that state of the mind in which we set ourselves to discover the subjective conditions under which we obtain conceptions. It is the consciousness of the relation of given representations to the different sources or
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II. Of Pure Reason as the Seat of Transcendental Illusory Appearance
II. Of Pure Reason as the Seat of Transcendental Illusory Appearance
A. OF REASON IN GENERAL. All our knowledge begins with sense, proceeds thence to understanding, and ends with reason, beyond which nothing higher can be discovered in the human mind for elaborating the matter of intuition and subjecting it to the highest unity of thought. At this stage of our inquiry it is my duty to give an explanation of this, the highest faculty of cognition, and I confess I find myself here in some difficulty. Of reason, as of the understanding, there is a merely formal, tha
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TRANSCENDENTAL DIALECTIC—BOOK I—OF THE CONCEPTIONS OF PURE REASON.
TRANSCENDENTAL DIALECTIC—BOOK I—OF THE CONCEPTIONS OF PURE REASON.
The conceptions of pure reason—we do not here speak of the possibility of them—are not obtained by reflection, but by inference or conclusion. The conceptions of understanding are also cogitated à priori antecedently to experience, and render it possible; but they contain nothing but the unity of reflection upon phenomena, in so far as these must necessarily belong to a possible empirical consciousness. Through them alone are cognition and the determination of an object possible. It is from them
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Section I—Of Ideas in General
Section I—Of Ideas in General
Despite the great wealth of words which European languages possess, the thinker finds himself often at a loss for an expression exactly suited to his conception, for want of which he is unable to make himself intelligible either to others or to himself. To coin new words is a pretension to legislation in language which is seldom successful; and, before recourse is taken to so desperate an expedient, it is advisable to examine the dead and learned languages, with the hope and the probability that
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Section II. Of Transcendental Ideas
Section II. Of Transcendental Ideas
Transcendental analytic showed us how the mere logical form of our cognition can contain the origin of pure conceptions à priori, conceptions which represent objects antecedently to all experience, or rather, indicate the synthetical unity which alone renders possible an empirical cognition of objects. The form of judgements—converted into a conception of the synthesis of intuitions—produced the categories which direct the employment of the understanding in experience. This consideration warrant
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Section III. System of Transcendental Ideas
Section III. System of Transcendental Ideas
We are not at present engaged with a logical dialectic, which makes complete abstraction of the content of cognition and aims only at unveiling the illusory appearance in the form of syllogisms. Our subject is transcendental dialectic, which must contain, completely à priori, the origin of certain cognitions drawn from pure reason, and the origin of certain deduced conceptions, the object of which cannot be given empirically and which therefore lie beyond the sphere of the faculty of understandi
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TRANSCENDENTAL DIALECTIC—BOOK II—OF THE DIALECTICAL PROCEDURE OF PURE REASON
TRANSCENDENTAL DIALECTIC—BOOK II—OF THE DIALECTICAL PROCEDURE OF PURE REASON
It may be said that the object of a merely transcendental idea is something of which we have no conception, although the idea may be a necessary product of reason according to its original laws. For, in fact, a conception of an object that is adequate to the idea given by reason, is impossible. For such an object must be capable of being presented and intuited in a Possible experience. But we should express our meaning better, and with less risk of being misunderstood, if we said that we can hav
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Chapter I. Of the Paralogisms of Pure Reason
Chapter I. Of the Paralogisms of Pure Reason
The logical paralogism consists in the falsity of an argument in respect of its form, be the content what it may. But a transcendental paralogism has a transcendental foundation, and concludes falsely, while the form is correct and unexceptionable. In this manner the paralogism has its foundation in the nature of human reason, and is the parent of an unavoidable, though not insoluble, mental illusion. We now come to a conception which was not inserted in the general list of transcendental concep
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Chapter II. The Antinomy of Pure Reason
Chapter II. The Antinomy of Pure Reason
We showed in the introduction to this part of our work, that all transcendental illusion of pure reason arose from dialectical arguments, the schema of which logic gives us in its three formal species of syllogisms—just as the categories find their logical schema in the four functions of all judgements. The first kind of these sophistical arguments related to the unconditioned unity of the subjective conditions of all representations in general (of the subject or soul), in correspondence with th
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Section I. System of Cosmological Ideas
Section I. System of Cosmological Ideas
That We may be able to enumerate with systematic precision these ideas according to a principle, we must remark, in the first place, that it is from the understanding alone that pure and transcendental conceptions take their origin; that the reason does not properly give birth to any conception, but only frees the conception of the understanding from the unavoidable limitation of a possible experience, and thus endeavours to raise it above the empirical, though it must still be in connection wit
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Section II. Antithetic of Pure Reason
Section II. Antithetic of Pure Reason
The questions which naturally arise in the consideration of this dialectic of pure reason, are therefore: 1st. In what propositions is pure reason unavoidably subject to an antinomy? 2nd. What are the causes of this antinomy? 3rd. Whether and in what way can reason free itself from this self-contradiction? A dialectical proposition or theorem of pure reason must, according to what has been said, be distinguishable from all sophistical propositions, by the fact that it is not an answer to an arbi
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Section III. Of the Interest of Reason in these Self-contradictions
Section III. Of the Interest of Reason in these Self-contradictions
We have thus completely before us the dialectical procedure of the cosmological ideas. No possible experience can present us with an object adequate to them in extent. Nay, more, reason itself cannot cogitate them as according with the general laws of experience. And yet they are not arbitrary fictions of thought. On the contrary, reason, in its uninterrupted progress in the empirical synthesis, is necessarily conducted to them, when it endeavours to free from all conditions and to comprehend in
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Section IV. Of the necessity imposed upon Pure Reason of presenting a Solution of its Transcendental Problems
Section IV. Of the necessity imposed upon Pure Reason of presenting a Solution of its Transcendental Problems
We cannot, therefore, escape the responsibility of at least a critical solution of the questions of reason, by complaints of the limited nature of our faculties, and the seemingly humble confession that it is beyond the power of our reason to decide, whether the world has existed from all eternity or had a beginning—whether it is infinitely extended, or enclosed within certain limits—whether anything in the world is simple, or whether everything must be capable of infinite divisibility—whether f
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Section V. Sceptical Exposition of the Cosmological Problems presented in the four Transcendental Ideas
Section V. Sceptical Exposition of the Cosmological Problems presented in the four Transcendental Ideas
We should be quite willing to desist from the demand of a dogmatical answer to our questions, if we understood beforehand that, be the answer what it may, it would only serve to increase our ignorance, to throw us from one incomprehensibility into another, from one obscurity into another still greater, and perhaps lead us into irreconcilable contradictions. If a dogmatical affirmative or negative answer is demanded, is it at all prudent to set aside the probable grounds of a solution which lie b
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Section VI. Transcendental Idealism as the Key to the Solution of Pure Cosmological Dialectic
Section VI. Transcendental Idealism as the Key to the Solution of Pure Cosmological Dialectic
In the transcendental æsthetic we proved that everything intuited in space and time, all objects of a possible experience, are nothing but phenomena, that is, mere representations; and that these, as presented to us—as extended bodies, or as series of changes—have no self-subsistent existence apart from human thought. This doctrine I call Transcendental Idealism. [59] The realist in the transcendental sense regards these modifications of our sensibility, these mere representations, as things sub
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Section VII. Critical Solution of the Cosmological Problem
Section VII. Critical Solution of the Cosmological Problem
The antinomy of pure reason is based upon the following dialectical argument: “If that which is conditioned is given, the whole series of its conditions is also given; but sensuous objects are given as conditioned; consequently...” This syllogism, the major of which seems so natural and evident, introduces as many cosmological ideas as there are different kinds of conditions in the synthesis of phenomena, in so far as these conditions constitute a series. These ideas require absolute totality in
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Section VIII. Regulative Principle of Pure Reason in relation to the Cosmological Ideas
Section VIII. Regulative Principle of Pure Reason in relation to the Cosmological Ideas
The cosmological principle of totality could not give us any certain knowledge in regard to the maximum in the series of conditions in the world of sense, considered as a thing in itself. The actual regress in the series is the only means of approaching this maximum. This principle of pure reason, therefore, may still be considered as valid—not as an axiom enabling us to cogitate totality in the object as actual, but as a problem for the understanding, which requires it to institute and to conti
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Section IX. Of the Empirical Use of the Regulative Principle of Reason with regard to the Cosmological Ideas
Section IX. Of the Empirical Use of the Regulative Principle of Reason with regard to the Cosmological Ideas
We have shown that no transcendental use can be made either of the conceptions of reason or of understanding. We have shown, likewise, that the demand of absolute totality in the series of conditions in the world of sense arises from a transcendental employment of reason, resting on the opinion that phenomena are to be regarded as things in themselves. It follows that we are not required to answer the question respecting the absolute quantity of a series—whether it is in itself limited or unlimi
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I. Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the Composition of Phenomena in the Universe
I. Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the Composition of Phenomena in the Universe
Here, as well as in the case of the other cosmological problems, the ground of the regulative principle of reason is the proposition that in our empirical regress no experience of an absolute limit, and consequently no experience of a condition, which is itself absolutely unconditioned, is discoverable. And the truth of this proposition itself rests upon the consideration that such an experience must represent to us phenomena as limited by nothing or the mere void, on which our continued regress
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II. Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the Division of a Whole given in Intuition
II. Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the Division of a Whole given in Intuition
When I divide a whole which is given in intuition, I proceed from a conditioned to its conditions. The division of the parts of the whole (subdivisio or decompositio) is a regress in the series of these conditions. The absolute totality of this series would be actually attained and given to the mind, if the regress could arrive at simple parts. But if all the parts in a continuous decomposition are themselves divisible, the division, that is to say, the regress, proceeds from the conditioned to
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III. Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the Deduction of Cosmical Events from their Causes
III. Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the Deduction of Cosmical Events from their Causes
Possibility of Freedom in Harmony with the Universal Law of Natural Necessity. That element in a sensuous object which is not itself sensuous, I may be allowed to term intelligible. If, accordingly, an object which must be regarded as a sensuous phenomenon possesses a faculty which is not an object of sensuous intuition, but by means of which it is capable of being the cause of phenomena, the causality of an object or existence of this kind may be regarded from two different points of view. It m
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IV. Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the Dependence of Phenomenal Existences
IV. Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the Dependence of Phenomenal Existences
In the preceding remarks, we considered the changes in the world of sense as constituting a dynamical series, in which each member is subordinated to another—as its cause. Our present purpose is to avail ourselves of this series of states or conditions as a guide to an existence which may be the highest condition of all changeable phenomena, that is, to a necessary being. Our endeavour to reach, not the unconditioned causality, but the unconditioned existence, of substance. The series before us
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Chapter III. The Ideal of Pure Reason Section I. Of the Ideal in General
Chapter III. The Ideal of Pure Reason Section I. Of the Ideal in General
We have seen that pure conceptions do not present objects to the mind, except under sensuous conditions; because the conditions of objective reality do not exist in these conceptions, which contain, in fact, nothing but the mere form of thought. They may, however, when applied to phenomena, be presented in concreto; for it is phenomena that present to them the materials for the formation of empirical conceptions, which are nothing more than concrete forms of the conceptions of the understanding.
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Section II. Of the Transcendental Ideal (Prototypon Trancendentale)
Section II. Of the Transcendental Ideal (Prototypon Trancendentale)
Every conception is, in relation to that which is not contained in it, undetermined and subject to the principle of determinability. This principle is that, of every two contradictorily opposed predicates, only one can belong to a conception. It is a purely logical principle, itself based upon the principle of contradiction; inasmuch as it makes complete abstraction of the content and attends merely to the logical form of the cognition. But again, everything, as regards its possibility, is also
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Section III. Of the Arguments employed by Speculative Reason in Proof of the Existence of a Supreme Being
Section III. Of the Arguments employed by Speculative Reason in Proof of the Existence of a Supreme Being
Notwithstanding the pressing necessity which reason feels, to form some presupposition that shall serve the understanding as a proper basis for the complete determination of its conceptions, the idealistic and factitious nature of such a presupposition is too evident to allow reason for a moment to persuade itself into a belief of the objective existence of a mere creation of its own thought. But there are other considerations which compel reason to seek out some resting place in the regress fro
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Section IV. Of the Impossibility of an Ontological Proof of the Existence of God
Section IV. Of the Impossibility of an Ontological Proof of the Existence of God
All the examples adduced have been drawn, without exception, from judgements, and not from things. But the unconditioned necessity of a judgement does not form the absolute necessity of a thing. On the contrary, the absolute necessity of a judgement is only a conditioned necessity of a thing, or of the predicate in a judgement. The proposition above-mentioned does not enounce that three angles necessarily exist, but, upon condition that a triangle exists, three angles must necessarily exist—in i
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Section V. Of the Impossibility of a Cosmological Proof of the Existence of God
Section V. Of the Impossibility of a Cosmological Proof of the Existence of God
It was by no means a natural course of proceeding, but, on the contrary, an invention entirely due to the subtlety of the schools, to attempt to draw from a mere idea a proof of the existence of an object corresponding to it. Such a course would never have been pursued, were it not for that need of reason which requires it to suppose the existence of a necessary being as a basis for the empirical regress, and that, as this necessity must be unconditioned and à priori, reason is bound to discover
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Section VI. Of the Impossibility of a Physico-Theological Proof
Section VI. Of the Impossibility of a Physico-Theological Proof
If, then, neither a pure conception nor the general experience of an existing being can provide a sufficient basis for the proof of the existence of the Deity, we can make the attempt by the only other mode—that of grounding our argument upon a determinate experience of the phenomena of the present world, their constitution and disposition, and discover whether we can thus attain to a sound conviction of the existence of a Supreme Being. This argument we shall term the physico-theological argume
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Section VII. Critique of all Theology based upon Speculative Principles of Reason
Section VII. Critique of all Theology based upon Speculative Principles of Reason
If by the term theology I understand the cognition of a primal being, that cognition is based either upon reason alone (theologia rationalis) or upon revelation (theologia revelata). The former cogitates its object either by means of pure transcendental conceptions, as an ens originarium, realissimum, ens entium, and is termed transcendental theology; or, by means of a conception derived from the nature of our own mind, as a supreme intelligence, and must then be entitled natural theology. The p
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APPENDIX. Of the Regulative Employment of the Ideas of Pure Reason
APPENDIX. Of the Regulative Employment of the Ideas of Pure Reason
We shall illustrate this by an example. The conceptions of the understanding make us acquainted, among many other kinds of unity, with that of the causality of a substance, which is termed power. The different phenomenal manifestations of the same substance appear at first view to be so very dissimilar that we are inclined to assume the existence of just as many different powers as there are different effects—as, in the case of the human mind, we have feeling, consciousness, imagination, memory,
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Chapter I. The Discipline of Pure Reason
Chapter I. The Discipline of Pure Reason
But the reader must remark that, in this the second division of our transcendental Critique the discipline of pure reason is not directed to the content, but to the method of the cognition of pure reason. The former task has been completed in the doctrine of elements. But there is so much similarity in the mode of employing the faculty of reason, whatever be the object to which it is applied, while, at the same time, its employment in the transcendental sphere is so essentially different in kind
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Section I. The Discipline of Pure Reason in the Sphere of Dogmatism
Section I. The Discipline of Pure Reason in the Sphere of Dogmatism
The science of mathematics presents the most brilliant example of the extension of the sphere of pure reason without the aid of experience. Examples are always contagious; and they exert an especial influence on the same faculty, which naturally flatters itself that it will have the same good fortune in other case as fell to its lot in one fortunate instance. Hence pure reason hopes to be able to extend its empire in the transcendental sphere with equal success and security, especially when it a
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Section II. The Discipline of Pure Reason in Polemics
Section II. The Discipline of Pure Reason in Polemics
Reason must be subject, in all its operations, to criticism, which must always be permitted to exercise its functions without restraint; otherwise its interests are imperilled and its influence obnoxious to suspicion. There is nothing, however useful, however sacred it may be, that can claim exemption from the searching examination of this supreme tribunal, which has no respect of persons. The very existence of reason depends upon this freedom; for the voice of reason is not that of a dictatoria
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Section III. The Discipline of Pure Reason in Hypothesis
Section III. The Discipline of Pure Reason in Hypothesis
This critique of reason has now taught us that all its efforts to extend the bounds of knowledge, by means of pure speculation, are utterly fruitless. So much the wider field, it may appear, lies open to hypothesis; as, where we cannot know with certainty, we are at liberty to make guesses and to form suppositions. Imagination may be allowed, under the strict surveillance of reason, to invent suppositions; but, these must be based on something that is perfectly certain—and that is the possibilit
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Section IV. The Discipline of Pure Reason in Relation to Proofs
Section IV. The Discipline of Pure Reason in Relation to Proofs
It is a peculiarity, which distinguishes the proofs of transcendental synthetical propositions from those of all other à priori synthetical cognitions, that reason, in the case of the former, does not apply its conceptions directly to an object, but is first obliged to prove, à priori, the objective validity of these conceptions and the possibility of their syntheses. This is not merely a prudential rule, it is essential to the very possibility of the proof of a transcendental proposition. If I
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Chapter II. The Canon of Pure Reason
Chapter II. The Canon of Pure Reason
It is a humiliating consideration for human reason that it is incompetent to discover truth by means of pure speculation, but, on the contrary, stands in need of discipline to check its deviations from the straight path and to expose the illusions which it originates. But, on the other hand, this consideration ought to elevate and to give it confidence, for this discipline is exercised by itself alone, and it is subject to the censure of no other power. The bounds, moreover, which it is forced t
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Section I. Of the Ultimate End of the Pure Use of Reason
Section I. Of the Ultimate End of the Pure Use of Reason
There exists in the faculty of reason a natural desire to venture beyond the field of experience, to attempt to reach the utmost bounds of all cognition by the help of ideas alone, and not to rest satisfied until it has fulfilled its course and raised the sum of its cognitions into a self-subsistent systematic whole. Is the motive for this endeavour to be found in its speculative, or in its practical interests alone? Setting aside, at present, the results of the labours of pure reason in its spe
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Section II. Of the Ideal of the Summum Bonum as a Determining Ground of the Ultimate End of Pure Reason
Section II. Of the Ideal of the Summum Bonum as a Determining Ground of the Ultimate End of Pure Reason
Reason conducted us, in its speculative use, through the field of experience and, as it can never find complete satisfaction in that sphere, from thence to speculative ideas—which, however, in the end brought us back again to experience, and thus fulfilled the purpose of reason, in a manner which, though useful, was not at all in accordance with our expectations. It now remains for us to consider whether pure reason can be employed in a practical sphere, and whether it will here conduct us to th
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Section III. Of Opinion, Knowledge, and Belief
Section III. Of Opinion, Knowledge, and Belief
The usual test, whether that which any one maintains is merely his persuasion, or his subjective conviction at least, that is, his firm belief, is a bet. It frequently happens that a man delivers his opinions with so much boldness and assurance, that he appears to be under no apprehension as to the possibility of his being in error. The offer of a bet startles him, and makes him pause. Sometimes it turns out that his persuasion may be valued at a ducat, but not at ten. For he does not hesitate,
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Chapter III. The Architectonic of Pure Reason
Chapter III. The Architectonic of Pure Reason
By the term architectonic I mean the art of constructing a system. Without systematic unity, our knowledge cannot become science; it will be an aggregate, and not a system. Thus architectonic is the doctrine of the scientific in cognition, and therefore necessarily forms part of our methodology. Reason cannot permit our knowledge to remain in an unconnected and rhapsodistic state, but requires that the sum of our cognitions should constitute a system. It is thus alone that they can advance the e
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Chapter IV. The History of Pure Reason
Chapter IV. The History of Pure Reason
This title is placed here merely for the purpose of designating a division of the system of pure reason of which I do not intend to treat at present. I shall content myself with casting a cursory glance, from a purely transcendental point of view—that of the nature of pure reason—on the labours of philosophers up to the present time. They have aimed at erecting an edifice of philosophy; but to my eye this edifice appears to be in a very ruinous condition. It is very remarkable, although naturall
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