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Critique of Pure Reason : Critique of Pure Reason By Immanuel Kant: Critique of Pure Reason By Immanuel Kant

By Kant, Immanuel

Book Id: WPLBN0100302466
Format Type: PDF (eBook)
File Size: 3.27 MB.
Reproduction Date: 12/1/1789

Title:	Critique of Pure Reason : Critique of Pure Reason By Immanuel Kant: Critique of Pure Reason By Immanuel Kant
Author:	Kant, Immanuel
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Non Fiction, Philosophy, Enlightenment Philosophy
Collections:	Philosophy, Authors Community
Historic Publication Date:	1789
Publisher:	N/A

Member Page:	D H
Citation APA MLA Chicago Kant, I. (1789). Critique of Pure Reason : Critique of Pure Reason By Immanuel Kant. Retrieved from http://www.gutenberg.cc/

Description
This entirely new translation of Critique of Pure Reason is the most accurate and informative English translation ever produced of this epochal philosophical text. Though its simple, direct style will make it suitable for all new readers of Kant, the translation displays a philosophical and textual sophistication that will enlighten Kant scholars as well. This translation recreates as far as possible a text with the same interpretative nuances and richness as the original.

Summary
In Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is a reconstruction of the then predominant school of skeptical empiricism, which typified almost all of seventeenth-century European philosophy from the works of Renee Descartes to George Berkley to David Hume. Most thinkers of Kant’s day believed that ideas in the mind took the “shape” of the objects in the external world, which were revealed to them via the sense perceptions. The mind, these philosophers argued, was something like a repository for ideas, and that upon introduction to external objects, the mind modified itself in order to best understand them. Critique of Pure Reason inverted this perspective. Instead of causing a fundamental modification of the mind, Kant argued that the external objects in the world rather conform to the mind; the ways in which human beings are able to perceive their environment, he maintained, is a direct consequence of the ability of the mind to act on this environment and convert it into something meaningful to the observer. Kant further argued that, in order for the mind to accomplish this manipulation of the external world, it must have possessed certain categories of understanding that existed outside of sense experience. These categories of thought, he said, existed a priori, or prior to observation, of the object in question. Kant argued that “space” and “time” were the two primary a priori categories that dictated the way the mind operates. These criteria must be presupposed to exist in order for an individual to be capable of having sensibility of the external world at all. Kant maintained that this was because, though space and time are not “objects” in the literal sense, they provide the internal logic by which the human mind operates in order to imbue objects in the external world with any degree of coherency, organization, and meaning. It is impossible to conceive of, say, a book without first recognizing that as a body it both extends outwards (space) and acts and reacts to other extended objects in space temporally (time). Thus, while space and time are not necessarily contained within the formal definition that one would associate with book, they are nevertheless required in order to make this definition meaningful. In this way, Kant drew a distinction between what he called the “phenomenal world,” or the world that our mind creates for us, and the “noumenal world,” or the world as it really is, apart from our experience of it. Kant’s enduring contribution to metaphysical philosophy comes from his denial of pure knowledge. Human beings are incapable of understanding the essence of a thing outside of the way their minds modify it within the boundaries set by a priori categories. Thus, the essences of things, what Kant called “things-in-themselves” (dinge an sich) in German, cannot be arrived at through human reason alone. Instead, the “ideas” of reason, which Kant classified as God, the world, and the self, help unify (but not absolutely define) knowledge, and can point to possibilities in the noumenal world. Critique of Pure Reason is a notoriously long and convoluted book. Kant wrote it for a highly specialized academic audience (a sixteenth-century academic audience, no less) in prose that is almost impossible to follow. His colleagues at the University of Konigsberg suggested to him that he write a condensed version of the book so that it could be made available to more of a mainstream audience. If you are really pressed for time, this 70-ish page book is a good summation of Kan’t overarching argument. It is called Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics, and is widely available online.

Excerpt
“Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.” “Man must be disciplined, for he is by nature raw and wild..”

Table of Contents
Transcendental Doctrine Of The Elements Transcendental Aesthetic Transcendental Logic Transcendental Logic, First Division: Transcendental Analytic Book I: ANALYTIC OF CONCEPTS Section 1: The Principles Of Any Transcendental Deduction Section 2 (Version A) The A Priori Grounds Of The Possibility Of Experience Section 2 (Version B) The A Priori Grounds Of The Possibility Of Experience Book II: ANALYTIC OF PRINCIPLES Chapter 1: The Schematism Of The Pure Concepts Of Understanding Chapter 2: System Of All Principles Of Pure Understanding Section 1: The Highest Principle Of All Analytic Judgments Section 2: The Highest Principle Of All Synthetic Judgments Section 3: Systematic Representation Of All Synthetic Principles Of Pure Understanding 3A) First Analogy: Principle of Permanence of Substance 3B) Second Analogy: Principle of Succession in Time in Accordance with the Laws of Causality 3C) Third Analogy: Principle of Coexistence, in Accordance with the Law of Reciprocity or Community Section 4) The Postulates of Empirical Thought in General Chapter 3: The Ground Of The Distinction Of All Objects In General Into Phenomena And Noumena Appendix: The Amphiboly Of Concepts Of Reflection: Arising From The Confusion Of The Empirical With The Transcendental Employment Of Understanding Transcendental Logic, Second Division: Transcendental Dialectic Introduction BOOK I: The Concepts Of Pure Reason Section 1: The Ideas In General Section 2: The Transcendental Ideas Section 3: System Of The Transcendental Ideas BOOK II: The Dialectical Inferences Of Pure Reason Chapter I: The Paralogisms Of Pure Reason Chapter II: The Antinomy Of Pure Reason Section 1: System Of Cosmological Ideas Section 2: Antithetic Of Pure Reason Section 3: The Interest Of Reason In These Conflicts Section 4: The Absolute Necessity Of A Solution Of The Transcendental Problems Of Pure Reason Section 5: Sceptical Representation Of The Cosmological Questions In The Four Transcendental Ideas Section 6: Transcendental Idealism As The Key To The Solution Of The Cosmological Dialectic Section 7: Critical Solution Of The Cosmological Conflict Of Reason With Itself Section 8: The Regulative Principle Of Pure Reason In Its Application To The Cosmological Ideas Section 9: The Empirical Employment Of The Regulative Principle Of Reason, In Respect Of All Cosmological Ideas I. Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the Composition of the Appearances of a Cosmic Whole. II. Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of Division of a Whole Given in Intuition Concluding Note on the Solution of the Mathematical-Transcendental Ideas, and Preliminary Observation on the Solution of the Dynamical-Transcendental Ideas III. Solution of the Cosmological Idea of Totality in the Derivation of Cosmical Events from their Causes Possibility of Causality Through Freedom, in Harmony with the Universal Law of Natural Necessity Explanation of the Cosmological Idea of Freedom in its Connection with Universal Natural Necessity IV. Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the Dependence of Appearances as Regards Their Existence in General Concluding Note on the Whole Antinomy of Pure Reason Chapter III: The Ideal of Pure Reason Section 1: The Ideal in General Section 2: The Transcendental Ideal Section 3: The Arguments of Speculative Reason in Proof of the Existence of a Supreme Being Section 4: The Impossibility of an Ontological Proof of the Existence of God Section 5: The Impossibility of a Cosmological Proof of the Existence of God Discovery and Explanation of the Dialectical Illusion in all Transcendental Proofs of the Existence of a Necessary Being Section 6: The Impossibility of a Physico-Theological Proof of the Existence of God Section 7: Critique of all Theology Based Upon Speculative Principles of Reason APPENDIX to the Transcendental Dialectic Regulative Employment of the Ideas of Pure Reason The Final Purpose of the Natural Dialectic of Human Reason Transcendental Doctrine Of Method Introduction to the Transcendental Doctrine of Method Chapter 1: The Discipline of Pure Reason Section 1: The Discipline of Pure Reason in its Dogmatic Employment Section 2: The Discipline of Pure Reason in Respect of its Polemical Employment Impossibility of a Sceptical Satisfaction of Pure Reason in its Internal Conflicts Section 3: The Discipline of Pure Reason in Respect of Hypotheses Section 4: The Discipline of Pure Reason in Respect of its Proofs Chapter 2: The Canon of Pure Reason Section 1: The Ultimate End of the Pure Employment of our Reason Section 2: The Ideal of the Highest Good, as a Determining Ground of the Ultimate End of Pure Reason Section 3: Opining, Knowing and Believing Chapter 3: The Architectonic of Pure Reason Chapter 4: The History of Pure Reason