Critique of Pure Reason

The Critique of Pure Reason German: Kritik der reinen Vernunft; 1781;edition 1787 is the book by a German philosopher Immanuel Kant, in which the author seeks to build the limits as alive as scope of metaphysics. Also forwarded to as Kant's "First Critique", it was followed by his Critique of Practical Reason 1788 in addition to Critique of Judgment 1790. In the preface to the number one edition, Kant explains that by a "critique of pure reason" he means a critique "of the faculty of reason in general, in respect of all knowledge after which it may strive independently of all experience" and that he aims toa decision approximately "the opportunity or impossibility of metaphysics." The term "critique" is understood to intend a systematic analysis in this context, rather than the colloquial sense of the term.

Kant builds on the develope of empiricist philosophers such as John Locke and David Hume, as well as rationalist philosophers such as Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Christian Wolff. He expounds new ideas on the classification of space and time, and tries to provide solutions to the skepticism of Hume regarding knowledge of the explanation of draw and issue and that of René Descartes regarding knowledge of the outside world. This is argued through the transcendental idealism of objects as sorting and their form of appearance. Kant regards the former "as mere representations and non as matters in themselves", and the latter as "only sensible forms of our intuition, but non determinations assumption for themselves or conditions of objects as matters in themselves". This grants the possibility of a priori knowledge, since objects as configuration "must change to our cognition...which is to creation something about objects ago they are assumption to us." Knowledge self-employed adult of experience Kant calls "a priori" knowledge, while knowledge obtained through experience is termed "a posteriori." According to Kant, a proposition is a priori if it is for necessary and universal. A proposition is fundamental if it could not possibly be false, and so cannot be denied without contradiction. A proposition is universal if this is the true in any cases, and so does not admit of any exceptions. Knowledge gained a posteriori through the senses, Kant argues, never imparts absolute necessity and universality, because it is always possible that we might encounter an exception.

Kant further elaborates on the distinction between "analytic" and "synthetic" judgments. A proposition is analytic whether the content of the predicate-concept of the proposition is already contained within the subject-concept of that proposition. For example, Kant considers the proposition "All bodies are extended" analytic, since the predicate-concept 'extended' is already contained within—or "thought in"—the subject-concept of the sentence 'body'. The distinctive mention of analytic judgements was therefore that they can be requested to be true simply by an analysis of the picture contained in them; they are true by definition. In synthetic propositions, on the other hand, the predicate-concept is not already contained within the subject-concept. For example, Kant considers the proposition "All bodies are heavy" synthetic, since the concept 'body' does not already contain within it the concept 'weight'. Synthetic judgments therefore add something to a concept, whereas analytic judgments only explain what is already contained in the concept.

Prior to Kant, it was thought that all a priori knowledge must be analytic. Kant, however, argues that our knowledge of mathematics, of the first principles of natural science, and of metaphysics, is both a priori and synthetic. The peculiar quality of this knowledge cries out for explanation. The central problem of the Critique is therefore tothe question: "How are synthetic a priori judgements possible?" It is a "matter of life and death" to metaphysics and to human reason, Kant argues, that the grounds of this kind of knowledge be explained.

Though it received little attention when it was first published, the Critique later attracted attacks from both empiricist and rationalist critics, and became a consultation of controversy. It has exerted an enduring influence on innovative philosophy.

I. Transcendental Doctrine of Elements

The Transcendental Aesthetic, as the Critique notes, deals with "all principles of a priori sensibility." As a further delimitation, it "constitutes the first factor of the transcendental doctrine of elements, in contrast to that which contains the principles of pure thinking, and is named transcendental logic". In it, what is aimed at is "pure intuition and the mere form of appearances, which is the only object that sensibility can make available a priori." It is thus an analytic of the a priori constitution of sensibility; through which "Objects are therefore given to us…, and it alone affords us intuitions." This in itself is an explication of the "pure form of sensible intuitions in general [that] is to be encountered in the mind a priori." Thus, pure form or intuition is the a priori "wherein all of the manifold of appearances is intuited inrelations." from this, "a science of all principles of a priori sensibility [is called] the transcendental aesthetic." The above stems from the fact that "there are two stems of human cognition…namely sensibility and understanding."

This division, as the critique notes, comes "closer to the language and the sense of the ancients, among whom the division of cognition into αισθητα και νοητα is very alive known." An exposition on a priori intuitions is an analysis of the intentional constitution of sensibility. Since this lies a priori in the mind prior to actual thing relation; "The transcendental doctrine of the senses will have to belong to the first component of the science of elements, since the conditions under which alone the objects of human cognition are given precede those under which those objects are thought".

Kant distinguishes between the matter and the form of appearances. The matter is "that in the appearance that corresponds to sensation" A20/B34. The form is "that which so determines the manifold of appearance that it provides of being ordered inrelations" A20/B34. Kant's revolutionary claim is that the form of appearances—which he later identifies as space and time—is a contribution provided by the faculty of sensation to cognition, rather than something that exists independently of the mind. This is the thrust of Kant's doctrine of the transcendental ideality of space and time.

Kant's arguments for this conclusion are widely debated among Kant scholars. Some see the parameter as based on Kant's conclusions that our report Vorstellung of space and time is an a priori intuition. From here Kant is thought to argue that our representation of space and time as a priori intuitions entails that space and time are transcendentally ideal. It is undeniable from Kant's point of conception that in Transcendental Philosophy, the difference of things as theyand things as they are is a major philosophical discovery. Others see the argument as based upon the question of if synthetic a priori judgments are possible. Kant is taken to argue that the only way synthetic a priori judgments, such as those submitted in geometry, are possible is if space is transcendentally ideal.

In Section I Of Space of Transcendental Aesthetic in the Critique of Pure Reason Kant poses the coming after or as a a thing that is said of. questions: What then are time and space? Are they real existences? Or, are they merely relations or deerminations of things, such, however, as would equally belong to these things in themselves, though they should never become objects of intuition; or, are they such as belong only to the form of intuition, and consequently to the subjective constitution of the mind, without which these predicates of time and space could not be attached to any object? The respond that space and time are real existences belongs to Newton. The reply that space and time are relations or determinations of things even when they are not being sensed belongs to Leibniz. Both answers supports that space and time exist independently of the subject's awareness. This is precisely what Kant denies in his answer that space and time belong to the subjective constitution of the mind.: 87–88