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Critique of Pure Reason

Immanuel Kant, 1781

Held by Project Gutenberg, PG 4280read here

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Kant asks what human reason can and cannot know without leaning on experience. He argues that space and time are forms of our own intuition, so we know things only as they appear and never as they are in themselves. Knowledge needs both the senses and the understanding's concepts. When reason tries to prove the world's beginning, the soul or the existence of God, it falls into contradictions and illusions. Kant limits such claims in order to leave room for moral belief, and he calls this method criticism.

Where it happens

  1. Konigsberg Kant's birthplace, in the Kingdom of Prussia.2
  2. London William Pickering published Haywood's first English translation here in 1838.1
  3. Cambridge Cambridge University Press published the Guyer and Wood translation in 1999.1

Through time

  1. 1724Kant is born on 22 April.2
  2. 1781First edition of the Critique of Pure Reason appears.1
  3. 1787Kant publishes the second edition.1
  4. 1788Critique of Practical Reason follows.1
  5. 1838Haywood's first English translation is published in London.1
  6. 1855Meiklejohn's English translation appears.1
  7. 1929Norman Kemp Smith's translation is published.1

Who is in it, and behind it

Immanuel Kant author

German philosopher born in Konigsberg in 1724 who died in 1804.2

David Hume subject

Empiricist whose scepticism about cause and effect Kant tried to answer.1

John Locke subject

Empiricist philosopher on whose work Kant builds.1

Rene Descartes subject

Rationalist whose scepticism about the external world Kant addresses.1

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz subject

Rationalist philosopher whose work Kant builds on.1

Christian Wolff subject

Rationalist whose dogmatic method Kant criticises.1

John Meiklejohn translator

Translator of the English version of 1855 that the site carries.13

Francis Haywood translator

Made the first English translation, published in 1838.1

Markus Herz subject

Former student and friend to whom Kant admitted gaps in his earlier dissertation.2

What it is about

Transcendental idealism

Space and time are forms of our intuition, so we know appearances, not things in themselves.12

A priori knowledge

Knowledge independent of experience is necessary and universal, unlike what the senses give us.1

Limits of metaphysics

Kant sets out to decide whether metaphysics is possible, and aims to answer Hume and Descartes.1

Criticism over dogmatism

He finds both the dogmatists and the sceptics faulty and offers criticism as the remaining path.1

In its own words

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
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 1781. The opening of the first preface: reason raises questions it cannot answer. Read on
I must, therefore, abolish knowledge , to make room for belief . The dogmatism of metaphysics, that is, the presumption that it is possible to advance in metaphysics without previous criticism, is the true source of the unbelief (always dogmatic) which militates against morality
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 1787. Kant's own statement of why he limits knowledge. Read on
Thoughts without content are void; intuitions without conceptions, blind
I. Of Logic in General.. Why both senses and concepts are needed. Read on
Space is not a conception which has been derived from outward experiences.
§ 2. Metaphysical Exposition of this Conception.. The first argument that space is a form of intuition. Read on
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
Chapter III Of the Ground of the Division of all Objects into Phenomena and Noumena. Kant surveys the territory of the understanding before turning to its limits. Read on
THESIS. The world has a beginning in time, and is also limited in regard to space
Section II. Antithetic of Pure Reason. The first of the antinomies, where reason argues both sides. Read on
Being is evidently not a real predicate, that is, a conception of something which is added to the conception of some other thing
Section IV. Of the Impossibility of an Ontological Proof of the Existence of God. The key step in his reply to the ontological proof of God. Read on
The critical path alone is still open. If my reader has been kind and patient enough to accompany me on this hitherto untravelled route, he can now judge whether, if he and others will contribute their exertions towards making this narrow footpath a high road of thought, that which many centuries have failed to accomplish may not be executed before the close of the present—namely, to bring Reason
Chapter IV. The History of Pure Reason. The closing call to follow his method. Read on

The shape of the book

94 chapters, 206,938 words. Point at a bar.

How it came to be here

Kant published the first edition in 1781 and a revised second edition in 1787. It is the first of his three Critiques, followed by the Critique of Practical Reason in 1788 and the Critique of Judgment in 1790. He wrote in response to the empiricism of Locke and Hume and the rationalism of Descartes, Leibniz and Wolff. Francis Haywood made the first English translation in 1838. The site carries John Meiklejohn's 1855 translation from Project Gutenberg.

Free to read elsewhere

Sources

  1. Critique of Pure Reason (Wikipedia)
  2. Immanuel Kant (Wikipedia)
  3. The Critique of Pure Reason, Project Gutenberg

Text: PG 4280 | translator: J. M. D. Meiklejohn. US public domain (Project Gutenberg licence).

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