(German: Kritik der reinen Vernunft, KrV)
(1781; 2nd edition 1787)
.
(the Critique of Pure Reason is a book by ‘Immanuel Kant’ that is considered one of the most influential works in the history of philosophy)
(also referred to as Kant’s First Critique, it was followed by the Critique of Practical Reason (1788) and the Critique of Judgment (1790))
(in the preface to the first edition ‘Kant’ explains what he means by critique of pure reason, stating “I do not mean by this a critique of books and systems, but of the faculty of reason in general, in respect of all knowledge after which it may strive independently of all experience”)
(the Critique is an investigation into the foundations and limits of human knowledge, and the extent to which the human mind is able to engage in metaphysics)
(‘Kant’ builds on the work of empiricist philosophers such as ‘John Locke’ and ‘David Hume’, as well as ‘rationalists’ such as ‘Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’ and ‘Christian Wolff’)
(he expounds new ideas on the nature of ‘space’ and ‘time’, and claims to provide solutions to Hume’s scepticism regarding ‘human knowledge’ of the relation of ’cause’ and ‘effect’, and Rene Descartes’ scepticism regarding ‘knowledge of the external world’)
(Kant claims to enact a ‘Copernican revolution’ in philosophy with his doctrine of ‘transcendental idealism’, according to which our knowledge does not “conform to objects”, but rather objects “conform to our knowledge”)
(according to Kant’s doctrine, the human mind shapes and structures the world of experience, making ‘knowledge’ possible)
(‘knowledge’ independent 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 is ‘necessary’ and ‘universal’)
(a proposition is ‘necessary’ if it could not possibly be false, and so cannot be denied without contradiction)
(a proposition is ‘universal’ if it is true in all 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 claims to have discovered another attribute of propositions: the distinction between “analytic” and “synthetic” judgments)
(according to Kant, a proposition is ‘analytic’ if 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 character of ‘analytic judgements’ was therefore that they can be known to be true simply by an analysis of the concepts 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 nature of this knowledge, ‘Kant’ argues, cries out for explanation)
(the central problem of the Critique is therefore to answer the 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)
.
.
.
.
.
.
💕💝💖💓🖤💙🖤💙🖤💙🖤❤️💚💛🧡❣️💞💔💘❣️🧡💛💚❤️🖤💜🖤💙🖤💙🖤💗💖💝💘
.
.
*🌈✨ *TABLE OF CONTENTS* ✨🌷*
.
.
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥*we won the war* 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥