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Kant

The Critique of Pure Reason 

 Introduction: A

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Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

auxiliary sources for 'The Critique'

VG: Professor Victor Gijsbers, Netherlands, youtube lectures

DR: Professor Daniel Robinson, Oxford, youtube lectures

RPW: Prof. Robert Paul Wolff, youtube lectures

MJ: translation, Mieklejohn

PG: translation, Paul Guyer

MM: translation, Max Muller: "[His] main merit, as he has very justly claimed, is his greater accuracy in rendering passages in which a specially exact appreciation of the niceties of German idiom happens to be important for the sense." TN

TN: translation, N.K. Smith

PR: translation-commentary, P.M. Rudisill

CN: commentary, N.K. Smith

SG: commentary, Sebastian Gardner

SP: glossary, Stephen Palmquist

LT: glossary, Lucas Thorpe

 *********************************************

VG: The B introduction is an expanded version of A

Introduction <A>
 

Now what is especially remarkable is that even among our experi
ences cognitions are mixed in that must have their origin a priori and
that perhaps serve only to establish connection among our represen
tations of the senses. For if one removes from our experiences every
thing that belongs to the senses, there still remain certain original
concepts and the judgments generated from them, which must have
arisen entirely a priori, independently of experience, because they
make one able to say more about the objects that appear to the senses
than mere experience would teach, or at least make one believe that
one can say this, and make assertions contain true universality and
strict necessity, the likes of which merely empirical cognition can
never afford.

But what says still more is this, that certain cognitions even abandon the field of all possible experiences, and seem to expand the do
main of our judgments beyond all bounds of experience through
concepts to which no corresponding object at all can be given in
expenence.

And precisely in these latter cognitions, which go beyond the world
of the senses, where experience can give neither guidance nor correct-
tion, lie the investigations of our reason that we hold to be far more
preeminent in their importance and sublime in their final aim than
everything that the understanding can learn in the field of appearances,
and on which we would rather venture everything, even at the risk of
erring, than give up such important investigations because of any sort
of reservation or from contempt and indifference.

Now it may seem natural that as soon as one has abandoned the ter-
rain of experience, one would not immediately erect an edifice with
cognitions that one possesses without knowing whence, and on the
credit of principles whose origin one does not know, without having
first assured oneself of its foundation through careful investigations,
thus that one would have long since raised the question how the un
derstanding could come to all these cognitions a priori and what do-
main, validity, and value they might have. And in fact nothing is more
natural, if one understands by this word that which properly and
reasonably ought to happen; but if one understands by it that which
usually happens, then conversely nothing is more natural and compre
hensible than that this investigation should long have been neglected.
 

For one part of these cognitions, the mathematical, has long been re-
liable, and thereby gives rise to a favorable expectation about others
as well, although these may be of an entirely different nature. Fur-
thermore, if one is beyond the circle of experience, then one is sure not
to be contradicted through experience. The charm in expanding one's
cognitions is so great that one can be stopped in one's progress only by
bumping into a clear contradiction. This, however, one can avoid if
one makes his inventions carefully, even though they are not thereby
inventions any the less. Mathematics gives us a splendid example of
how far we can go with a priori cognition independently of experience.
Now it is occupied, to be sure, with objects and cognitions only so far
as these can be exhibited in intuition. This circumstance, however, is
easily overlooked, since the intuition in question can itself be given a
priori, and thus can hardly be distinguished from a mere pure concept.
 

Encouraged by such a proof of the power of reason, the drive for ex-pansion sees no bounds. The light dove, in free flight cutting through
the air the resistance of which it feels, could get the ideaa that it could
do even better in airless space. Likewise, Plato abandoned the world of the senses because it posed so many hindrances for the understanding,
and dared to go beyond it on the wings of the ideas, in the empty space
of pure understanding. He did not notice that he made no headway by
his efforts, for he had no resistance, no support, as it were, by which he
could stiffen himself, and to which he could apply his powers in order
to get his understanding off the ground. It is, however, a customary
fate of human reason in speculation to finish its edifice as early as
possible and only then to investigate whether the ground has been
adequately prepared for it. But at that point all sorts of excuses will
be sought to assure us of its sturdiness or to refuse such a late and
dangerous examination. What keeps us free of all worry and suspi-
cion during the construction, however, and flatters us with apparent
thoroughness, is this.

A great part, perhaps the greatest part of the
business of our reason consists in analyses of the concepts that we al
ready have of objects. This affords us a multitude of cognitions that,
though they are nothing more than illuminations or clarifications of
that which is already thought in our concepts (though still in a con-
fused way), are, at least as far as their form is concerned, treasured as
if they were new insights, though they do not extend the concepts that
we have in either matter or content but only set them apart from each
other. Now since this procedure does yield a real a priori cognition, which makes secure and useful progress, reason, without itself noticing
it, under these pretenses surreptitiously makes assertions of quite an-
other sort, in which it adds something entirely alien to given concepts
a priori, without one knowing how it was able to do this and without
this question even being allowed to come to mind. I will therefore deal
with the distinction between these two kinds of cognition right at the
outset.

On the difference between analytic and synthetic judgments.

In all judgments in which the relation of a subject to the predicate is
thought (if ! consider only affirmative judgments, since the application
to negative ones is easy), this relation is possible in two different ways.
Either the predicate B belongs to the subject A as something that is
(covertly) contained in this concept A; or B lies entirely outside the
concept A, though to be sure it stands in connection with it. In the first
case I call the judgment analytic, in the second synthetic.

Analytic judgments (affirmative ones) are thus those in which the connection of the predicate is thought through identity, but those in which this connection is thought without identity are to be called synthetic judg-
ments. One could also call the former judgments of clarification and
the latter judgments of amplification,b since through the predicate the
former do not add anything to the concept of the subject, but only
break it up by means of analysis into its component concepts, which
were already thought in it (though confusedly); while the latter, on the
contrary, add to the concept of the subject a predicate that was not
thought in it at all, and could not have been extracted from it through
any analysis; e.g., if I say: "All bodies are extended," then this is an an-
alytic judgment. For I do not need to go outside the concept that I
combine with the word "body" in order to find that extension is con-
nected with it, but rather I need only to analyze that concept, i.e., be
come conscious of the manifold that I always think in it, in order to
encounter this predicate therein; it is therefore an analytic judgment.

On the contrary, if I say: "All bodies are heavy," then the predicate is
something entirely different from that which I think in the mere con-
cept of a body in general. The addition of such a predicate thus yields
a synthetic judgment.

Now from this it is clear: I) that through analytic judgments our cognition is not amplified at all, but rather the concept, which I already
have, is set out, and made intelligible to me; 2) that in synthetic judg-
ments I must have in addition to the concept of the subject something
else on which the understanding depends in cognizing a predicate
that does not lie in that concept as nevertheless belonging to it.

In the case of empirical judgments or judgments of experience there
is no difficulty here. For this X is the complete experience of the object
that I think through some concept A, which constitutes only a part of
this experience. For although I do not at all include the predicate of
weight in the concept of a body in general, the concept nevertheless
designates the complete experience through a part of it, to which I can
therefore add still other parts of the very same experience as belonging
to the former.

I can first cognize the concept of body analytically
through the marks of extension, of impenetrability, of shape, etc., which
are all thought in this concept. But now I amplify my cognition and, in
looking back to the experience from which I had extracted this concept
of body, I find that weight is also always connected with the previous
marks.

Experience is therefore that X that lies outside the concept A
and on which the possibility of the synthesis of the predicate of weight
B with the concept A is grounded.

But in synthetic a priori judgments this means of help is entirely lacking. If I am to go outside the concept A in order to cognize another B as combined with it, what is it on which I depend and through which
the synthesis becomes possible, since I here do not have the advantage
of looking around for it in the field of experience?

Take the proposition:

"Everything that happens has its cause." In the concept of something
that happens, I think, to be sure, of an existence which was preceded by
a time, etc., and from that analytic judgments can be drawn. But the
concept of a cause indicates something different from the concept of
something that happens, and is not contained in the latter representation at all. How then do I come to say something quite different about
that which happens in general, and to cognize the concept of cause as
belonging to it even though not contained in it?

What is the X here on
which the understanding depends when it believes itself to discover be
yond the concept of A a predicate that is foreign to it and that is yet
connected with it? It cannot be experience, for the principle that has
been adduced adds the latter representations to the former not only
with greater generality than experience can provide, but also with the
expression of necessity, hence entirely a priori and from mere concepts.
 

Now the entire final aim of our speculative a priori cognition rests on
such synthetic, i.e., ampliative, principles; for the analytic ones are, to
be sure, most important and necessary, but only for attaining that dis-
tinctness of concepts that is requisite for a secure and extended synthe-
sis as a really new construction.
 

A certain mystery thus lies hidden here,*

* If it had occurred to one of the ancients even to raise this question, this alone would have offered powerful resistance to all the systems of pure reason down to our own times, and would have spared us so many vain attempts that were blindly undertaken without knowledge of what was really at issue.
 

the elucidation of which
alone can make progress in the boundless field of pure cognition of the
understanding secure and reliable: namely, to uncover the ground of the
possibility of synthetic a priori judgments with appropriate generality, to
gain insight into the conditions that make every kind of them possible,
and not merely to designate this entire cognition (which comprises its
own species) in a cursory outline, but to determine it completely and
adequately for every use in a system in accordance with its primary
sources, divisions, domain, and boundaries. So much provisionally for
the pecularities of synthetic judgments.

Now from all of this there results the idea of a special science, which
could serve for the critique of pure reason. Every cognition is called
pure, however, that is not mixed with anything foreign to it. But a cog-
nition is called absolutely pure, in particular, in which no experience or
sensation at all is mixed in, and that is thus fully a priori. Now reason is
the faculty that provides the principlesd of cognition a priori. Hence
pure reason is that which contains the principlese for cognizing some
thing absolutely a priori. An organon of pure reason would be a sum total of those principles in accordance with which all pure a priori cog-
nitions can be acquired and actually brought about.

The exhaustive application of such an organon would create a system of pure reason. But since that requires a lot, and it is still an open question whether such an amplification of our cognition is possible at all and in what cases it would be possible, we can regard a science of the mere estimation of pure reason, of its sources and boundaries, as the propaedeutic to the system of pure reason.

Such a thing would not be a doctrine, but must
be called only a critique of pure reason, and its utility would really be
only negative, serving not for the amplification but only for the purifi
cation of our reason, and for keeping it free of errors, by which a great
deal is already won. I call all cognition transcendental that is occupied
not so much with objects but rather with our a priori concepts of objects
in general. A system of such concepts would be called transcendental philosophy. But this is again too much for the beginning. For since such
a science would have to contain completely both analytic as well as syn-
thetic a priori cognition, it is, as far as our aim is concerned, too broad
in scope, since we need to take the analysis only as far as is indispens-
ably necessary in order to provide insight into the principles of a priori
synthesis in their entire scope, which is our only concern.

This investigation, which we can properly call not doctrine but only transcendental critique, since it does not aim at the amplification of the cognitions
themselves but only at their correction, and is to supply the touchstone
of the worth or worthlessness of all cognitions a priori, is that with
which we are now concerned. Such a critique is accordingly a prepara-
tion, if possible, for an organon, and, if this cannot be accomplished,
then at least for a canon, in accordance with which the complete system
of the philosophy of pure reason, whether it is to consist in the ampli-
fication or the mere limitationb of its cognition, can in any case at least
some day be exhibited both analytically and synthetically.

For that this
should be possible, indeed that such a system should not be too great in
scope for us to hope to be able entirely to complete it, can be assessed
in advance from the fact that our object is not the nature of things,
which is inexhaustible, but the understanding, which judges about the nature of things, and this in turn only in regard to its a priori cognition,
the supply of which, since we do not need to search for it externally,
cannot remain hidden from us, and in all likelihood is small enough to
be completely recorded, its worth or worthlessness assessed, and sub-
jected to a correct appraisal.

Transcendental philosophy is here only an idea, for which the cri
tique of pure reason is to outline the entire plan architectonically, i.e.,
from principles,' with a full guarantee for the completeness and cer
tainty of all the components that comprise this edifice.d That this cri
tique is not itself already called transcendental philosophy rests solely
on the fact that in order to be a complete system it would also have to
contain an exhaustive analysis of all of human cognition a priori. Now
our critique must, to be sure, lay before us a complete enumeration of
all of the ancestral conceptse that comprise the pure cognition in ques-
tion. Only it properly refrains from the exhaustive analysis of these con-
cepts themselves as well as from the complete review of all of those
derived from them, partly because this analysis would not be purposefull since it does not contain the difficulty that is encountered in the
synthesis on account of which the whole critique is actually undertaken,
partly because it would be contrary to the unity of the plan to take on
responsibility for the completeness of such an analysis and derivation,
from which one could after all be relieved given one's aim.

This completeness of the analysis as well as the derivation from the a priori concepts which are to be provided in the future will nevertheless be easy to complete as long as they are present as exhaustive principle? of synthe sis, and if nothing is lacking in them in regard to this essential aim.

To the critique of pure reason there accordingly belongs everything
that constitutes transcendental philosophy, and it is the complete idea
of transcendental philosophy, but is not yet this science itself, since it
goes only so far in the analysis as is requisite for the complete estima
tion of synthetic a priori cognition.

The chief target in the division of such a science is that absolutely no
concepts must enter into it that contain anything empirical, or that the
a priori cognition be entirely pure. Hence, although the supreme prin-
ciples of morality and the fundamental concepts of it are a priori cogni-
tions, they still do not belong in transcendental philosophy, since the concepts of pleasure and displeasure, of desires and inclinations, of choice, etc., which are all of empirical origin, must there be presup-
posed.n Hence transcendental philosophy is a philosophyb of pure,
merely speculative reason. For everything practical, insofar as it con-
tains motives,c is related to feelings, which belong among empirical
sources of cognition.

Now if one wants to set up the division of this science from the gen
eral viewpoint of a system in general, then the one that we will now pre-
sent must contain first a Doctrine of Elements and second a Doctrine
of Method of pure reason. Each of these main parts will have its sub
division, the grounds for which cannot yet be expounded here. All that
seems necessary for an introduction or a preliminary is that there are
two stems of human cognition, which may perhaps arise from a com
mon but to us unknown root, namely sensibility and understanding,
through the first of which objects are given to us, but through the sec-
ond of which they are thought. Now if sensibility were to contain a
priori representations, which constitute the conditions under which ob- jects are given t o us, it would belong t o transcendental philosophy.

The transcendental doctrine of the senses will have to belong to the first part of the science o f elements, since the conditions under which alone the objects of human cognition are given precede those under which those objects are thought.