Critique of Pure ReasonWilley Book Company, 1900 - 480 pages Metaphysicians have for centuries attempted to clarify the nature of the world and how rational human beings construct their ideas of it. Materialists believed that the world (including its human component) consisted of objective matter, an irreducible substance to which qualities and characteristics could be attributed. Mindthoughts, ideas, and perceptionswas viewed as a more sophisticated material substance. Idealists, on the other hand, argued that the world acquired its reality from mind, which breathed metaphysical life into substances that had no independent existence of their own. These two camps seemed deadlocked until Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason endeavored to show that the most accurate theory of reality would be one that combined relevant aspects of each position, yet transcended both to arrive at a more fundamental metaphysical theory. Kant's synthesis sought to disclose how human reason goes about constructing its experience of the world, thus intertwining objective simuli with rational processes that arrive at an orderly view of nature. |
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according admit analytical analytical proposition antinomy apodictic apperception applied argument belong causality cause ception complete connection consciousness consequently constitutes contains contingent cosmological cosmological argument deduction determined dialectical discover dition dogmatical empirical cognition empirical intuition employed ence existence extensive quantity external former given ground Hence human inasmuch infinite intelligible internal sense judgment knowledge lative latter laws limits logical manifold mathematics means merely metaphysics mind mode moral nature necessity never nihil negativum noumenon objects of experience organon ourselves perception phenomena phenomenon philosophy possess possible experience predicate present presupposes priori cognition priori laws proof pure conceptions pure reason pure understanding quantity question rational psychology regard regress relation representation rience rule schema sensibility sensuous intuition series of conditions space speculative reason sphere substance supreme syllogism synthesis synthetical propositions synthetical unity systematic unity term things thought tion transcendent transcendental ideas transcendental logic truth unconditioned whole world of sense
Popular passages
Page 167 - Men suffer all their life long under the foolish superstition that they can be cheated. But it is as impossible for a man to be cheated by any one but himself, as for a thing to be and not to be at the same time.
Page 225 - Consequently, the determination of my existence in time is possible only through the existence of real things external to me. Now, consciousness in time is necessarily connected with the consciousness of the possibility of this determination in time. Hence it follows that consciousness in time is necessarily connected also with the existence of things without me, inasmuch as the existence of these things is the condition of determination in time. That is to say, the consciousness of my own existence...
Page 62 - But all thought must, directly or indirectly, by way of certain characters, relate ultimately to intuitions, and therefore with us, to sensibility, because in no other way can an object be given to us.
Page 160 - This schematism of our understanding in regard to phenomena and their mere form, is an art, hidden in the depths of the human soul, whose true modes of action we shall only with difficulty discover and unveil.
Page 55 - That metaphysical science has hitherto remained in so vacillating a state of uncertainty and contradiction, is only to be attributed to the fact, that this great problem, and perhaps even the difference between analytical and synthetical judgments, did not sooner suggest itself to philosophers. Upon the solution of this problem, or upon sufficient proof of the impossibility of synthetical knowledge a priori, depends the existence or downfall of the science of metaphysics. Among philosophers, David...
Page 23 - Reason must approach nature with the view, indeed, of receiving information from it, not, however, in the character of a pupil, who listens to all that his master chooses to tell him, but in that of a judge, who compels the witnesses to reply to those questions which he himself thinks fit to propose.
Page 147 - ... perception, that is, empirical consciousness of the intuition (as phenomenon), is possible. We have a priori forms of the external and internal sensuous intuition in the representations of space and time, and to these must the synthesis of apprehension of the manifold in a phenomenon be always conformable, because the synthesis itself can only take place according to these forms. But space and time are not merely forms of sensuous intuition, but intuitions themselves...
Page 171 - The conditions of the possibility of experience in general, are at the same time conditions of the possibility of the objects of experience, and have, for that reason, objective validity in an d priori synthetical judgment.
Page 225 - Thus perception of this permanent is possible only through a thing outside me and not through the mere representation of a thing outside me; and consequently the determination of my existence in time is possible only through the existence of actual things which I perceive outside me.
Page 447 - ... absolutely given or existing. Thus the real contains no more than the possible. A hundred real dollars contain no more than a hundred possible dollars. For, as the latter indicate the conception, and the former the object, on the supposition that the content of the former was greater than that of the latter, my conception would not be an expression of the whole object, and would consequently be an inadequate conception of it.
References to this book
Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts Bruno Latour,Steve Woolgar No preview available - 1986 |