Introduction from Critique of Pure Reason
Immanuel Kant
About Critique of Pure Reason – Preface to the First Edition
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) was a German philosopher with a super tidy daily routine and a mind that basically exploded the way we think about thinking. Seriously—Critique of Pure Reason is like the Beyoncé album of philosophy: dense, complex, ambitious, and a total game-changer.
In the Preface to the First Edition (published in 1781), Kant gives us a preview of what he’s about to do—and why it’s a really big deal. He’s frustrated. For centuries, philosophers have argued back and forth about metaphysics—questions like “Does God exist?” or “Is the soul immortal?”—but they haven’t made any real progress. Kant doesn’t think that’s because the questions are dumb; it’s because we’ve been asking them the wrong way.
So what does he do? He flips the script. Instead of trying to figure out the world out there, Kant asks: What’s going on in here—in our minds? What are the limits and powers of human reason? Can we trust our thoughts to tell us anything true about the world, or are we just stuck in a filter bubble of our own making?
He compares his revolution in philosophy to Copernicus’s revolution in astronomy. Remember how Copernicus said, “Hey, maybe the Earth isn’t the center of the universe”? Kant’s version is: “Maybe objects conform to our minds—not the other way around.” (Cue the record scratch.)
Kant’s goal in the Preface is to explain why he’s writing this huge, complicated book in the first place. He wants to define the boundaries of reason so we can finally get clear about what we can know, what we can’t, and how we might sort out the difference. It’s kind of like putting up a fence around the playground so philosophy knows where it can safely run around.
Before You Read
Let’s be real: Kant isn’t the easiest read. He’s formal, precise, and absolutely allergic to short sentences. But don’t be scared—this preface is like a trailer for the rest of his work, and it gives you the big picture of what he’s trying to do.
Before diving in, ask yourself: Where does your knowledge come from? Your senses? Your experiences? Your gut? Can you trust what your mind tells you about the world? Kant thinks these are the essential questions to ask if you want to understand anything at all.
And here’s the twist: Kant isn’t going to give you simple answers. Instead, he’s going to ask you to think about how you think, why you think, and what thinking can actually accomplish. This preface sets up his mission: to carve out a secure space for science, morality, and even freedom by redefining the way we understand the mind itself.
Guiding Questions
- What problem is Kant trying to solve in the Preface—and why does he think it matters?
- What does he mean when he compares his work to a “Copernican revolution”?
- How does Kant propose we determine the limits of human reason?
- Why is the question “What can I know?” so central to philosophy, according to Kant?
Introduction to The Critique of Practical Reason
The theoretical use of reason was concerned with objects of the cognitive faculty only, and a critical examination of it with reference to this use applied properly only to the pure faculty of cognition; because this raised the suspicion, which was afterwards confirmed, that it might easily pass beyond its limits, and be lost among unattainable objects, or even contradictory notions. It is quite different with the practical use of reason. In this, reason is concerned with the grounds of determination of the will, which is a faculty either to produce objects corresponding to ideas, or to determine ourselves to the effecting of such objects (whether the physical power is sufficient or not); that is, to determine our causality. For here, reason can at least attain so far as to determine the will, and has always objective reality in so far as it is the volition only that is in question. The first question here then is whether pure reason of itself alone suffices to determine the will, or whether it can be a ground of determination only as dependent on empirical conditions. Now, here there comes in a notion of causality justified by the critique of the pure reason, although not capable of being presented empirically, viz., that of freedom; and if we can now discover means of proving that this property does in fact belong to the human will (and so to the will of all rational beings), then it will not only be shown that pure reason can be practical, but that it alone, and not reason empirically limited, is indubitably practical; consequently, we shall have to make a critical examination, not of pure practical reason, but only of practical reason generally. For when once pure reason is shown to exist, it needs no critical examination. For reason itself contains the standard for the critical examination of every use of it. The critique, then, of practical reason generally is bound to prevent the empirically conditioned reason from claiming exclusively to furnish the ground of determination of the will. If it is proved that there is a [practical] reason, its employment is alone immanent; the empirically conditioned use, which claims supremacy, is on the contrary transcendent and expresses itself in demands and precepts which go quite beyond its sphere. This is just the opposite of what might be said of pure reason in its speculative employment.
However, as it is still pure reason, the knowledge of which is here the foundation of its practical employment, the general outline of the classification of a critique of practical reason must be arranged in accordance with that of the speculative. We must, then, have the Elements and the Methodology of it; and in the former an Analytic as the rule of truth, and a Dialectic as the exposition and dissolution of the illusion in the judgements of practical reason. But the order in the subdivision of the Analytic will be the reverse of that in the critique of the pure speculative reason. For, in the present case, we shall commence with the principles and proceed to the concepts, and only then, if possible, to the senses; whereas in the case of the speculative reason we began with the senses and had to end with the principles. The reason of this lies again in this: that now we have to do with a will, and have to consider reason, not in its relation to objects, but to this will and its causality. We must, then, begin with the principles of a causality not empirically conditioned, after which the attempt can be made to establish our notions of the determining grounds of such a will, of their application to objects, and finally to the subject and its sense faculty. We necessarily begin with the law of causality from freedom, that is, with a pure practical principle, and this determines the objects to which alone it can be applied.
About this reading
Thomas Kingsmill Abbott translation of Critique of Pure Reason was retrieved from Project Gutenberg. This work is in the Public Domain.
