Definition of “Critique of Pure Reason” (1781)

lilen gomez | Jan. 2022
Professor in Philosophy

In his university training, Kant receives the inheritancemetaphysics of Lebniz and Wolff, on the one hand, and, on the other, the heritage of Newtonian physics. Both sources contradict each other in terms of their conceptions of space and time. The interest of the philosopher was, from very early on, to find a way to reconcile both traditions, in such a way that he could reach a formulation of the foundations of knowledge that would, in turn, give a solid basis to the metaphysics. This had to follow the same method that Newton had introduced in the field of physics. The Critique of Pure Reason it is the result of these extensive investigations, which took the philosopher a decade of work: at the time of the publication of the work, Kant was already close to sixty years of age.

The Copernican turn in the second edition

In 1787, Kant published a second edition of the Critique, profoundly modifying some of the concepts of his original work. In the prologue to the second publication, he refers to the impact that the work had caused as a “revolution Copernican", referring to the radical transformations in the field of astronomy that Copernicus had introduced in his time. Is expression refers to the idea that, until then, the two conflicting philosophical traditions to which Kant is heir, namely, the rationalism and empiricism, although they held opposing theses, both were based on a common assumption.

Our knowledge was supposed to be determined by objects, so that nothing could be known independently of experience, that is, a priori. Kant's wager, for his part, was to achieve a foundation for synthetic judgments a priori, that is, judgments that add information to the subject to which they refer (non-analytical) without resorting to the experience.

The revolution introduced by the philosopher in the thought, then, is that, if a priori synthetic judgments are possible, this is because it is not the object that determines our knowledge but, conversely, it is the subject who constitutes the objects, from the transcendental structures of subjectivity (which are themselves conditions of possibility of experience human).

intuitions and concepts

Now, according to Kant, we only know objects through experience (a posteriori) and, in turn, this is governed by rules of the understanding, a faculty that must be presupposed in the subject before the objects are given to him, therefore, priori. Therefore, we know a priori of things only what we ourselves put into them. We cannot go outside the limits of experience, the object has to be given to us (because we are finite beings, unlike God, whose infinite intellect has an immediate intuition of things and does not require the experience sensory).

Kant achieves a confluence between rationalism and empiricism, which is condensed in the idea that "intuitions (derived from experience) without concepts are blind, concepts without intuitions are empty”.

In the same sense, the philosopher will say "all knowledge begins with experience, but not all knowledge is derived from it." The Critique of Pure ReasonThus, it is an extensive development around the faculties that allow us to carry out the process of knowing, through the structures of our intellect. (sensitivity, understanding and reason), taking as a starting point the experience in which we are given the data of the senses that give content to these structures.

The role of metaphysics

The problem with metaphysics is that it can only be valid when it is limited to the analysis of concepts in a logical sense. However, there is a claim in metaphysics to expand knowledge. Kant's interest, then, lies in finding the legitimate uses of pure reason, to ground metaphysics as a science. The result of this research It will be that, although metaphysics cannot itself produce knowledge, because it transcends experience, however, to it belongs the order of the Ideas of reason, namely, the idea of ​​the Self, of God and of the World.

The importance of these Ideas lies in the fact that they have a heuristics: they function as guiding guides that lead to understanding so that it can continue to expand genuine knowledge more and more.