Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future MetaphysicsKant, Immanuel
PhilosophyPhilosophy
Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics
Kant, Immanuel
Knowledge, Theory of -- Early works to 1800; Metaphysics -- Early works to 1800
§ 43. In the Critique of Pure Reason it was always my greatest care
to endeavor not only carefully to distinguish the several species of
cognition, but to derive concepts belonging to each one of them from
their common source. I did this in order that by knowing whence they
originated, I might determine their use with safety, and also have the
unanticipated but invaluable advantage of knowing the completeness of
my enumeration, classification and specification of concepts a priori,
and therefore according to principles. Without this, metaphysics is
mere rhapsody, in which no one knows whether he has enough, or whether
and where something is still wanting. We can indeed have this
advantage only in pure philosophy, but of this philosophy it
constitutes the very essence.
As I had found the origin of the categories in the four logical
functions of all the judgments of the understanding, it was quite
natural to seek the origin of the ideas in the three functions of the
syllogisms of reason. For as soon as these pure concepts of reason
(the transcendental ideas) are given, they could hardly, except they
be held innate, be found anywhere else, than in the same activity of
reason, which, so far as it regards mere form, constitutes the logical
element of the syllogisms of reason; but, so far as it represents
judgments of the understanding with respect to the one or to the other
form a priori, constitutes transcendental concepts of pure reason.
The formal distinction of syllogisms renders their division into
categorical, hypothetical, and disjunctive necessary. The concepts of
reason founded on them contained therefore, first, the idea of the
complete subject (the substantial); secondly, the idea of the complete
series of conditions; thirdly, the determination of all concepts in
the idea of a complete complex of that which is possible.{29} The first
idea is psychological, the second cosmological, the third theological,
and, as all three give occasion to Dialectics, yet each in its own
way, the division of the whole Dialects of pure reason into its
Paralogism, its Antinomy, and its Ideal, was arranged accordingly.
Through this deduction we may feel assured that all the claims of pure
reason are completely represented, and that none can be wanting;
because the faculty of reason itself, whence they all take their
origin, is thereby completely surveyed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account