Immanuel Kant’s Refutation of Idealism and Transcendental Dialectic with special Reference to the Antinomies of Pure Reason
Mallika Rajaratnam,
mallikapera@pgihs.ac.lk
Department of Philosophy and Psychology, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka
Abstract
Immanuel Kant [1724-1804] is one of the most important and influential Philosophers in the contemporary Western Philosophy. Kant in his critical Philosophy gave new interpretations for all the traditional issues and terminologies which deal with dogmatic understanding of metaphysics and the main issues in Philosophy. Kant’s Refutation of Idealism and the Transcendental Dialectic are the bases for the new directions of the contemporary western Philosophical movements. I argue in this paper that Kant gave an entirely new meaning for metaphysics and refuted all traditional dogmatic metaphysics. This research paper explores Kant’s Meaning of Metaphysics, Critique of Metaphysics and his Refutations of Conceptual metaphysics as refutation of Idealism. In his Critique of Pure Reason [1781 / 1787] the sections on The Transcendental Dialectic deals with refutation of dogmatic conceptual Metaphysics and the Refutations of Idealism. Kant’s all the three critiques have the same structure First critique concerned with critique of Metaphysics and the critique theoretical epistemology and explores a new Methodology. The Critique of Pure Reason explores different levels of Reason and the section on Dialectics uproots the pretentions of conceptual understanding of Metaphysics. For Kant Metaphysics cannot be known in the same way of other sciences. Knowledge is possible when the a priori synthetic judgments are reconciled or Rationalism and Empiricism are synthesized. Metaphysics cannot be known since it does not have any base for the sense experience. Kant’s first critique deals with major questions on – how is Mathematics Possible, how is Natural Science Possible?, how is a priori synthetic judgement? And how is Metaphysics Possible as real science? According to Kant metaphysics will come forth as Real science but not as so-called Science and he gives an entirely a new meaning of Metaphysics along with his critique of dogmatic metaphysics. Kant refuted the conceptual metaphysics as idealism and groundless pretention. I argue in this paper Kant’s intention in Transcendental Dialectic which overturns the history of Western metaphysics, epistemology, and ontology and explores Philosophy a whole.
In Kant’s critical Philosophy Transcendental Dialectic as Transcendental Illusion plays an integral part of his philosophy and the Logical illusion which consists in the mere imitation of the form of reason. In Kant’s Critical Philosophy Transcendent and Transcendental are not interchangeable terms. The principles of pure understanding which deals with Transcendental criticism; Pure Reason as seat of Transcendental Illusion Kant divides Transcendental Dialectic in to two the first on the Transcendent concepts of Pure Reason and the second on its Transcendent and Dialectical Inferences. Objective of this paper explores Kant’s suggestive meaning of Transcendental Dialectics with special Reference to the Antinomies of Pure reason as ground for new interpretations of metaphysics as real science..
Keywords: Transcendental Dialectics, Transcendental Illusion, Critique of Metaphysics, Methodology, Dogmatic Metaphysics, Antinomies of Pure Reason, Refutation of Idealism. Science
Immanuel Kant’s Refutation of Idealism and Transcendental Dialectic with special Reference to the Antinomies of Pure Reason
Mallika Rajaratnam,
mallikapera@gmail.com
Department of Philosophy and Psychology, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka
‘It is remarkable that the present day Logic has not been able to advance a single step, and is thus to all appearance a closed and completed body of doctrine. If some of the moderns have thought to enlarge it by introducing psychological chapters on the different faculties of knowledge, metaphysical chapters on the origin of knowledge or on the different kinds of certainty according to difference in the objects [ idealism, scepticism etc,] or anthropological chapters on prejudices, their causes and remedies, this could only arise from their ignorance of the nature of logical science…its sole concern is to give an exhaustive exposition and a strict proof of the formal rules of all thought, whether it be a priori or empirical, whatever be its origin or its object, and whatever hindrances, accidental or natural, it may encounter in our minds’[ CPR B ix]
Immanuel Kant [1724-1804] is recognized as one of the most influential and important philosophers in the history of Western Philosophy. He systematized the critical Philosophy by giving the new interpretations for all the traditional issues and terminologies which deal with dogmatic understanding of metaphysics and the main issues in Philosophy. Kant himself mentioned in his preface of the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason [1786] that he made a Copernican Revolution in epistemology and Philosophical methodology. Many of the interpretations of Immanuel Kant’s Philosophy are recognizing or focusing only on his reconciliation of Empiricism and Rationalism. Many of the misinterpretations of Immanuel Kant’s first Critique have the partial understanding of his methodological message. But his message and methodology transcend this basic reconciliation of rationalism and empiricism, which serves the purpose only for the scientific theoretical understanding. For Kant the most important task of Philosophy is to explore the self- understanding of Reason and to explore the different levels of Reason to understand philosophy as a whole. The reflexive understanding as Critique of Reason is one the key issues of Kantian methodology and message and to understand the core message of Kantian Critical Philosophy which can be considered as an integral method of understanding Reality.
Immanuel Kant’s Critical Philosophy can be studied by careful reading on his major Critiques, the Critique Pure Reason [1781, 1786], the Critique of Practical Reason [1788], and the Critique of Judgment [1790]. All three Critiques together form the Critical methodology and Critical Philosophy of Immanuel Kant. The first Critique deals with critique of theoretical epistemology and methodology of Reason. The second Critique deals with the critique of theoretical ethics and the methodology of ethical reasoning. And the third Critique is concerned with the critique of theoretical aesthetics and the integral methodology of Kant’s whole critical Philosophy. The third Critique, the Critique of Judgment combines the two parts of Philosophy into a whole it reconciles the theoretical understanding and practical understanding as an integral approach to Reason.
The Philosophical hermeneutic methodology is being used in this research to understand Immanuel Kant’s message of reflexive understanding through the Transcendental dialectic. The major primary source is the Critique of Pure Reason, along with the Prolegomena.[1783]
Structure of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason has two major parts. The Doctrine of Elements and the Transcendental Dialectic are discussed in the first Part. The second part transcendental doctrine of Method deals with the methodology of Critical Philosophy. It has the hermeneutic roots of Kantian Philosophy immensely influenced the later Phenomenological and hermeneutic tradition of the western philosophy.
The Critique of Pure Reason
1] Transcendental Doctrine of Elements – 2] Transcendental Doctrine of Method
A] Transcendental Aesthetics I
I] Space i] Discipline of Pure Reason
ii] Canon of Pure Reason
II]Time iii] Architectonic of Pure Reason
B] Transcendental Analytic vi] History of Pure Reason
i ] Transcendental Logic –
ii] Transcendental Dialectic
Transcendental Dialectics
a] Rational Psychology – The Paralogisms of Pure Reason
b] Rational Cosmology – The Antinomy of Pure Reason
c] Rational Theology – The Ideals of Pure Reason
In the Transcendental Dialectic The Antinomy of Pure Reason deals with many issues which are bases for the understanding of Kant’s intention of the Antinomies. The introduction deals with the Transcendental Illusion and that Pure Reason as Seat Transcendental Illusion. Book I of the Transcendental Dialectic the nature of the Concepts of Pure Reason, and the Book II explores the Dialectical Inferences of Pure Reason which elaborates the Paralogisms as Rational psychology and The Antinomies as the Rational Cosmology and of Dialectical Inferences of Pure reason explores the Antinomies of Pure Reason, here Kant explain system of Cosmological Ideas, Antithetic of Pure Reason, The interest of Reason in these conflicts and Kant further says Transcendental Idealism as the key to the solution of the cosmological Ideas and explore the critical solution of the cosmological conflict of Reason with itself. The solutions are given for each of four Antinomies as solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the composition of the Appearances of a cosmic whole for the first Antinomy. The Second Antinomy deals with the totality of division of a whole given in Intuition And the third Antinomy deals with the Totality in the Derivation of Cosmological events from their causes and the possibility of causality through freedom and the fourth antinomy deals with the totality of the Dependence of Appearances as regards their Existence in general and Kant gives the concluding note on whole Antinomy of Pure Reason.
The Antinomy as a pseudo- rational inference directed to the transcendental concept of the absolute totality of the series of conditions for any given appearance. Dialectic in general is a logic of illusion and Transcendental illusion exerts its influence on principles that are not intended for use in experience. Transcendental dialectic carries us beyond the empirical use of the categories. Transcendental illusion is mistaking the subjective conditions of a connection of our concepts for an objective necessity in the determination in thing in themselves. The pure Reason as the seat of transcendental Illusion and reason apply itself to understanding, never to experience or objects.
Antinomy is a pseudo- rational inference directed to the transcendental concept of the absolute totality of series of conditions for any given appearance. The unconditioned synthetic unity of the series is always self – contradictory. The Hypothetical syllogism falls into contradictions, both sides of which seems to be true. [ Paralogisms were one – sided]
Kant’s section on Antithetic of Reason also shows the contradictory nature Pure Reason. Antithetic of Pure reason means the conflict of the doctrines of dogmatic knowledge in which no one assertion can establish superiority. Each side is not free from contradiction, but finds conditions of its necessity in the very nature of reason, they are both pseudo – rational doctrines which try to push the principles of understanding beyond the limits of understanding. As kant says in the Preface to the first edition ‘Human reason has this peculiar fate that in one species of its knowledge it is burdened by questions which, as prescribed by the very nature of reason itself, it is not able to ignore, but which, as transcending all its powers, it is also not able to answer.’[A vii]
In the Antinomies the method of provoking a conflict of assertions, not for the purpose of deciding in favour of one, but of investigating whether the object of controversy is not perhaps a deceptive appearance. This is not a sceptical method but aims at certainty with the point of misunderstanding.
The Antinomy and the antithetic nature of reason have a suggestive reflective intention in the Critique of Pure Reason. In the Section three of the Of the Antinomy deals with the interest of Reason in these conflicts and the assertions of thesis are exposition of Dogmatism and the assertion of antithesis are all consistent with empiricism.
The first Antinomy as the first conflict of the transcendental ideas state as Thesis : The world has a beginning in time and is also limited a s regards space.
The Antithesis states : the world has no beginning and no limits in space; it is infinite as regards both time and space. The whole antinomy of pure reason rests upon the dialectical argument: If the conditioned is given, the entire series of all its conditions is likewise given; objects of the senses are given as conditioned; therefore, etc. Through this syllogism, the major premise of which appears so natural and evident, as many cosmological ideas are introduced as there are differences in the conditions (in the synthesis of appearances) that constitute a series. The ideas postulate absolute totality of these series; and thereby they set reason in unavoidable conflict with itself. We shall be in a better position to detect what is deceptive in this pseudo-rational argument, if we first correct and define some of the concepts employed in it.
The second Antinomy as in the conflict of the Transcendental Ideas , Thesis: Every composite substance in the world is made up of simple parts, and nothing anywhere exists save the simple or what is composed of the simple parts.
Antithesis states No composite thing in the world is made up of simple parts, and nowhere exists in the world anything simple.
Kant says Zeno of Elea, a subtle dialectician, was severely reprimanded by Plato as a mischievous Sophist who, to show his skill, would set out to prove a proposition through convincing arguments and then immediately overthrow them by other arguments equally strong. Zeno maintained, for example, that God (probably conceived by him as simply the world) is neither finite nor infinite, neither in motion nor at rest, neither similar nor dissimilar to any other thing. To the critics of his procedure he appeared to have the absurd intention of denying both of two mutually contradictory propositions. But this accusation does not seem to me to be justified. The first of his propositions I shall consider presently more in detail. As regards the others, if by the word ‘God’ he meant the universe, he would certainly have to say that it is neither abidingly present in its place, that is, at rest, nor that it changes its place, that is, is in motion; because all places are in the universe, and the universe is not, therefore, itself in any place. Again, if the universe comprehends in itself everything that exists, in cannot be either similar or dissimilar to any other thing, because there is no other thing, nothing outside it, with which it could be compared. If two opposed judgments presuppose an inadmissible condition, then in spite of their opposition, which does not amount to a contradiction strictly so-called, both fall to the ground, inasmuch as the condition, under which alone either of them can be maintained, itself falls.
Thus empiricism is entirely devoid of the popularity of transcendentally idealising reason; and however prejudicial such empiricism may be to the highest practical principles, there is no need to fear that it will ever pass the limits of the Schools, and acquire any considerable influence in the general life or any real favour among the multitude.
The Third Antinomy as the third conflict of the transcendental ideas, Thesis states : Causality in accordance with the laws of nature is not the only causality from which appearances of the world can one and all be derived. To explain these appearances it is necessary to assume that there is another causality, that of Freedom.
Antithesis states: here is no freedom; everything in the world takes place solely in accordance with the laws of nature.
The Third Antinomy is very central in Kant’s critical philosophy. ‘Kant’s discussion of the third antinomy in the Critique of Pure Reason is one of the central philosophical events of the modern age. It is the consideration of the compatibility of two core assumptions of modern thought…that the motion of all natural beings is causally determined , and human beings are free and self moving’.
The fourth Antinomy as the fourth conflict of the Transcendental ideas -The Thesis states ; There belongs to the world, either as its part of as its cause, a being that is absolutely necessary.
And the Antithesis states : An absolutely necessary being nowhere exists in the world, nor does it exist outside the world as its cause.
Kant says we have now completely before us the dialectic play of cosmological ideas. The ideas are such that an object congruent with them can never be given in any possible experience, and that even in thought reason is unable to bring them into harmony with the universal laws of nature. Yet they are not arbitrarily conceived. Reason, in the continuous advance of empirical synthesis, is necessarily led up to them whenever it endeavours to free from all conditions and apprehend in its unconditioned totality that which according to the rules of experience can never be determined save as conditioned. As Immanuel Kant himself said in his Prolegomena [ 1783] which has been written as the readable summary of the Critique of Pure Reason, that his Philosophy is misjudged because it was misunderstood, people used to skim through the book but they have not reflect or think through the book. Kant himself says he takes the people in a high way but to follow him they will have to have the reflexive understanding. Immanuel Kant thinks Philosophy stand in a need to science to proof the theoretical understanding. For him in all theoretical sciences a priori synthetic judgments are contained as principles. But the general problem of Philosophy is to have the holistic understanding of the Philosophical issues particularly in the value oriented fields which needs the reconciliation of theoretical and practical understanding and the reflexive understanding.
Immanuel Kant’s Critical Philosophy deals with the issue of the nature of reason itself. His critique of Pure Reason is not the Critique of doctrines or books but the very nature of reason itself, and Critique of Pure Reason is considered as the special science of reason itself. Kant deals with the Problem of knowing and deals four major questions. How is Pure Mathematics Possible? How is Pure Natural Science or Physics Possible? How is a priori synthetic Judgments Possible? And how is metaphysics possible as real Science? In these questions and issues Kant reconciled a priori and synthetic judgment for the theoretical understanding of Science. But the general problem of philosophy is to explore the understanding Philosophy as a whole in these issues. The Reflexive understanding only will give the Philosophical understanding of every issue of Philosophy and Life as a whole. Exploring the self – understanding of Reason and the reflexive understanding Kant made an epistemological and methodological innovation in the history of western Philosophy. This trend has been influenced the subsequent philosophers in the continental philosophy and this kind of methodological contribution will serve in a great manner in our contemporary research in all the fields of social sciences and sciences to explore self – understanding of reason and reflexive understanding.
It is virtually impossible to overestimate the importance of the Antinomy to Kant’s critical project. Indeed, it is clear that kant himself saw it as absolutely central. Thus, in a famous letter to Christian Grave from 1798, he writes that it was the Antinomy of Pure Reason that “ first aroused me from dogmatioc slumber and drove me to the critique of reason itself in order to resolve the ostensible contradiction of reason with itself. [Br 12: 258;552. Quoted in Allison page 357.
On the basis of this critique Kant establishes the legitimate philosophical use of reason from its dialectical or Rhetorical use , and guarantees the new foundations for metaphysics as real science. Kant’s First Critique is structured as a critique of traditional metaphysics.
Kant uses the Transcendental Dialectic is the Critique of Traditional metaphysics and Critique of the Traditional epistemology and logic of Metaphysics. The traditional epistemology and Rhetoric of metaphysics is merely a pretention. The whole history of western philosophy shows this one- sided Rhetoric in epistemology whether idealism or scepticism. The whole history of Epistemology and ontology based on that epistemology and Rhetoric reveal a dialectical process of history of Western Philosophy. Kant reconciles the one sided extreme rhetoric and epistemology in his Critical Philosophy. His critical idealism and Transcendental idealism is not an idealism proper, but his use of the term idealism of his critical and Transcendental Philosophy lead the subsequent philosophers to misinterpret Kant an idealist.. but his idealism not the traditional idealism not an idealism proper in its real connotation. Henry E. Allison also states in his book on Kant’s Transcendental Idealism quote.
The transcendental idealism as the Critique of both side extremism in epistemology and ontology and The Transcendental Dialectic is the Dialectical method to refute one sided rhetoric and epistemology for dogmatic rationalism and sceptical empiricism. The dialectical method is being used in the east and the west from very ancient time. The dialectical method is subtle method to transcend the fallacies of Logic in subtle issues of Philosophy, Dialectical method leads toward the exposition of Philosophy as whole. Kant’s Philosophical intention is to transcend the Logical fallacies in one-sided logical slant due to the false and one-sided perception of Reality. The hypothetical Logical proofs are the logic of misapprehension of reality. Kant’s critical philosophy tries to bridge the gap between Phenomena and Noumena or the so- called appearance and reality. The traditional epistemology and Logic lead to the Rationalistic Dogmatism and the Sceptical Empiricism. Those extreme one-sided exposition in reality is the base for their slant on one-sided epistemology which leads to an the Dogmatic idealism and problematic idealism. Through the Transcendental Dialectic Kant deals with all the so- called metaphysical problems e.g. Ontology, Psychology, Cosmology and Theology. This paper focuses on Kant’s exposition on The Antinomies of Pure Reason which explore the Transcendental Dialectical Method to overcome the problems of Traditional Metaphysics, Epistemology and Ontology. The Transcendental dialectic tries to overcome the Traditional dualistic approach to the Reality and overcomes the problems of logic and epistemology. I argue in this paper that Kant’s intention and exposition of the Transcendental philosophy are irrefutable though there are misinterpretations of Kant’s Transcendental Dialectic. These misunderstanding and misinterpretations lie on the understanding of the dialectical process itself. The method of Transcendental Dialectic and the Antinomies of Pure Reason solves the problem of metaphysics, epistemology and Logic through the Transcendental Idealism. Kant’s Transcendental Idealism is an Anti Idealism , which transcends the one-sided idealistic approach to reality and lays the foundation for later developments of Phenomenology.
My reading on Kantian Transcendental Dialectic and The Antinomies of Pure Reason is Phenomenological and Philosophical hermeneutic which tries to transcend the misinterpretation misjudgements of Kant’s Methodology and Message. Kant lays the foundation not only for the Phenomenological tradition, Edmund Husserl and Heidegger and others, through his Transcendental Idealism and Critical Idealism but for the entire Methodological developments in the Field of Dialectic and historical Dialectic of Hegel and Karl Marx. This needs a separate study to establish the foundations.
Phenomenological tradition has been introduced and systemized by Edmund Husserl in early 1900s through his Logical Investigations [Two Volumes-1900-1901] and the roots of Phenomenology can be traced back from Immanuel Kant’s in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science [1786] and Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit [1807]. The whole message of Kantian Philosophy has the Phenomenological and hermeneutic message. But most of the interpretations of Kantian Philosophy neglect Kant’s immense contribution towards Phenomenology and Hermeneutic understanding or the reflexive understanding of Philosophy as a whole with total understanding of reality. According to Kant It is not so extraordinary as at first seems the case, that a science should be in a position to demand and expect none but assured answers to all the questions within its domain (quaestiones domesticae), although up to the present they have perhaps not been found. In addition to transcendental philosophy, there are two pure rational sciences, one purely speculative, the other with a practical content, namely, pure mathematics and pure ethics. Has it ever been suggested that, because of our necessary ignorance of the conditions, it must remain uncertain what exact relation, in rational or irrational numbers, a diameter bears to a circle? Since no adequate solution in terms of rational numbers is possible, and no solution in terms of irrational numbers has yet been discovered, it was concluded that at least the impossibility of a solution can be known with certainty, and of this impossibility Lambert has given the required proof. In the universal principles of morals nothing can be uncertain, because the principles are either altogether void and meaningless, or must be derived from the concepts of our reason. In natural science, on the other hand, there is endless conjecture, and certainty is not to be counted upon. For the natural appearances are objects which are given to us independently of our concepts, and the key to them lies not in us and our pure thinking, but outside us; and therefore in many cases, since the key is not to be found, an assured solution is not to be expected. I am not, of course, here referring to those questions of the Transcendental Analytic which concern the deduction of our pure knowledge; we are at present treating only of the certainty of judgments with respect to their objects and not with respect to the source of our concepts themselves.
Kant says ‘We have sufficiently proved in the Transcendental Aesthetic that everything intuited in space or time, and therefore all objects of any experience possible to us, are nothing but appearances, that is, mere representations, which, in the manner in which they are represented, as If, therefore, we say that the world is either infinite in extension or is not infinite (non est infinitus), and if the former proposition is false, its contradictory opposite, that the world is not infinite, must be true. And I should thus deny the existence of an infinite world, without affirming in its place a finite world. But if we had said that the world is either infinite or finite (non-infinite), both statements might be false. For in that case we should be regarding the world in itself as determined in its magnitude, and in the opposed judgment we do not merely remove the infinitude, and with it perhaps the entire separate existence of the world, but attach a determination to the world, regarded as a thing actually existing in itself. This assertion may, however, likewise be false; the world may not be given as a thing in itself, nor as being in its magnitude either infinite or finite. I beg permission to entitle this kind of opposition dialectical, and that of contradictories analytical. Thus of two dialectically opposed judgments both may be false; for the one is not a mere contradictory of the other, but says something more than is required for a simple contradiction.
According to Kant If, therefore, we say that the world is either infinite in extension or is not infinite (non est infinitus), and if the former proposition is false, its contradictory opposite, that the world is not infinite, must be true. And I should thus deny the existence of an infinite world, without affirming in its place a finite world. But if we had said that the world is either infinite or finite (non-infinite), both statements might be false. For in that case we should be regarding the world in itself as determined in its magnitude, and in the opposed judgment we do not merely remove the infinitude, and with it perhaps the entire separate existence of the world, but attach a determination to the world, regarded as a thing actually existing in itself. This assertion may, however, likewise be false; the world may not be given as a thing in itself, nor as being in its magnitude either infinite or finite. I beg permission to entitle this kind of opposition dialectical, and that of contradictories analytical. Thus of two dialectically opposed judgments both may be false; for the one is not a mere contradictory of the other, but says something more than is required for a simple contradiction.
This remark is of some importance. It enables us to see that the proofs given in the fourfold antinomy are not merely baseless deceptions. On the supposition that appearances, and the sensible world which comprehends them all, are things in themselves, these proofs are indeed well-grounded. The conflict which results from the propositions thus obtained shows, however, that there is a fallacy in this assumption, and so leads us to the discovery of the true constitution of things, as objects of the senses. While the transcendental dialectic does not by any means favour scepticism, it certainly does favour the sceptical method, which can point to such dialectic as an example of its great services. For when the arguments of reason are allowed to oppose one another in unrestricted freedom, something advantageous, and likely to aid in the correction of our judgments, will always accrue, though it may not be what we set out to find.
‘We may next institute a comparison of Kant with the metaphysics of the empirical school. Natural plain Empiricism, though it unquestionably insists most upon sensuous perception, still allows a supersensible world or spiritual reality, whatever may be its structure and constitution, and whether derived from intellect, or from imagination, etc. So far as form goes, the facts of this supersensible world rest on the authority of mind, in the same way as the other facts embraced in empirical knowledge rest on the authority of external perception. But when Empiricism becomes reflective and logically consistent, it turns its arms against this dualism in the ultimate and highest species of fact; it denies the independence of the thinking principle and of a spiritual world which develops itself in thought. Materialism or Naturalism, therefore, is the consistent and thoroughgoing system of Empiricism. In direct opposition to such an Empiricism, Kant asserts the principle of thought and freedom, and attaches himself to the first mentioned form of empirical doctrine, the general principles of which he never departed from. There is a dualism in his philosophy also. On one side stands the world of sensation, and of the understanding which reflects upon it. This world, it is true, he alleges to be a world of appearances. But that is only a title or formal description; for the source, the facts, and the modes of observation continue quite the same as in Empiricism. On the other side and independent stands a self-apprehending thought, the principle of freedom, which Kant has in common with ordinary and bygone metaphysic, but emptied of all that it held, and without his being able to infuse into it anything new. For, in the Critical doctrine, thought, or, as it is there called, Reason, is divested of every specific form, and thus bereft of all authority. The main effect of the Kantian philosophy has been to revive the consciousness of Reason, or the absolute inwardness of thought. Its abstractness indeed prevented that inwardness from developing into anything, or from originating any special forms, whether cognitive principles or moral laws; but nevertheless it absolutely refused to accept or indulge anything possessing the character of an externality. Henceforth the principle of the independence of Reason, or of its absolute self-subsistence, is made a general principle of philosophy, as well as a foregone conclusion of the time.’ [ Henry E.Alison 2004]
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Trd Norman Kemp Smith
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Trd Norman Kemp Smith
McMillan and Company Ltd [1964]
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Immanuel Kant [1786]
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Trd Norman Kemp Smith
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Trd T. K Abbot,
Barns and Noble Books, New York
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Trd J. H Bernard
Hafner Press, New York
Michael Friedman [1992]
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Harvard University Press, USA
John Watson [1881]
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