Critique of Pure Reason the Dialectic
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Critique of Pure Reason the Dialectic Immanuel Kant 1781 Copyright © Jonathan Bennett 2017. All rights reserved [Brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small ·dots· enclose material that has been added, but can be read as though it were part of the original text. Occasional •bullets, and also indenting of passages that are not quotations, are meant as aids to grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought. Each four-point ellipsis . indicates the omission of a brief passage that seems to present more difficulty than it is worth. Longer omissions will be reported between square brackets in normal-sized type. This version follows (B) the second edition of the Critique, though it also includes the (A) first-edition version of the Paralogisms of Pure Reason. Undecorated marginal numerals refer to page-numbers in B; ones with an ‘A’ in front refer to A, and are given only for passages that don’t also occur in B. The likes of ..356 in the margin mean that B356 (or whatever) started during the immediately preceding passage that has been omitted or only described between square brackets. These marginal numerals can help you to connect this version with other translations, with the original German, and with references in the secondary literature. Cross-references to other parts of this work include the word ‘page(s)’, and refer to numbers at the top-right corner of each page.—The Transcendental logic divides into the Transcendental analytic, which started on page 45, and the Transcendental dialectic, which starts here. First launched: January 2008 Critique. Dialectic Immanuel Kant Contents Introduction 155 1. Transcendental illusion...................................................... 155 2. Pure reason as the seat of transcendental illusion....................................... 157 Book 1: The concepts of pure reason 163 1. The ideas in general........................................................ 163 2. The transcendental ideas..................................................... 166 3. System of the transcendental ideas................................................ 171 Book 2: The dialectical inferences of pure reason 174 Chapter I, The paralogisms of pure reason (first edition) 175 First paralogism: Substantiality................................................... 178 Second paralogism: Simplicity.................................................... 179 Third paralogism: Personhood.................................................... 182 Fourth paralogism: ideality (in regard to outer relation)...................................... 184 The paralogisms of pure reason (second edition).......................................... 197 Chapter 2: The antinomy of pure reason 206 1. System of cosmological ideas.................................................... 207 2. Antithetic of pure reason...................................................... 211 First antinomy............................................................. 213 Second antinomy........................................................... 216 Third antinomy............................................................ 219 Fourth antinomy............................................................ 222 3. What’s at stake for reason in these conflicts.......................................... 225 4. The transcendental problems of pure reason, considered as downright having to be soluble.............. 230 5. A sceptical look at the cosmological questions raised by the four transcendental ideas................. 233 6. Transcendental idealism as the key to sorting out the cosmological dialectic....................... 235 7. Critical solution of reason’s cosmological conflict with itself................................. 238 8. Applying the regulative principle of pure reason to the cosmological ideas........................ 242 9. Putting the regulative principle of reason to work empirically, in connection with the cosmological ideas....... 244 Critique. Dialectic Immanuel Kant Chapter 3: The ideal of pure reason 263 1. The ideal in general........................................................ 263 2. The transcendental ideal...................................................... 264 3. Speculative reason’s arguments for the existence of a supreme being........................... 269 4. There can’t be a successful ontological argument for the existence of God......................... 272 5. There can’t be a successful cosmological argument for the existence of God....................... 276 6. There can’t be a successful physico-theological argument ·for the existence of God· ................... 283 7. Critique of all theology based on speculative principles of reason............................... 287 Appendix to the transcendental dialectic 292 1. The regulative use of the ideas of pure reason......................................... 292 2. The final purpose of the natural dialectic of human reason................................. 302 Critique. Dialectic Immanuel Kant Antinomy of pure reason Chapter 2: seem quite plausible), it also produces lines of thought that The antinomy of pure reason go against that principle, falling into such contradictions that it has to back off from its demand for such unity in the In the introduction to the Transcendental Dialectic I showed cosmological domain. that all the transcendental illusion of pure reason rests on We are confronted here by a new phenomenon of human dialectical inferences that can be classified on the basis of reason—an entirely natural antithetic into which reason 433 the three forms of inference-of-reason, just as the categories stumbles •unavoidably, •quite of its own accord, •without can be classified on the basis of the four forms of judgment. being led on by sophisticated arguments or enticed into traps [Kant now repeats his earlier claim—see page 176—that (1) set for the unwary. It does guard reason from the slumber 434 the paralogisms are arguments starting from a premise using of a false belief such as is generated by a purely one-sided the subject-predicate form, (2) the antinomial fallacious illusion ·like that of the paralogisms·; but it subjects it to the arguments start from a premise that is hypothetical in form, temptation either •to abandon itself to a sceptical despair or and (3) the third (theological) fallacious arguments have a •to defend one of the two sides dogmatically and stubbornly, special relationship to the disjunctive form. His formulations refusing to give the other side its day in court. Either attitude remind us that (1) concerns subjective conditions while (2) is the death of sound philosophy. concerns objective ones. I get into (1) by thinking about Before ushering in the various forms of opposition and myself, into (2) by thinking about the world out there. Then:] dissension to which this conflict or antinomy of the laws But there’s something we should especially notice; ·it’s of pure reason gives rise, I offer a few remarks to explain another enormous difference between (1) and (2)·. Tran- and justify the method I’m going to adopt in dealing with scendental paralogism produced a purely one-sided illusion this subject. I label as a ‘world-concept’ any transcenden- concerning the idea of the subject of our thought. The tal idea that concerns absolute totality in the synthesis of concepts of reason don’t cause any illusion that gives the appearances. I have two reasons for this: •the concept of slightest support to the opposing assertion. ·i.e. to the denial the world-whole, though itself only an idea, rests on this of the conclusion of the paralogism, thinking especially of unconditioned totality; and •such concepts concern only the ‘The soul is not simple’, which would open the door to the synthesis of appearances, and thus only empirical synthesis. thesis that the soul is a material thing·. So the only position Accordingly, just as the paralogisms of pure reason formed that the paralogism claims to support is pneumatism [= the basis of a dialectical psychology, so the antinomy of ‘the thesis that the soul is immaterial’], though of course the fiery pure reason will reveal the transcendental principles of a ordeal of critical investigation makes that ‘support’ go up in supposed pure rational cosmology [= ‘theory of the whole world’]. smoke. But it won’t be trying to show this ‘science’ to be valid and to A completely different situation arises when reason is adopt it. As the title ‘conflict of reason’ indicates well enough, applied to (2) the objective synthesis of appearances. For in the object of the exercise will be to display it in all its flashy this domain, however hard reason may try to establish its but false illusoriness, as an idea that can never be reconciled principle of unconditioned unity (indeed making the principle with appearances. (·It’s obvious that the label ‘world-concept’ 206 Critique. Dialectic Immanuel Kant Antinomy of pure reason doesn’t apply to the idea of the transcendental I or have any demand on the basis of the principle that role in the paralogisms; but it also doesn’t belong in the •If some conditioned item x is given, then the entire third of the three basic kinds of dialectical illusion either·. sum of x’s conditions, and consequently the absolutely When we are dealing with absolute totality in the synthesis unconditioned, is given (because that unconditioned 435 of the conditions of all possible things in general,—·as totality is what has made it possible for x to exist). we are in the third kind of illusion·—there arises an ideal of Two important things