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Do not fill this in! ===Kant's critical project=== {{See also|Critique of Pure Reason}} [[File:Kant017.jpg|thumb|Immanuel Kant by [[Carle Vernet]] (1758–1836)]] Kant's 1781 (revised 1787) book the ''Critique of Pure Reason'' has often been cited as the most significant volume of metaphysics and [[epistemology]] in modern philosophy.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant/ |title=Immanuel Kant (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) |access-date=29 May 2019 |archive-date=14 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191114014720/https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant/ |url-status=live }}</ref> In the first ''Critique'', and later on in other works as well, Kant frames the "general" and "real problem of pure reason" in terms of the following question: "'''How are synthetic judgments ''a priori'' possible'''?"<ref>Kant, ''CPuR'' B135</ref>{{sfn|Guyer|2014|p=51}} To parse this claim, it is necessary to define some terms. First, Kant makes a distinction in terms of the source of the ''content'' of knowledge: # '''Cognitions ''a priori''''': "cognition independent of all experience and even of all the impressions of the senses". # '''Cognitions ''a posteriori''''': cognitions that have their sources in experience{{mdash}}that is, which are '''empirical'''.<ref>Kant, ''CPuR'' B1–3</ref> Second, he makes a distinction in terms of the ''form'' of knowledge: # '''Analytic proposition''': a proposition whose predicate concept is contained in its subject concept; e.g., "All bachelors are unmarried", or "All bodies take up space". These can also be called "'''judgments of clarification'''". # '''Synthetic proposition''': a proposition whose predicate concept is not contained in its subject concept; e.g., "All bachelors are alone", "All swans are white," or "All bodies have weight". These can also be called "'''judgments of amplification'''".<ref>Kant, ''CPuR'' A6–8/B10–12</ref> An analytic proposition is true by nature of strictly conceptual relations. All analytic propositions are ''a priori'' (it is analytically true that no analytic proposition could be ''a posteriori''). By contrast, a synthetic proposition is one the content of which includes something new. The truth or falsehood of a synthetic statement depends upon something more than what is contained in its concepts. The most obvious form of synthetic proposition is a simple empirical observation.{{sfn|Guyer|2014|pp=52–54}} Philosophers such as [[David Hume]] believed that these were the only possible kinds of human reason and investigation, which he called "relations of ideas" and "matters of fact".<ref>Hume, David. ''An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding''. Section 4; Part 1.</ref> Establishing the synthetic ''a priori'' as a third mode of knowledge would allow Kant to push back against Hume's skepticism about such matters as causation and metaphysical knowledge more generally. This is because, unlike ''a posteriori'' cognition, ''a priori'' cognition has "true or strict...'''universality'''" and includes a claim of "'''necessity'''".<ref>Kant, ''CPuR'' B3–4</ref>{{sfn|Guyer|2014|pp=52–54}} Kant himself regards it as uncontroversial that we do have synthetic ''a priori'' knowledge{{mdash}}most obviously, that of mathematics. That 7 + 5 = 12, he claims, is a result not contained in the concepts of seven, five, and the addition operation.<ref>Kant, ''CPuR'' B14–17</ref> Yet, although he considers the possibility of such knowledge to be obvious, Kant nevertheless assumes the burden of providing a philosophical proof that we have ''a priori'' knowledge in mathematics, the natural sciences, and metaphysics. It is the twofold aim of the ''Critique'' both ''to prove'' and ''to explain'' the possibility of this knowledge.{{sfn|Guyer|2014|p=55}} "There are", Kant says, "two stems of human cognition, which may perhaps arise from a common but to us unknown root, namely '''sensibility''' and '''understanding''', through the first of which objects are ''given'' to us, but through the second of which they are ''thought''."<ref>Kant, ''CPuR'' A15/B29, emphases added</ref> Kant's term for the object of sensibility is '''intuition''', and his term for the object of the understanding is '''concept'''. In general terms, the former is a non-discursive representation of a ''particular'' object, and the latter is a discursive (or mediate) representation of a ''general type'' of object.{{sfn|Guyer|2014|pp=32, 61}} The conditions of possible experience require both intuitions and concepts, that is, the affection of the receptive sensibility and the actively synthesizing power of the understanding.{{sfn|Rohlf|2020|loc = §2.12}}{{efn|More technically, Kant puts his general point that all genuine knowledge requires both sensory input and intellectual organization by saying that all knowledge requires both "intuitions" and "concepts" (e.g., A 50 / B 74). Intuitions and concepts are two different species of the genus "representation" (''Vorstellung''), Kant's most general term for any cognitive state (see A 320 / B 376–7). At the outset of the "Transcendental Aesthetic", Kant states that an "intuition" is our most direct or "immediate" kind of representation of objects, in contrast to a "concept" which always represents an object "through a detour (''indirecte'')"{{mdash}}that is, merely by some "mark" or property that the object has (A 19 / B 33). In his logic textbook, Kant defines an intuition as a "''singular'' representation"{{mdash}}that is, one that represents a particular object{{mdash}}while a concept is always a "''universal'' (''repraesentation per notas communes'')", which represents properties common to many objects (''Logic'', §1, 9:91).{{sfn|Guyer|2014|pp=60–61}}}} Thus the statement: "Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind."<ref>Kant, ''CPuR'' A51/B75</ref> Kant's basic strategy in the first half of his book will be to argue that some intuitions and concepts are '''pure'''{{mdash}}that is, are contributed entirely by the mind, independent of anything empirical. Knowledge generated on this basis, under certain conditions, can be synthetic ''a priori''. This insight is known as Kant's "Copernican revolution", because, just as Copernicus advanced astronomy by way of a radical shift in perspective, so Kant here claims do the same for metaphysics.<ref>Kant, ''CPuR'' Bxvi–xviii</ref>{{sfn|Rohlf|2020|loc= §2.2}} The second half of the ''Critique'' is the explicitly ''critical'' part. In this "transcendental dialectic", Kant argues that many of the claims of traditional rationalist metaphysics violate the criteria he claims to establish in the first, "constructive" part of his book.{{sfn|Jankowiak|2023|loc = 2(g)}}{{sfn|Guyer|2014|loc = ch. 4}} As Kant observes, "human reason, without being moved by the mere vanity of knowing it all, inexorably pushes on, driven by its own need to such questions that cannot be answered by any experiential use of reason".<ref>Kant, ''CPuR'' B21</ref> It is the project of "the critique of pure reason" to establish the limits as to just how far reason may legitimately so proceed.<ref>Kant, ''CPuR'' Axi–xii</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. 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