Uh-oh, it looks like your Internet Explorer is out of date.
For a better shopping experience, please upgrade now.
Narrated by LibriVox Community
Immanuel Kant— 27 hours, 6 minutes
Narrated by LibriVox Community
Immanuel Kant— 27 hours, 6 minutes
The Critique of Pure Reason, first published in 1781 with a second edition in 1787, has been called the most influential and important philosophical text of the modern age.
Kant saw the Critique of Pure Reason as an attempt to bridge the gap between rationalism (there are significant ways in which our concepts and knowledge are gained independently of sense experience) and empiricism (sense experience is the ultimate source of all our concepts and knowledge) and, in particular, to counter the radical empiricism of David Hume (our beliefs are purely the result of accumulated habits, developed in response to accumulated sense experiences). Using the methods of science, Kant demonstrates that though each mind may, indeed, create its own universe, those universes are guided by certain common laws, which are rationally discernable. (Summary by Ticktockman)
Eric Watkins has done a fine job of abridging the Critique to a manageable size while preserving those sections most often assigned in a survey course, including enough of the Analytic to provide a continuous argument. Students will get a good sense of the whole from the parts he includes. I recommend it enthusiastically.
Narrator Peter Wickham approaches eighteenth-century philosopher Immanuel Kant's text on metaphysics with a pace apparently arising from his clear understanding of where each argument is headed. This awareness guides listeners through its lengthy phrases. Hearing the text is, in fact, the way many who study Kant approach his works, albeit with unskilled oral reading to themselves. Wickham's narration is a boon to students and scholars of the German thinker. While it will not make this classic author accessible to general readers, it conveys the work meaningfully. Those who are versed in the basic principles of Kant's considerations will view Wickham's approach as supportive of their efforts to gain deeper understanding of Kant’s thought and theory. F.M.R.G. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
Narrator Peter Wickham approaches eighteenth-century philosopher Immanuel Kant's text on metaphysics with a pace apparently arising from his clear understanding of where each argument is headed. This awareness guides listeners through its lengthy phrases. Hearing the text is, in fact, the way many who study Kant approach his works, albeit with unskilled oral reading to themselves. Wickham's narration is a boon to students and scholars of the German thinker. While it will not make this classic author accessible to general readers, it conveys the work meaningfully. Those who are versed in the basic principles of Kant's considerations will view Wickham's approach as supportive of their efforts to gain deeper understanding of Kant’s thought and theory. F.M.R.G. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
| BN ID: | 2940169585582 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | LibriVox |
| Publication date: | 08/25/2014 |
| Sales rank: | 314,039 |
CHAPTER 1
PART FIRST
TRANSCENDENTAL ÆSTHETIC
Introductory
IN whatsoever mode, or by whatsoever means, our knowledge may relate to objects, it is at least quite clear, that the only manner in which it immediately relates to them, is by means of an intuition. To this as the indispensable groundwork, all thought points. But an intuition can take place only in so far as the object is given to us. This, again, is only possible, to man at least, on condition that the object affect the mind in a certain manner. The capacity for receiving representations (receptivity) through the mode in which we are affected by objects, is called sensibility. By means of sensibility, therefore, objects are given to us, and it alone furnishes us with intuitions; by the understanding they are thought, and from it arise conceptions. But all thought must directly, or indirectly, by means of certain signs, relate ultimately to intuitions; consequently, with us, to sensibility, because in no other way can an object be given to us.
The effect of an object upon the faculty of representation, so far as we are affected by the said object, is sensation. That sort of intuition which relates to an object by means of sensation, is called an empirical intuition. The undetermined object of an empirical intuition, is call phenomenon. That which in the phenomenon corresponds to the sensation, I term its matter; but that which effects that the content of the phenomenon can be arranged under certain relations, I call its form. But that in which our sensations are merely arranged, and by which they are susceptible of assuming a certain form, cannot be itself sensation. It is then, the matter of all phenomena that is given to us à posteriori; the form must lie ready à priori for them in the mind, and consequently can be regarded separately from all sensation.
I call all representations pure, in the transcendental meaning of the word, wherein nothing is met with that belongs to sensation. And accordingly we find existing in the mind à priori, the pure form of sensuous intuitions in general, in which all the manifold content of the phenomenal world is arranged and viewed under certain relations. This pure form of sensibility I shall call pure intuition. Thus, if I take away from our representation of a body, all that the understanding thinks as belonging to it, as substance, force, divisibility, etc., and also whatever belongs to sensation, as impenetrability, hardness, color, etc.; yet there is still something left us from this empirical intuition, namely, extension and shape. These belong to pure intuition, which exists à priori in the mind, as a mere form of sensibility, and without any real object of the senses or any sensation.
The science of all the principles of sensibility à priori, I call Transcendental Æsthetic. There must, then, be such a science, forming the first part of the transcendental doctrine of elements, in contradistinction to that part which contains the principles of pure thought, and which is called transcendental logic.
In the science of transcendental aesthetic accordingly, we shall first isolate sensibility or the sensuous faculty, by separating from it all that is annexed to its perceptions by the conceptions of understanding, so that nothing be left but empirical intuition. In the next place we shall take away from this intuition all that belongs to sensation, so that nothing may remain but pure intuition, and the mere form of phenomena, which is all that the sensibility can afford à priori. From this investigation it will be found that there are two pure forms of sensuous intuition, as principles of knowledge à priori, namely, space and time. To the consideration of these we shall now proceed.
Section I. — Of Space
Metaphysical Exposition of this Conception
By means of the external sense (a property of the mind), we represent to ourselves objects as without us, and these all in space. Therein alone are their shape, dimensions, and relations to each other determined or determinable. The internal sense, by means of which the mind contemplates itself or its internal state, gives, indeed, no intuition of the soul as an object; yet there is nevertheless a determinate form, under which alone the contemplation of our internal state is possible, so that all which relates to the inward determinations of the mind is represented in relations of time. Of time we cannot have any external intuition, any more than we can have an internal intuition of space. What then are time and space? Are they real existences? Or, are they merely relations or determinations of things, such, however, as would equally belong to these things in themselves, though they should never become objects of intuition; or, are they such as belong only to the form of intuition, and consequently to the subjective constitution of the mind, without which these predicates of time and space could not be attached to any object? In order to become informed on these points, we shall first give an exposition of the conception of space. By exposition, I mean the clear, though not detailed, representation of that which belongs to a conception; and an exposition is metaphysical, when it contains that which represents the conception as given à priori.
1. Space is not a conception which has been derived from outward experiences. For, in order that certain sensations may relate to something without me (that is, to something which occupies a different part of space from that in which lam); in like manner, in order that I may represent them not merely as without of and near to each other, but also in separate places, the representation of space must already exist as a foundation. Consequently, the representation of space cannot be borrowed from the relations of external phenomena through experience; but, on the contrary" this external experience is itself only possible through the said antecedent representation.
2. Space then is a necessary representation à priori, which serves for the foundation of all external intuitions. We never can imagine or make a representation to ourselves of the nonexistence of space, though we may easily enough think that no objects are found in it. It must, therefore, be considered as the condition of the possibility of phenomena, and by no means as a determination dependent on them, and is a representation à priori, which necessarily supplies the basis for external phenomena.
3. Space is no discursive, or as we say, general conception of the relations of things, but a pure intuition. For in the first place, we can only represent to ourselves one space, and when we talk of divers spaces, we mean only parts of one and the same space. Moreover these parts cannot antecede this one all-embracing space, as the component parts from which the aggregate can be made up, but can be cogitated only as existing in it. Space is essentially one, and multiplicity in it, consequently the general notion of spaces, of this or that space, depends solely upon limitations. Hence it follows that an à priori intuition (which is not empirical) lies at the root of all our conceptions of space. Thus, moreover, the principles of geometry — for example, that " in a triangle, two sides together are greater than the third," are never deduced from general conceptions of line and triangle, but from intuition, and this à priori with apodictic certainty.
4. Space is represented as an infinite given quantity. Now every conception must indeed be considered as a representation which is contained in an infinite multitude of different possible representations, which, therefore, comprises these under itself; but no conception, as such, can be so conceived, as if it contained within itself an infinite multitude of representations. Nevertheless, space is so conceived of, for all parts of space are equally capable of being produced to infinity. Consequently, the original representation of space is an intuition à priori, and not a conception.
Transcendental exposition of the conception of Space
By a transcendental exposition, I mean the explanation of a conception, as a principle, whence can be discerned the possibility of other synthetical à priori cognitions. For this purpose, it is requisite, firstly, that such cognitions do really flow from the given conception; and, secondly, that the) said cognitions are only possible under the presupposition 6f a given mode of explaining this conception.
Geometry is a science which determines the properties of space synthetically, and yet à priori. What, then, must be our representation of space, in order that such a cognition of it may be possible? It must be originally intuition, for from a mere conception, no propositions can be deduced which go out beyond the conception, and yet this happens in geometry. (Introd. V.) But this intuition must be found in the mind à priori, that is, before any perception of objects, consequently, must be pure, not empirical, intuition. For geometrical principles are always apodictic, that is, united with the consciousness of their necessity, as, "Space has only three dimensions." But propositions of this kind cannot be empirical judgments, nor conclusions from them. (Introd. II.) Now, how can an external intuition anterior to objects themselves, and in which our conception of objects can be determined à priori, exist in the human mind? Obviously not otherwise than in so far as it has its seat in the subject only, as the formal capacity of the subject's being affected by objects, and thereby of obtaining immediate representation, that is, intuition; consequently, only as the form of the external sense in general.
Thus it is only by means of our explanation that the possibility of geometry, as a synthetical science à priori, becomes comprehensible. Every mode of explanation which does not show us this possibility, although in appearance it may be similar to ours, can with the utmost certainty be distinguished from it by these marks.
Conclusions from the foregoing conceptions
1. Space does not represent any property of objects as things in themselves, nor does it represent them in their relations to each other; in other words, space does not represent to us any determination of objects such as attaches to the objects themselves, and would remain, even though all subjective conditions of the intuition were abstracted. For neither absolute nor relative determinations of objects can be intuited prior to the existence of the things to which they belong, and therefore not à priori.
2. Space is nothing else than the form of all phenomena of the external sense, that is, the subjective condition of the sensibility, under which alone external intuition is possible. Now, because the receptivity or capacity of the subject to be affected by objects necessarily antecedes all intuitions of these objects, it is easily understood how the form of all phenomena can be given in the mind previous to all actual perceptions, therefore à priori, and how it, as a pure intuition, in which all objects must be determined, can contain principles of the relations of these objects prior to all experience.
It is therefore from the human point of view only that we can speak of space, extended objects, etc. If we depart from the subjective condition, under which alone we can obtain external intuition, or, in other words, by means of which we are affected by objects, the representation of space has no meaning whatsoever. This predicate [of space] is only applicable to things in so far as they appear to us, that is, are objects of sensibility. The constant form of this receptivity, which we call sensibility, is a necessary condition of all relations in which objects can be intuited as existing without us, and when abstraction of these objects is made, is a pure intuition, to which we give the name of space. It is clear that we cannot make the special conditions of sensibility into conditions of the possibility of things, but only of the possibility of their existence as far as they are phenomena. And so we may correctly say that space contains all which can appear to us externally, but not all things considered as things in themselves, be they intuited or not, or by whatsoever subject one will. As to the intuitions of other thinking beings, we cannot judge whether they are or are not bound by the same conditions which limit our own intuition, and which for us are universally valid. If we join the limitation of a judgment to the conception of the subject, then the judgment will possess unconditioned validity. For example, the proposition, " All objects are beside each other in space," is valid only under the limitation that these things are taken as objects of our sensuous intuition. But if I join the condition to the conception, and say, " all things, as external phenomena, are beside each other in space," then the rule is valid universally, and without any limitation. Our expositions, consequently, teach the reality (i.e. the objective validity) of space in regard of all which can be presented to us externally as objects, and at the same time also the ideality of space in regard to objects when they are considered by means of reason as things in themselves, that is, without reference to the constitution of our sensibility. We maintain, therefore, the empirical reality of space in regard to all possible external experience, although we must admit its transcendental ideality; in other words, that it is nothing, so soon as we withdraw the condition upon which the possibility of all experience depends, and look upon space as something that belongs to things in themselves.
But, with the exception of space, there is no representation, subjective and referring to something external to us, which could be called objective à priori. For there are no other subjective representations from which we can deduce synthetical propositions à priori, as we can from the intuition of space. Therefore, to speak accurately, no ideality whatever belongs to these, although they agree in this respect with the representation of space, that they belong merely to the subjective nature of the mode of sensuous perception; such a mode, for example, as that of sight, of hearing, and of feeling, by means of the sensations of color, sound, and heat, but which, because they are only sensations, and not intuitions, do not of themselves give us the cognition of any object, least of all, an à priori cognition. My purpose, in the above remark, is merely this: to guard anyone against illustrating the asserted ideality of space by examples quite insufficient, for example, by color, taste, etc.; for these must be contemplated not as properties of things, but only as changes in the subject, changes which may be different in different men. For in such a case, that which is originally a mere phenomenon, a rose, for example, is taken by the empirical understanding for a thing in itself, though to every different eye, in respect of its color, it may appear different. On the contrary, the transcendental conception of phenomena in space is a critical admonition, that, in general, nothing which is intuited in space is a thing in itself, and that space is not a form which belongs as a property to things; but that objects are quite unknown to us in themselves, and what we call outward objects, are nothing else but mere representations of our sensibility, whose form is space, but whose real correlate, the thing in itself, is not known by means of these representations, nor ever can be, but respecting which, in experience, no inquiry is ever made.
Section II. — Of Time
Metaphysical exposition of this conception
1. Time is not an empirical conception. For neither coexistence nor succession would be perceived by us, if the representation of time did not exist as a foundation à priori. Without this presupposition we could not represent to ourselves that things exist together at one and the same time, or at different times, that is, contemporaneously, or in succession.
2. Time is a necessary representation, lying at the foundation of all our intuitions. With regard to phenomena in general, we cannot think away time from them, and represent them to ourselves as out of and unconnected with time, but we can quite well represent to ourselves time void of phenomena. Time is therefore given à priori. In it alone is all reality of phenomena possible. These may all be annihilated in thought, but time itself, as the universal condition of their possibility, cannot be so annulled.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Critique of Pure Reason"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Immanuel Kant.
Excerpted by permission of Dover Publications, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
