Making Sense of Kant's “Critique of Pure Reason”: A Philosophical Introduction

Description

Tackling Kant’s seminal enlightenment text, Critique of Pure Reason, remains key for every student of modern philosophy. Michael Pendlebury distils his breadth of experience teaching Kant’s first Critique to provide a short, accessible introduction that reveals its enduring inspirations, challenges and ideas to thinkers grappling with contemporary philosophical issues. Clarifying and making sense of Kant’s account of perception, cognition, space, time, substance, causation, actuality, objectivity, and the presuppositions and limits of human knowledge makes Critique of Pure Reason digestible for all students, including those approaching it for the first time. Making Sense of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason concentrates on key portions of the text that are essential to a basic understanding of Kant’s project, providing an introduction that situates his ideas as solutions to philosophical problems. The book offers a sympathetic account of Kant’s theory of a priori cognition alongside its application for readers new to Kantian philosophy, and uses select quotations from the original text to foreground Kant’s Critique independent of subsequent debates and interpretations. Pendlebury makes sense of Kant’s own views and arguments, creating a stimulating read that provides a useful starting point for further study. Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Contents Preface How to Use This Book Note on Citations of and Quotations from Kant’s Works Chapter 1: Background 1.1 The Basic Structure of Our World 1.2 Knowledge and Reality 1.3 The Critique of Pure Reason Chapter 2: The Preface and the Introduction: Two Types of Metaphysics 2.1 A Science of Metaphysics? (Bvii–xxxi) 2.2 A Priori Cognition (B1–10) 2.3 The Analytic/Synthetic Distinction (B10–12) 2.4 Synthetic a Priori Judgments and Knowledge (B12–24) 2.5 Transcendental Philosophy (B24–7) Chapter 3: The Transcendental Aesthetic: Sensibility, Space, and Time 3.1 Intuitions, Appearances, and the Forms of Sensibility (B33–7) 3.2 The Presentation of Space (B37–41) 3.3 The Reality of Space (B42–5) 3.4 The Presentation and Reality of Time (B46–58) Chapter 4: The Metaphysical Deduction: Judgments, Concepts, and Categories 4.1 Sensibility and Understanding (B74–6) 4.2 Concepts and Judgments (B91–4) 4.3 Forms of Judgment and Categories (B95–101 and 106–13) 4.4 Synthesis (B102–5) Chapter 5: The Analogies and the Postulates: Fundamental Principles about Substance, Causation, Community, and Modality 5.1 The System of Principles (B187–9, 193–203, and 207–8) 5.2 Experience and Objectivity (B218–24) 5.3 The First Analogy: Substance (B224–32) 5.4 The Second Analogy: Causation (B232–56) 5.5 The Third Analogy: Community (B256–62) 5.6 The Postulates: Possibility, Actuality, and Necessity (B265–74 and 279–82) 5.7 The Unity of Nature (B263–5) Chapter 6: The Transcendental Deduction: Why Intuitions Fall Under Categories 6.1 The Challenge (B116–29) 6.2 Apperception and Judgment: Why Intuitions Must Fall Under Categories (B129–43) 6.3 Interlude (B144–9 and 152–9) 6.4 Figurative Synthesis: Why Intuitions Can Fall Under Categories (B150–2 and 159–69) 6.5 Dreams, Hallucinations, and Seemings Chapter 7: The Schematism: How Intuitions Fall Under Categories (B176–87) 7.1 Transcendental Schemata as Criteria 7.2 Sensible and Empirical Schemata and the Synthesis of Imagination 7.3 Transcendental Schemata as Forms of Imaginative Synthesis 7.4 An Overview of Kant’s Account of Synthetic a Priori Knowledge Chapter 8: The Dialectic: The Limits of Speculative Reason 8.1 Ideas and Illusions (B368–75 and 390–3) 8.2 The Paralogisms: The Soul (B399–415 and 421–8) 8.3 The Antinomy: Nature (B432–48, 525–35, and 556–60) 8.4 The First Antinomy: The Limits of Nature (B454–7 and 545–51) 8.5 The Second Antinomy: The Divisibility of Substance (B462–5 and 551–5) 8.6 The Third Antinomy: Freedom and the Laws of Nature (B472–5 and 560–86) 8.7 The Fourth Antinomy: The Necessity of Nature (B480–3 and 587–95) 8.8 The Ideal: God (B595–619, 624–9, 632–4, 637–8, and 653–6) 8.9 The Regulative Function of Ideas (B670–9, 536–7, 644–8, and 708–16) Chapter 9: Taking Stock 9.1 Transcendental Idealism and Things in Themselves (B274–9 and 288–94) 9.2 Kant’s Achievement Notes Preface Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Bibliography Index of Citations of Passages in the Critique of Pure Reason Index of Subjects and Names