Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason — trans. F. Max Müller

Supposing that I am addressing readers who never wish to see a just cause defended by unjust means, I may say that, according to our principles of criticism, and looking not at what commonly happens, but at what in all common fairness ought to happen, there ought to be no polemical use of reason at all. For how can two persons dispute on a subject the reality of which neither of them can present either in real, or even in possible experience, while they brood on the mere idea of it with the sole intention of eliciting something more than the idea, namely, the reality of the object itself? How can they ever arrive at the end of their dispute, as neither of them can make his view comprehensible and certain, or do more than attack and refute the view of his opponent } For this is the fate of all assertions of pure reason. They go beyond the conditions of all possible experience, where no proof [p. 751]

Discipline of Pure Reason 603

of truth is to be found anywhere, but they have to follow, nevertheless, the laws of the understanding, which are intended for empirical use only, but without which no step can be made in synthetical thought. Thus it happens that each side lays open its own weaknesses, and each can avail itself of the weaknesses of the other.

The critique of pure reason may really be looked upon as the true tribunal for all disputes of reason ; for it is not concerned in these disputes which refer to objects immediately, but is intended to fix and to determine the rights of reason in general, according to the principles of its original institution.

Without such a critique, reason may be said to be in a state of nature, and unable to establish and defend its assertions and claims except by war. The critique of pure reason, on the contrary, which bases all its decisions on the indisputable principles of its own original institution, secures to us the peace of a legal status, in which disputes are not to be carried on except in the proper form of a lawsuit. In the former state such disputes generally end in both parties claiming victory^ which is followed by an uncertain peace, maintained chiefly by the civil power, while in the latter state a sentence \?> pronounced which, [p. 752] as it goes to the very root of the dispute, must secure an eternal peace. These never-ceasing disputes of a purely dogmatical reason compel people at last to seek for rest and peace in some criticism of reason itself, and in some sort of legislation founded upon such criticism. Thus Hobbes maintains that the state of nature is a state of injustice and violence, and that we must needs leave it and submit ourselves to the constraint of law, which alone limits our freedom in such a way that it may consist with the freedom of others and with the common good.

6o4 Discipline of Piwe Reason

It is part of that freedom that we should be allowed openly to state our thoughts and our doubts which we cannot solve ourselves, without running the risk of being decried on that account as turbulent and dangerous citizens. This follows from the inherent rights of reason, which recognises no other judge but universal human reason itself.

Here everybody has a vote ; and, as all improvements of which our state is capable must spring from thence, such rights are sacred and must never be minished. Nay, it would really be foolish to proclaim certain bold assertions, or reckless attacks upon assertions which enjoy the approval of the largest and best portion of the commonwealth, as dangerous ; for that would be to impart to them an importance which they do not pos- [p. 753] sess.

Whenever I hear that some uncommon genius has demonstrated away the freedom of the human will, the hope of a future life, or the existence of God, I am always desirous to read his book, for I expect that his talent will help me to improve my own insight into these problems.

Of one thing I feel quite certain, even without having seen his book, that he has not disproved any single one of these doctrines; not because I imagine that I am myself in possession of irrefragable proofs of them, but because the transcendental critique, by revealing to me the whole apparatus of our pure reason, has completely convinced me that, as reason is insufficient, to establish affirmative propositions in this sphere of thought, it is equally, nay, even more powerless to establish the negative on any of these points.

For where is this so-called free-thinker to take the knowledge that, for instance, there exists no Supreme Being.? This proposition lies outside the field of possible experience and, therefore, outside the limits of