Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason — trans. F. Max Müller
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The translator’s English as printed (F. Max Müller). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
This procedure of subjecting the facts of reason to examination, and, if necessary, to blame, may be termed the censorsJiip of reason. There can be no doubt that such a censorship must inevitably lead to doubts [p. 761] against all the transcendental employment of such principles. But this is only the second and by no means the last step in our enquiry. The first step in matters of pure reason, which marks its infancy, is dogmatism. The second, which we have just described, is scepticism, and marks the stage of caution on the part of reason, when rendered wiser by experience. But a third step is necessary, that of the maturity and manhood of judgment, based on firm and universally applicable maxims, when not the facts of reason, but reason itself in its whole power and fitness for pure knowledge a priori covcv^^ to be examined. This is not the censiira merely, but the true criticism of reason, by which not the bai^rier only, but the fixed frontiers of reason, not ignorance only on this or that point, but ignorance with reference to all possible questions of
Discipline of Pure Reason 6 1 1 a certain kind, must be proved from principles, instead of being merely guessed at. Thus scepticism is a restingplace of reason, where it may reflect for a time on its dogmatical wanderings and gain a survey of the region where it happens to be, in order to choose its way with greater certainty for the future : but it can never be its permanent dwelling-place. That can only be found in perfect certainty, whether of our knowledge of the objects themselves or of the limits within which all our knowledge of objects is enclosed. [p. j62\
Our reason is not to be considered as an indefinitely extended plain, the limits of which are known in a general way only, but. ought rather to be compared to a sphere the radius of which may be determined from the curvature of the arc of its surface (corresponding to the nature of synthetical propositions a priori), which enables us likewise to fix the extent and periphery of it with perfect certainty. Outside that sphere (the field of experience) nothing can become an object to our reason, nay, questions even on such imaginary objects relate to the subjective principles only for a complete determination of all the relations which may exist between the concepts of the understanding within that sphere.
It is a fact that we are in possession of different kinds of synthetical knowledge a priori, as shown by the principles of the understanding which anticipate experience. If anybody finds it quite impossible to understand the possibility of such principles, he may at first have some doubts as to whether they really dwell within us a priori ; but he cannot thus, by the mere powers of the understanding, prove their impossibility, and declare all the steps which reason takes under their
6i2 Discipline of Pure Reason guidance as null and void. All he can say is that, if we could understand their origin and genuineness, we should be able to determine the extent and limits of our reason, and that, until that is done, all the [p. 763] assertions of reason are made at random.
And in this way a complete scepticism with regard to all dogmatical philosophy, which is not guided by a criticism of reason, is well grounded, though we could not therefore deny to reason such further advance, after the way has once been prepared and secured on firmer ground.
For all these concepts, nay, all the questions which pure reason places before us, have their origin, not in experience, but in reason itself, and must therefore be capable of being solved and tested as to their validity or invalidity.
Nor are we justified, while pretending that the solution of these problems is really to be found in the nature of things, to decline their consideration and further investigation, under the pretext of our weakness, for reason alone begets all these ideas by itself, and is bound therefore to give an account of their validity or their dialectical vanity.
All sceptical polemic should properly be directed against the dogmatist only who, without any misgivings about his own fundamental objective principles, that is, without criticism, continues his course with undisturbed gravity, and should be intended only to unsettle his brief and to bring him thus to a proper self-knowledge. With regard to what we know or what we cannot know, that polemic is of no consequence whatever.
All the unsuccessful dogmatical attempts of reason ^.x^ facta, and it is always [p. 764] useful to submit them to the censura of the sceptic. But this can decide nothing as to the expectations of reason in her hopes and claims of a better success in future attempts;
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