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.
Such a system of pure (speculative) reason I hope myself to produce under the title of ' Metaphysic of Nature.' It will not be half so large, yet infinitely richer than this Critique of Pure Reason, which has, first of all, to discover its source, nay, the conditions of its possibility, xxvi Preface in fact, to clear and level a soil quite overgrown with weeds. Here I expect from my readers the patience and impartiality of a judge, there the goodwill and aid of a fellow-worker. For however completely all the principles of the system have been propounded in my Critique, the completeness of the whole system requires also that no derivative concepts should be omitted, such as cannot be found out by an estimate a priori, but have to be discovered step by step. There the synthesis of concepts has been exhausted, here it will be requisite to do the same for their analysis, a task which is easy and an amusement rather than a labour.
I have only a few words to add with respect to the printing of my book. As the beginning had been delayed, I was not able to see a clean sheet of more than about half of it. I now find some misprints, though they do not spoil the sense, except on p. 379, line 4 from below, where specific should be used instead of sceptic. The antinomy of pure reason from p. 425 to p. 461 has been arranged in a tabular form, so that all that belongs to the thesis stands on the left, what belongs to the antithesis on the right side. I did this in order that thesis and antithesis might be more easily compared.
INTRODUCTION
[p-i]
THE IDEA OF TRANSCENDENTAL PHILOSOPHY
[Experience^ is no doubt the first product of our understanding, while employed in fashioning_the raw material of our_S£iisations. It is therefore Qur_firstJllstQiction, and in its progress so rich in new lessons that the chain of all future generations will never be in want of new information that may be gathered on that field. Nevertheless, experience is by no means the only field to which our understanding can be confined. Experience tells us what is, but not that it must be necessarily as it is, and not otherwise. It therefore r>£ver gives nc; any rpa11y gen- .eral truths, and our reason, which is particularly anxious for that class of knowledge, js roused by it rather— tha^n satisfied. General truths, which at the same time [p. 2] bear the character of an inward necessity, must_be independ^ftt— e#-^xpjerience, — clear and certain by themselves. They are therefore called knowledge cL-pd^rirr while what is simply taken from experience is said to be, in ordinary parlance, known a posterior'i or empirically only.
1 The beginning of this Introduction down to * But what is still more extraordinary,' is left out in the Second Edition. Instead of it Supplement IV.
B I
2 Introduction
Now it appears, and this is extremely curious, that even with our experiences different kinds of knowledge are mixed up, which must have their origin a priori, and which perhaps serve only to produce a certain connection between our sensuous representations. For even if we remove from experience everything that belongs to the senses, there remain nevertheless certain nnVinal cc\y\- cepts, and certain judgments derived from them, which must have had their origin entirely a priori, and independent of all experience, because it is owing to them that we are able, or imagine we are able, to predicate more of the objects of our senses than can be^earht
"ITt>m mere experience, and that our propositions contain r-eal_^neralit3rand strict necessity, such as mere enipirical knowledge can never supply.]
But ^ what is still more extraordinary is this, that certain kinds of knowledge leave the field of all pos- [p. 3] sible experience, and seem to enlarge the sphere of our judgments beyond the limits of experience. by means of concepts to which experience can never supply any corresponding objects.
And it is in this very kind of knowledge which transcends the world of the senses, and where e3cperience can neither guide nor correct us, that reason pro_s£jiutes its investigations, which by their importance we consider far more excellent and by thdr tendency far more elevated than anything the understanding can find in the sphere of phenomena. Nay, we risk rather anything, even at the peril of error, than that we should surrender
1 The Second Edition gives here a new heading : — III, Philosophy requires a science to determine the possibility, the principles, and the extent of all cognitions a priori.
Introduction 3
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