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Kant The Critique of Pure Reason table of contents
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Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
After preliminary comments, the substance The Critique begins with Transcendental doctrine of elements - which is almost 500 pages, but, the second major division, Transcendental doctrine of method, is less than 100 pages. Almost the entire book deals with the first part. The second division reads almost like an appendix, offering important information but not central to the main thesis of the book. “Transcendental” is a frequent word for Kant, but he doesn’t always clarify in terms of a related word, “transcendent.” The latter for Kant means “transcending the limits of possible experience.” Transcendent philosophy would go beyond normal experience to concepts of God, immortality, the soul, and the like. But Kant suggests that these might be accessed by pure reason alone. Kant will criticize a lot of transcendent metaphysics and say that we need to stay within the limits of pure reason. “Transcendental” describes the kind of philosophy that Kant wants to do in his book. “Transcendental” for Kant means trying to understand the limits of reason. Transcendental Idealism is the kind of idealism you get into when you think about what the limits of reason are. “Aesthetic” for Kant is not about beauty but he follows the classical meaning which has to do with sensation, the senses. The “transcendental aesthetic” relates to our senses attempting to access the world within the limits of reason, how we perceive things, and the major things that Kant is going to talk about are space and time. Etymologyonline: 1798, from German Ästhetisch (mid-18c.) or French esthétique (which is from German), ultimately from Greek aisthetikos "of or for perception by the senses, perceptive," of things, "perceptible," from aisthanesthai "to perceive (by the senses or by the mind), to feel," from PIE *awis-dh-yo-, from root *au- "to perceive." Popularized in English by translations of Kant and used originally in the classically correct sense "science which treats of the conditions of sensuous perception" [OED]. Kant had tried to reclaim the word after Alexander Baumgarten had taken it in German to mean "criticism of taste" (1750s), but Baumgarten's sense attained popularity in English c. 1830s (despite scholarly resistance) and freed the word from philosophy. The transcendental “aesthetic”, the “analytic” and “dialectic” refer to three different faculties of cognition. The “aesthetic” is about sensibility, the “analytic” refers to understanding (to deal with concepts for the use of making judgments), and the “dialectic” speaks to reason (in the narrow sense).
TABLE OF CONTENTS (from the Guyer translation) (This Table of Contents is the editors' expansion of the less detailed one provided by Kant in the first edition. The second edition contained no Table of Contents at all. A translation of Kant's own first-edition Table of Contents follows the two versions of the preface, corresponding to its original location.) Motto (added in the second edition) Dedication (as in the first edition of 1781) Preface (to the first edition) Preface to the second edition Table of Contents (as in the first edition) Introduction (as in the first edition) I. The idea of transcendental philosophy On the difference between analytic and synthetic II. Division of transcendental philosophy Introduction (as in the second edition) I. On the difference between pure and empirical cognition. II. We are in possession of certain a priori cognitions, and III. Philosophy needs a science that determines the possibility, IV. On the difference between analytic and synthetic V. Synthetic a priori judgments are contained as principles' in VI. The general problem of pure reason. VII. The idea and the divisions of a special science under the I. Transcendental doctrine of elements First Part. Transcendental aesthetic (as in the first edition) First section. On space. First Part. Transcendental aesthetic (as in the second edition) First section. On space. General remarks on the transcendental aesthetic. Second Part. Transcendental logic. I. On logic in general. Division one. Transcendental analytic Book I. Analytic of concepts Chapter I. On the clue to the discovery of all pure concepts First section. On the logical use of the understanding in Second section. On the logical function of the Third section. On the pure concepts of the Chapter II. On the deduction of the pure concepts o f the understanding First section. O n the principlesa o f a transcendental Transition to the transcendental deduction of the Second section. On the a priori grounds for the possibility of experience. (as in the first edition) Third section. On the relationO of the understanding to Second Section. Transcendental deduction o f the pure Book II. Analytic of principles Introduction. On the transcendental power of judgment in general Chapter I . On the schematism of pure concepts of the Chapter II. System o f all principles of pure understanding Section I. On the supreme principle of all analytic Section II. On the supreme principle of all synthetic Section III. Systematic representation o f all synthetic principles of pure understanding. 1 . Axioms of intuition 286 A. First analogy: principle of persistence of substance. 4. The postulates of empirical thought in general Refutation of idealism (added in the second edition) Chapter III. On the ground of the distinction of all objects in general into phenomena and noumena Chapter III. On the ground of the distinction of all objects in general into phenomena and noumena Appendix: On the amphiboly of concepts of reflection Division two. Transcendental dialectic Introduction. I. Transcendental illusion A. O n reason i n general. Book I. On the concepts of pure reason Section I. On the ideas in general. Book II. The dialectical inferences of pure reason Chapter I. The paralogisms of pure reason (as in the first edition) First paralogism of substantiality. Observation on the sum of the pure doctrine of the soul Chapter I. The paralogisms of pure reason (as in the second edition) Refutation of Mendelssohn's proof of the persistence of the soul. General remark concerning the transition from rational psychology to rational cosmology. Chapter II. The antinomy of pure reason Section I. The system of cosmological ideas. First conflict Section III. On the interest of reason in these conflicts. I. Resolution of the cosmological idea of totality of the composition of the appearances into a world-whole. Concluding remark o n the resolution of the mathematical-transcendental ideas and preamble to the solution of the dynamical transcendental ideas. III. Resolution of the cosmological idea of the totality in the derivation of occurrences in the world from their causes. The possibility of causality through freedom. IV. Resolution of the cosmological idea of the totality of the dependence of appearances regarding their existence in general. Concluding remark to the entire antinomy of pure reason. Chapter III. The ideal of pure reason Section I. The ideal in general. Discovery and explanation of the dialectical illusion in all transcendental proofs of the existence of a necessary being. Section VI. On the impossibility of the physicotheological proof. Appendix to the transcendental dialectic II. Transcendental doctrine of method Introduction. Chapter I . The discipline o f pure reason 6 2 8 Section I. The discipline o f pure reason in dogmatic use. On the impossibility of a skeptical satisfaction of pure reason that is divided against itself. Section III. The discipline of pure reason with regard to hypotheses. Chapter II. The canon of pure reason Section 1. On the ultimate end of the pure use of our reason.
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