The word criticism comes from English, but it is mainly used as an adjective in aesthetics. Kant first used this word in German, and extended it from aesthetic field to philosophical field. Pure and absolute "prior to experience", out of reason itself, independent of experience. Therefore, pure rationality is "the rationality of transcendental factors characterized by universality and inevitability, which is provided by itself and independent of experience." The word rationality has three meanings in Critique of Pure Reason. One is the source of all transcendental factors in the topic, including perceptual transcendental and intellectual transcendental. Another narrow sense is different from intellectuality. Intellectuality refers to the ability to pursue the essence, content and knowledge beyond the unknown and experience, rather than being satisfied with known knowledge. Thirdly, Kant often confuses rationality with intellectuality. Kant's terminology is not absolutely fixed, so it should be treated concretely in the context. Schelling and Hegel have refuted this, and Heinrich Natek's Critique of Kant's Pure Reason can be used for reference. Some scholars have pointed out that der Reinen Vernunft has triple fuzziness, and the criticism of "pure reason" (1) means that the criticism is only in the methodological sense; (2) Since it is a critique of pure reason, it belongs to pure reason, and it is carried out through pure reason. (3) the combination of the former two, that is, pure reason is the subject and object of research, and it is also a method and tool, that is, self-knowledge is realized through criticism. Therefore, Commscope Smith interpreted the title as "critical judgment on pure reason". Therefore, what Kant should do is not only to provide a method, but also to provide a system about pure reason.

2. Inscription

Not in the first edition, but in the second edition. Excerpted from the preface of Bacon's Great Rejuvenation, which appeared in the form of introduction of new tools and was written in Latin. This preface represents Kant's enlightenment belief. Kant borrowed bacon's words, meaning that his work in this book is not an opinion, but a "proper work" (translated as "career" by Li). This work is not trivial, but for the welfare of mankind (Li Ben translated as "public affairs" and English as common wealth). Bacon's statement was extremely inflammatory and greatly stimulated Kant. In two other places in this preface, Bacon's statement seems to be intertextual with Kant's efforts in this book:

In fact, Kant's efforts to reconcile empiricism and rationalism are based on completely different positions, means and ultimate goals, but in a broad sense, they are faced with the problems of rationality and experience.

make a speech

In his letter to Kant, the Secretary of State presented by Kant spoke highly of Kant. He mentioned that he hoped that Kant would use some methods to make today's college students avoid studying for a living and devote themselves to the fields of law and medicine, and encourage them to spend several hours studying philosophy every day. The minister is very supportive of Kant's cause, and with his help, Kant's beliefs can be further spread. So it is not surprising that Kant dedicated the book Critique of Pure Reason to him, thinking that he cares about all kinds of sciences.

4. The first preambular paragraph of the first edition

The dilemma of rationality lies in that it cannot solve the problems about itself raised by its highest state, and cannot solve and get rid of the problems raised by its own nature, which is also the fate of rationality. This is the necessity of this book: although this dilemma transcends the limitations of human reason, Kant's task is to find a solution.

5. The paradoxical fate of reason in the second and third paragraphs of the Preface to the First Edition.

Then Kant discusses why reason encounters this dilemma-because of the nature of reason. Reason always tries to gain more knowledge through experience, in other words, reason should not only know empirical knowledge, but also trace back to its possible conditions (not only know what it is, but also know why it is) and conditions, thus "reaching further conditions". However, people's rationality is limited, but it seems to be insufficient to pursue the possible infinite extension conditions, or it has gone astray fundamentally. Therefore, such works will "stay in an unfinished state." A paradox is that although human reason can't finish this work, its nature won't stop it, so reason begins to resort to some (metaphysical) principles. Although (metaphysical) principles "transcend all possible empirical applications", they do not need any empirical verification. In other words, metaphysical principles leave the field of experience and seek pure rationality, and this logical structure of pure rationality is acceptable to ordinary people. The danger is that when these principles "transcend the boundaries of all experience", they will lose the verification of experience and eventually lose their own truth. That is to say, although the metaphysical principle is accepted in logical form, it has lost the means to prove itself, so it can't climb the top of truth at all. It can be seen that the defect of metaphysics lies in its own irrefutability, because any overthrow is temporary and does not have the direct negation of empirical verification. Therefore, the first "metaphysical" queen of philosophy since Aristotle has fallen. However, Kant did not give up on him, but set out to establish "future metaphysics" on a new basis. We later learned that Kant's works, in his view and that of many people, destroyed the old metaphysics and established the new metaphysics.

6. The decline of the old metaphysics in the fourth and fifth paragraphs of the first edition.

Kant is good at using political terms for analogy (such as civil war, autocracy, anarchy, etc.). Kant believes that the rule of metaphysics is autocratic and arbitrary, and it is divided into rationalism, empiricism, idealism and materialism through the "civil war" between arbitrariness and arbitrariness, thus forming anarchy. However, their communication characteristics are still arbitrary and arbitrary, while the skeptic (Hume) is similar to the "nomadic people", trying to break up all solid autocratic dogmatism. However, after all, skeptics are a minority, which is not enough to destroy the dogmatic alliance, but the plan of this alliance has been split. In modern times, this problem seems to be solved by a lowest mob whose queen traces back to ordinary experience, namely, empirical dogmatism (Locke et al.). Kant means to solve the highest reason through the most "humble" experience. This will not be recognized by reason itself, let alone the legitimacy of reason and logic, because the victory of empiricism means that it is not proved by logic, but by "experience", so the request of the commoner queen should be fairly rendered as her claim is very suspicious. Once this doubt is carried out, such an empirical method of "everything comes from experience" will inevitably become a de facto "dogmatism". If empiricism really convinces others and proves itself, it must be arbitrary and autocratic, because the problem she involves is the above-mentioned paradox of rationality. Here, Kant also shows that on the one hand, empiricism has not solved the problem of rationality, on the other hand, Kant's position is still on the side of rationality.

As a result, metaphysics is notorious and gained the notoriety of "pseudoscience". However, the decline of metaphysics means that the real scientific metaphysics has begun, and we cannot adopt an indifferent or evasive attitude (rejecting metaphysics and replacing academic language with popular language). Those hypocrites can always meet the core problems they deliberately treat coldly, so the basic crisis of metaphysics must be properly handled. This problem is a rational problem, and it is also a problem of all mankind. Metaphysics "indifferent attitude" is not desirable, but on the other hand, it is found that this "indifferent attitude" is not an extreme escape, and people have never given up thinking about it. This attitude is not a burst of unfounded self-confidence, but "the result of mature judgment of this era."

Everything must be critically tested, and only tested knowledge and beliefs are worthy of respect. Criticism takes time. Therefore, some evasive or indifferent attitudes mentioned above are actually "hesitation" expressed by thinking deeply about familiar roads.

Kant claimed that this era was "an appeal to reason" and resumed the most difficult task: the task of self-knowledge. But this kind of self-knowledge needs a principled thing (Kant put forward a principled view to correct the previous knowledge types of philosophical metaphysics, as the saying goes, "Our era is a real critical era, and everything must be criticized." ), Kant compared it with "court", which is "pure rational criticism". Thus, Kant's highest rational court was established.

7. The sixth preambular paragraph of the first edition of Critique of Pure Reason.

Therefore, we can see that Kant raised the core issue of our time. Kant s Initial Description of Critique of Pure Reason;

It can be seen that Kant's so-called self-knowledge is actually a rational examination and criticism of rationality itself (past rationality or rational achievements). Therefore, the so-called criticism of pure reason is mainly not a criticism of a specific theory, but a criticism of the universal reason of universal mankind. In other words, Kant conceived a higher and more progressive rationality to examine and criticize universal rationality, which is independent of all experiences. Kant just wants to see what kind of knowledge and level of knowledge this pure reason can lead human beings to pursue. In this way, at such a meta-rational height, we can "judge the possibility and impossibility of general metaphysics". So Hegel satirized Kant as a swimming coach and warned others: "Don't go into the water until you learn to swim." Indeed, Kant's "critical rationality" does have a paradox: you are criticizing rationality, but this criticism itself comes from rationality. Hegel introduced the dimension of time into this train of thought and systematized the way of "critical rationality", so the rationality behind the so-called critical rationality is higher than that of the past, which formed his "negative dialectics".

8. The confident Kant in the seventh and eighth preambular paragraphs of the first edition.

Kant is quite confident in his unexplored road. He believes that this way can eliminate all the fallacies that reason splits itself in the application of experience. In other words, Kant wants to clarify the contradictions and conflicts arising from rational operation. For example, antinomy is a typical rational split. At the same time, as far as Kant is concerned, Hume's skepticism is nothing more than "using human reason as an excuse to avoid it." Therefore, Kant should face up to the causes of rational division, and sort out and arrange the scope and restrictions of rational application from a critical point of view in accordance with strict rational principles.

Kant's thought will construct a universal universal rule, which is completely reliable, because Kant believes that if a system is "insufficient in one aspect of all problems, people have to give up this principle." Therefore, Kant attaches great importance to the details or comprehensiveness of research. Therefore, he said confidently, "there is not a metaphysical problem that has not been solved, or at least provides the key to solve it."

In order to show that Kant is not blindly confident or offensive, Kant began to defend himself. His strategy is to distinguish himself from dogmatists. Kant thinks that his speech is much milder than that of dogmatists, because those dogmatists try to prove the essence of the soul or more fundamental problems with the most common procedures. In Kant's view, their mistake is that they want to expand "human knowledge beyond all possible experience" In this regard, Kant emphasized that he only involves "reason itself and its pure thinking" and "can't look far away from myself", and only explores the "detailed knowledge" of pure thinking itself within myself. For those who surpass themselves (beyond the possible experience of human beings), it is not advisable to use forces higher than human reason. Therefore, although Kant thinks that his method is exhaustive, it is because he has achieved thoroughness within the "full range of human knowledge and experience", that is, within the legal range of human cognitive ability. Therefore, Kant's works are a journey of self-reflection.

9. The ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth preambular paragraphs of the first edition are about certainty.

Then Kant stated four criteria for his work. In terms of content, he asked for "the integrity of each goal" and "the details of all goals", which he has already explained. As far as form is concerned, he demands certainty and clarity.

About certainty. Kant believes that philosophy is truth, so in his investigation, "any form of opinion is not allowed", and everything similar to hypothesis is forbidden and must be abandoned. Assumption must depend on the premise of certainty, that is to say, certainty must be established before hypothesis can be established, which is what Kant called "suspension". So how is this certainty legal? This leads to Kant's innate concept:

Here, "it is considered" means that there seems to be innate knowledge, but it is not. For example, it is mixed with acquired experience and knowledge, and for example, Li Zehou's "accumulation theory" that "experience becomes transcendental". In Kant's view, "pure nature", that is, not doped with any acquired experience and not changed by any acquired experience, is the highest certainty.

Then, Kant demonstrated his "certainty" principle with examples in this book. He began to describe his work in the second chapter of transcendental analysis, that is, to explore the rules and boundaries of intellectual ability and its application. In other words, this is about "the deduction of pure intellectual concept", which is divided into two aspects. On the one hand, it is objective deduction, that is, it discusses how the intellectual object is possible and explains the objective validity of the innate concept (category) of the object. Simply put, it is objective verification; On the other hand, it is subjective deduction, which discusses how intellectuality itself is possible and the cognitive abilities such as perception, judgment and apperception on which it is based. In short, it is verified subjectively.

But the main problem is:

About "Know what?" The core of the problem is which components of empirical knowledge are intellectually endowed with experience, rather than produced from experience. Therefore, what is recognized without experience is the category. About "How much do you know?" It is aimed at the arrogance of reason, that is, reason is not satisfied with the knowledge about phenomena, but always extends to the thing itself (the thing itself), so the degree of understanding should be limited. What Kant did in two main parts of transcendental logic: discussing intellectuality in transcendental analysis theory and solving the problem of "what to know"; Discussing rationality in transcendental dialectics mainly solves the problem of "how much do you know"

In the aspect of subjective deduction, Kant discussed how intellectuality plays an internal role in the process of establishing objective knowledge. Kant is divided into three stages: the synthesis of intuitive knowledge-the synthesis of regeneration in imagination-the synthesis of conceptual knowledge. Of course, subjective inference can easily be mistaken for a hypothesis or an "opinion". According to Kant's analysis (in the text), subjective deduction is not a personal opinion, but a display of the innate structure of any possible knowledge. Of course, this meaning can only be completed if it is related to objective deduction. Subjective deduction is to prepare for objective deduction. (Deng Xiaomang's sentence reading) So Kant proves that he is still doing deterministic work, not opinions.

10. The thirteenth preambular paragraph of the first edition is about clarity.

Kant distinguishes two kinds of clarity, one is "logical" clarity and the other is "perceptual" clarity. In the lecture notes of logic, the following distinctions are also made:

At the same time, these two kinds of clarity are also conflicting:

So Kant talked about his regret in dealing with two kinds of clarity. Although Kant admitted that examples and metaphors were necessary for him, in fact, they also helped him when he first conceived, but he expected that this book would explore huge problems and numerous objects, and the theory alone was already huge, so he could only sacrifice examples for the purpose of "popularization". Not only that, the book itself is not suitable for public use, and, as an expert, I don't want too many examples, just a convenience. Therefore, Kang said:

This shows that some books can give up some examples to explain in order to simplify the complex, so as to facilitate reading, while vivid examples may interfere with logical clues and affect the overall understandability of speculative knowledge. Kant had to sacrifice details and care about logic, so he said:

10. The establishment of new metaphysics in the fourteenth and fifteenth paragraphs of the preface of the first edition

In the last part, Kant had to give up all the examples because of his clarity, which probably narrowed the readers of this book. Here, Kant seems to want to invite readers to participate (at least the remaining readers) in the construction of a new school system. In other words, Kant's book is not the final metaphysical perfection, but just a method and a beginning. Kant has done a critical basic work, a general work, although he can already do it himself. Proved in every specific thing). Kant's statement here actually shows that his human cognitive ability and cognitive conditions have all been determined, and the rest are just constantly presented and developed in all aspects of the world. This way of self-constructing discipline system is from Descartes' system of distinguishing Aristotle by the category of things to modern system. In the Rules for Guiding the Mind, Descartes intends to build the basic structure and knowledge system of human knowledge system on the basis of people's universal cognitive ability (that is, innate ideas), rather than starting from the division of objects and things themselves, because "we should only examine those objects that seem to be enough to obtain some knowledge from our minds." Kant consciously accepts this, so he will think that this work will not leave other jobs for future generations and will not add more to the established system. Whether Kant's system can achieve real overall success is another matter, but the way it represents to construct knowledge-to find all the inevitability-is indeed a major way of philosophical construction. This kind of work was really established by Kant, and was brought to broad daylight by "rationality" from then on.

Finally, Kant looked forward to his future work. He may establish "natural metaphysics" in the following, and such work is not difficult, because it can only be completed through the basic work in Critique of Pure Reason, and "all this will be easy, not so much work as recreation."

In the last part of the preface, Kant explained some printing problems.

References:

Kant and Deng Xiaomang translated Critique of Pure Reason.

Guo: Interpretation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason

Commscope Smith: Interpretation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason

Deng Xiaomang: Reading Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.

Heinrich Natek: General Explanation of Terms in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason

Our reading club is reading Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. If you are interested, please contact me.