Kant's Critique of Pure Reason: An Introduction

249 Pages·2011·2.221 MB·English

by  O'Shea, James R

KANT’S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON
THIS WAY UP
A fresh series of guides to the central works of the philosophical canon suit-
able for student readers. Th e books provide clear and authoritative exposition
of each text’s central ideas and their importance in the history of philosophy.
Th e series aims to make the texts less forbidding for the beginning reader and
provide a reliable source of guidance to which way is up.
KANT’S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON
AN INTRODUCTION AND INTERPRETATION
JAMES R. O’SHEA
First published in 2012 by Acumen
Published 2014 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© James R. O’Shea 2012
Excerpts from Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, translated and edited by Paul
Guyer and Allen W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998),
© Cambridge University Press, reprinted with permission of the publisher and editors.
Th is book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notices
Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and
knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or
experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be
mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they
have a professional responsibility.

To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or
editors, assume any liability for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a
matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of
any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein.
isbn: 978- 1- 84465- 278- 5 (hardcover)
isbn: 978- 1- 84465- 279- 2 (paperback)
British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
For Karina, Betty and James
Thisp agei ntentionallleyf tb lank
This page intentionally left blank
CONTENTS
Preface ix
INTRODUCTION 1
A brief sketch of Kant’s life and the historical context 1
Approaching the text of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason 11
1 METAPHYSICS AND THE “FIERY TEST OF CRITIQUE” 13
1.1 Rational metaphysics: the highest aims of speculative reason 13
1.2 ‘Appearances’ versus ‘things in themselves’: Kant’s
transcendental idealism 26
2 WAKING FROM DOGMATIC SLUMBERS: HUME AND
THE ANTINOMIES 40
2.1 Hume’s scepticism and the problem of synthetic a priori
judgments 40
2.2 Th e Antinomies of Pure Reason 50
2.3 Elusive totalities and the interests of reason: Kant’s critical
solution 62
3 SPACE AND TIME AS FORMS OF HUMAN SENSIBILITY 78
3.1 Space and time as pure forms of sensory intuition 82
3.2 Assessing Kant’s transcendental idealism concerning space
and time 97
3.3 Th e problem of aff ection and ‘things in themselves’ 106
vii
CONTENTS
4 THE CATEGORIES OF UNDERSTANDING AND THE
THINKING SELF 116
4.1 Conceptual thinking: the categories as a priori forms
of understanding 116
4.2 Th e Transcendental Deduction of the Categories 132
5 ONE LAWFUL NATURE 158
5.1 Applying categories to the world in the Principles of Pure
Understanding 158
5.2 Substance and causality, self and nature: a metaphysics
of experience 173
6 CONCLUSION: PURE REASON’S ROLE IN KANT’S METAPHYSICS
OF NATURE 205
6.1 Clipping the wings of pure speculative reason 205
6.2 Kant’s critique of speculative theology in “Th e Ideal of Pure
Reason” 207
6.3 Th e validity of pure reason’s immanent regulative principles 214
Bibliography 225
Index 231
viii
PREFACE
Th e aim of this book is to provide a clear introduction to the central argu-
ments of the Critique of Pure Reason at a level designed for both undergradu-
ate and graduate students as well as any other readers interested in the main
contentions and arguments of Kant’s revolutionary book. In order to achieve
a relatively fl uid and readable introduction to such a notoriously diffi cult text,
it was agreed to limit the scholarly engagement with other commentaries and
with disputes in the secondary literature to just the occasional in-t ext refer-
ence to particularly infl uential recent contributions by (primarily English-
language) commentators on Kant, without any apparatus of notes. I have also
had to make decisions about which sections of the book to treat in depth and
which to treat more briefl y, and the index is the way to locate the latter discus-
sions. Within the restricted scope of this book, however, what follows is not
a superfi cial introduction to Kant’s thought but rather an attempt to analyse,
explain and assess the main lines of argument that occur in most of the more
famous sections of the Critique. In places in each chapter I have also taken
matters more deeply and have not held back from off ering my own recon-
structive interpretations of Kant’s views, some of which may be of interest to
more experienced readers of Kant.
Th ere are many high- quality commentaries on Kant’s Critique of Pure
Reason currently available in English, some of which are listed in the
Bibliography, so that one has to feel some trepidation in off ering a new
one. In my experience of teaching and writing on the Critique over the past
twenty- fi ve years, however, it is remarkable how many students, lecturers
and professors continue to express the desire for a comparatively short and
introductory but non-s uperfi cial explanation of Kant’s fundamental concep-
tions and interconnected strategies of argumentation in the Critique. I have
also been encouraged in this work by many students, colleagues and fellow
Kant scholars, and for their encouragement I am especially grateful. I hope
this book will be of some small help in guiding at least some readers to a
ix