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Immanuel Kant
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Stanford Encyclopedia Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) is the central figure in modern philosophy.
He synthesized early modern rationalism and empiricism, set the terms for
of Philosophy much of nineteenth and twentieth century philosophy, and continues to
exercise a significant influence today in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics,
political philosophy, aesthetics, and other fields. The fundamental idea of
Kant’s “critical philosophy” – especially in his three Critiques: the
Critique of Pure Reason (1781, 1787), the Critique of Practical Reason
Edward N. Zalta Uri Nodelman Colin Allen R. Lanier Anderson (1788), and the Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790) – is human
Principal Editor Senior Editor Associate Editor Faculty Sponsor autonomy. He argues that the human understanding is the source of the
Editorial Board general laws of nature that structure all our experience; and that human
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reason gives itself the moral law, which is our basis for belief in God,
Library of Congress Catalog Data freedom, and immortality. Therefore, scientific knowledge, morality, and
ISSN: 1095-5054
religious belief are mutually consistent and secure because they all rest on
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bers of the Friends of the SEP Society and by courtesy to SEP nature according to the teleological worldview of reflecting judgment that
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please visit https://leibniz.stanford.edu/friends/ . 1. Life and works
2. Kant’s project in the Critique of Pure Reason
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
2.1 The crisis of the Enlightenment
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The Metaphysics Research Lab 2.2 Kant’s Copernican revolution in philosophy
Center for the Study of Language and Information 3. Transcendental idealism
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3.1 The two-objects interpretation
Immanuel Kant
Copyright c 2020 by the author 3.2 The two-aspects interpretation
Michael Rohlf 4. The transcendental deduction
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 Immanuel Kant Michael Rohlf

4.3 The law-giver of nature maker, though she was better educated than most women of her social
5. Morality and freedom class. Kant’s family was never destitute, but his father’s trade was in
5.1 Theoretical and practical autonomy decline during Kant’s youth and his parents at times had to rely on
5.2 Freedom extended family for financial support.
5.3 The fact of reason
5.4 The categorical imperative Kant’s parents were Pietist and he attended a Pietist school, the Collegium
6. The highest good and practical postulates Fridericianum, from ages eight through fifteen. Pietism was an evangelical
6.1 The highest good Lutheran movement that emphasized conversion, reliance on divine grace,
6.2 The postulates of pure practical reason the experience of religious emotions, and personal devotion involving
7. The unity of nature and freedom regular Bible study, prayer, and introspection. Kant reacted strongly
7.1 The great chasm against the forced soul-searching to which he was subjected at the
7.2 The purposiveness of nature Collegium Fridericianum, in response to which he sought refuge in the
Bibliography Latin classics, which were central to the school’s curriculum. Later the
Primary Literature mature Kant’s emphasis on reason and autonomy, rather than emotion and
Secondary Literature dependence on either authority or grace, may in part reflect his youthful
Academic Tools reaction against Pietism. But although the young Kant loathed his Pietist
Other Internet Resources schooling, he had deep respect and admiration for his parents, especially
Related Entries his mother, whose “genuine religiosity” he described as “not at all
enthusiastic.” According to his biographer, Manfred Kuehn, Kant’s parents
probably influenced him much less through their Pietism than through
1. Life and works their artisan values of “hard work, honesty, cleanliness, and
independence,” which they taught him by example.[2]
Immanuel Kant was born April 22, 1724 in Königsberg, near the
southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Today Königsberg has been renamed Kant attended college at the University of Königsberg, known as the
Kaliningrad and is part of Russia. But during Kant’s lifetime Königsberg Albertina, where his early interest in classics was quickly superseded by
was the capital of East Prussia, and its dominant language was German. philosophy, which all first year students studied and which encompassed
Though geographically remote from the rest of Prussia and other German mathematics and physics as well as logic, metaphysics, ethics, and natural
cities, Königsberg was then a major commercial center, an important law. Kant’s philosophy professors exposed him to the approach of
military port, and a relatively cosmopolitan university town.[1] Christian Wolff (1679–1750), whose critical synthesis of the philosophy of
G. W. Leibniz (1646–1716) was then very influential in German
Kant was born into an artisan family of modest means. His father was a universities. But Kant was also exposed to a range of German and British
master harness maker, and his mother was the daughter of a harness critics of Wolff, and there were strong doses of Aristotelianism and

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Pietism represented in the philosophy faculty as well. Kant’s favorite metaphysics, though Kant failed to secure this position. Both the New
teacher was Martin Knutzen (1713–1751), a Pietist who was heavily Elucidation, which was Kant’s first work concerned mainly with
influenced by both Wolff and the English philosopher John Locke (1632– metaphysics, and the Physical Monadology further develop the position on
1704). Knutzen introduced Kant to the work of Isaac Newton (1642– the interaction of finite substances that he first outlined in Living Forces.
1727), and his influence is visible in Kant’s first published work, Thoughts Both works depart from Leibniz-Wolffian views, though not radically. The
on the True Estimation of Living Forces (1747), which was a critical New Elucidation in particular shows the influence of Christian August
attempt to mediate a dispute in natural philosophy between Leibnizians Crusius (1715–1775), a German critic of Wolff.[3]
and Newtonians over the proper measurement of force.
As an unsalaried lecturer at the Albertina Kant was paid directly by the
After college Kant spent six years as a private tutor to young children students who attended his lectures, so he needed to teach an enormous
outside Königsberg. By this time both of his parents had died and Kant’s amount and to attract many students in order to earn a living. Kant held
finances were not yet secure enough for him to pursue an academic career. this position from 1755 to 1770, during which period he would lecture an
He finally returned to Königsberg in 1754 and began teaching at the average of twenty hours per week on logic, metaphysics, and ethics, as
Albertina the following year. For the next four decades Kant taught well as mathematics, physics, and physical geography. In his lectures Kant
philosophy there, until his retirement from teaching in 1796 at the age of used textbooks by Wolffian authors such as Alexander Gottlieb
seventy-two. Baumgarten (1714–1762) and Georg Friedrich Meier (1718–1777), but he
followed them loosely and used them to structure his own reflections,
Kant had a burst of publishing activity in the years after he returned from which drew on a wide range of ideas of contemporary interest. These ideas
working as a private tutor. In 1754 and 1755 he published three scientific often stemmed from British sentimentalist philosophers such as David
works – one of which, Universal Natural History and Theory of the Hume (1711–1776) and Francis Hutcheson (1694–1747), some of whose
Heavens (1755), was a major book in which, among other things, he texts were translated into German in the mid-1750s; and from the Swiss
developed what later became known as the nebular hypothesis about the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), who published a flurry
formation of the solar system. Unfortunately, the printer went bankrupt of works in the early 1760s. From early in his career Kant was a popular
and the book had little immediate impact. To secure qualifications for and successful lecturer. He also quickly developed a local reputation as a
teaching at the university, Kant also wrote two Latin dissertations: the promising young intellectual and cut a dashing figure in Königsberg
first, entitled Concise Outline of Some Reflections on Fire (1755), earned society.
him the Magister degree; and the second, New Elucidation of the First
Principles of Metaphysical Cognition (1755), entitled him to teach as an After several years of relative quiet, Kant unleashed another burst of
unsalaried lecturer. The following year he published another Latin work, publications in 1762–1764, including five philosophical works. The False
The Employment in Natural Philosophy of Metaphysics Combined with Subtlety of the Four Syllogistic Figures (1762) rehearses criticisms of
Geometry, of Which Sample I Contains the Physical Monadology (1756), Aristotelian logic that were developed by other German philosophers. The
in hopes of succeeding Knutzen as associate professor of logic and Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of

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God (1762–3) is a major book in which Kant drew on his earlier work in These works helped to secure Kant a broader reputation in Germany, but
Universal History and New Elucidation to develop an original argument for the most part they were not strikingly original. Like other German
for God’s existence as a condition of the internal possibility of all things, philosophers at the time, Kant’s early works are generally concerned with
while criticizing other arguments for God’s existence. The book attracted using insights from British empiricist authors to reform or broaden the
several positive and some negative reviews. In 1762 Kant also submitted German rationalist tradition without radically undermining its foundations.
an essay entitled Inquiry Concerning the Distinctness of the Principles of While some of his early works tend to emphasize rationalist ideas, others
Natural Theology and Morality to a prize competition by the Prussian have a more empiricist emphasis. During this time Kant was striving to
Royal Academy, though Kant’s submission took second prize to Moses work out an independent position, but before the 1770s his views
Mendelssohn’s winning essay (and was published with it in 1764). Kant’s remained fluid.
Prize Essay, as it is known, departs more significantly from Leibniz-
Wolffian views than his earlier work and also contains his first extended In 1766 Kant published his first work concerned with the possibility of
discussion of moral philosophy in print. The Prize Essay draws on British metaphysics, which later became a central topic of his mature philosophy.
sources to criticize German rationalism in two respects: first, drawing on Dreams of a Spirit-Seer Elucidated by Dreams of Metaphysics, which he
Newton, Kant distinguishes between the methods of mathematics and wrote soon after publishing a short Essay on Maladies of the Mind (1764),
philosophy; and second, drawing on Hutcheson, he claims that “an was occasioned by Kant’s fascination with the Swedish visionary Emanuel
unanalysable feeling of the good” supplies the material content of our Swedenborg (1688–1772), who claimed to have insight into a spirit world
moral obligations, which cannot be demonstrated in a purely intellectual that enabled him to make a series of apparently miraculous predictions. In
way from the formal principle of perfection alone (2:299).[4] These this curious work Kant satirically compares Swedenborg’s spirit-visions to
themes reappear in the Attempt to Introduce the Concept of Negative the belief of rationalist metaphysicians in an immaterial soul that survives
Magnitudes into Philosophy (1763), whose main thesis, however, is that death, and he concludes that philosophical knowledge of either is
the real opposition of conflicting forces, as in causal relations, is not impossible because human reason is limited to experience. The skeptical
reducible to the logical relation of contradiction, as Leibnizians held. In tone of Dreams is tempered, however, by Kant’s suggestion that “moral
Negative Magnitudes Kant also argues that the morality of an action is a faith” nevertheless supports belief in an immaterial and immortal soul,
function of the internal forces that motivate one to act, rather than of the even if it is not possible to attain metaphysical knowledge in this domain
external (physical) actions or their consequences. Finally, Observations on (2:373).
the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime (1764) deals mainly with
In 1770, at the age of forty-six, Kant was appointed to the chair in logic
alleged differences in the tastes of men and women and of people from
and metaphysics at the Albertina, after teaching for fifteen years as an
different cultures. After it was published, Kant filled his own interleaved
unsalaried lecturer and working since 1766 as a sublibrarian to supplement
copy of this book with (often unrelated) handwritten remarks, many of
his income. Kant was turned down for the same position in 1758. But
which reflect the deep influence of Rousseau on his thinking about moral
later, as his reputation grew, he declined chairs in philosophy at Erlangen
philosophy in the mid-1760s.
(1769) and Jena (1770) in hopes of obtaining one in Königsberg. After

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Kant was finally promoted, he gradually extended his repertoire of lectures judgments are based on feelings of pleasure or pain, since Kant now holds
to include anthropology (Kant’s was the first such course in Germany and that moral judgments are based on pure understanding alone.
became very popular), rational theology, pedagogy, natural right, and even
mineralogy and military fortifications. In order to inaugurate his new After 1770 Kant never surrendered the views that sensibility and
position, Kant also wrote one more Latin dissertation: Concerning the understanding are distinct powers of cognition, that space and time are
Form and Principles of the Sensible and Intelligible World (1770), which subjective forms of human sensibility, and that moral judgments are based
is known as the Inaugural Dissertation. on pure understanding (or reason) alone. But his embrace of Platonism in
the Inaugural Dissertation was short-lived. He soon denied that our
The Inaugural Dissertation departs more radically from both Wolffian understanding is capable of insight into an intelligible world, which
rationalism and British sentimentalism than Kant’s earlier work. Inspired cleared the path toward his mature position in the Critique of Pure Reason
by Crusius and the Swiss natural philosopher Johann Heinrich Lambert (1781), according to which the understanding (like sensibility) supplies
(1728–1777), Kant distinguishes between two fundamental powers of forms that structure our experience of the sensible world, to which human
cognition, sensibility and understanding (intelligence), where the Leibniz- knowledge is limited, while the intelligible (or noumenal) world is strictly
Wolffians regarded understanding (intellect) as the only fundamental unknowable to us. Kant spent a decade working on the Critique of Pure
power. Kant therefore rejects the rationalist view that sensibility is only a Reason and published nothing else of significance between 1770 and
confused species of intellectual cognition, and he replaces this with his 1781. But its publication marked the beginning of another burst of activity
own view that sensibility is distinct from understanding and brings to that produced Kant’s most important and enduring works. Because early
perception its own subjective forms of space and time – a view that reviews of the Critique of Pure Reason were few and (in Kant’s judgment)
developed out of Kant’s earlier criticism of Leibniz’s relational view of uncomprehending, he tried to clarify its main points in the much shorter
space in Concerning the Ultimate Ground of the Differentiation of Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Come
Directions in Space (1768). Moreover, as the title of the Inaugural Forward as a Science (1783). Among the major books that rapidly
Dissertation indicates, Kant argues that sensibility and understanding are followed are the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), Kant’s
directed at two different worlds: sensibility gives us access to the sensible main work on the fundamental principle of morality; the Metaphysical
world, while understanding enables us to grasp a distinct intelligible Foundations of Natural Science (1786), his main work on natural
world. These two worlds are related in that what the understanding grasps philosophy in what scholars call his critical period (1781–1798); the
in the intelligible world is the “paradigm” of “NOUMENAL second and substantially revised edition of the Critique of Pure Reason
PERFECTION,” which is “a common measure for all other things in so (1787); the Critique of Practical Reason (1788), a fuller discussion of
far as they are realities.” Considered theoretically, this intelligible topics in moral philosophy that builds on (and in some ways revises) the
paradigm of perfection is God; considered practically, it is “MORAL Groundwork; and the Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790), which
PERFECTION” (2:396). The Inaugural Dissertation thus develops a form deals with aesthetics and teleology. Kant also published a number of
of Platonism; and it rejects the view of British sentimentalists that moral important essays in this period, including Idea for a Universal History
With a Cosmopolitan Aim (1784) and Conjectural Beginning of Human

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History (1786), his main contributions to the philosophy of history; An Perpetual Peace (1795), and the Doctrine of Right, the first part of The
Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? (1784), which broaches Metaphysics of Morals (1797), Kant’s main works in political philosophy;
some of the key ideas of his later political essays; and What Does it Mean the Doctrine of Virtue, the second part of The Metaphysics of Morals
to Orient Oneself in Thinking? (1786), Kant’s intervention in the (1797), Kant’s most mature work in moral philosophy, which he had been
pantheism controversy that raged in German intellectual circles after F. H. planning for more than thirty years; and Anthropology From a Pragmatic
Jacobi (1743–1819) accused the recently deceased G. E. Lessing (1729– Point of View (1798), based on Kant’s anthropology lectures. Several other
1781) of Spinozism. compilations of Kant’s lecture notes from other courses were published
later, but these were not prepared by Kant himself.
With these works Kant secured international fame and came to dominate
German philosophy in the late 1780s. But in 1790 he announced that the Kant retired from teaching in 1796. For nearly two decades he had lived a
Critique of the Power of Judgment brought his critical enterprise to an end highly disciplined life focused primarily on completing his philosophical
(5:170). By then K. L. Reinhold (1758–1823), whose Letters on the system, which began to take definite shape in his mind only in middle age.
Kantian Philosophy (1786) popularized Kant’s moral and religious ideas, After retiring he came to believe that there was a gap in this system
had been installed (in 1787) in a chair devoted to Kantian philosophy at separating the metaphysical foundations of natural science from physics
Jena, which was more centrally located than Königsberg and rapidly itself, and he set out to close this gap in a series of notes that postulate the
developing into the focal point of the next phase in German intellectual existence of an ether or caloric matter. These notes, known as the Opus
history. Reinhold soon began to criticize and move away from Kant’s Postumum, remained unfinished and unpublished in Kant’s lifetime, and
views. In 1794 his chair at Jena passed to J. G. Fichte, who had visited the scholars disagree on their significance and relation to his earlier work. It is
master in Königsberg and whose first book, Attempt at a Critique of All clear, however, that some of these late notes show unmistakable signs of
Revelation (1792), was published anonymously and initially mistaken for Kant’s mental decline, which became tragically precipitous around 1800.
a work by Kant himself. This catapulted Fichte to fame, but soon he too Kant died February 12, 1804, just short of his eightieth birthday.
moved away from Kant and developed an original position quite at odds
with Kant’s, which Kant finally repudiated publicly in 1799 (12:370–371). 2. Kant’s project in the Critique of Pure Reason
Yet while German philosophy moved on to assess and respond to Kant’s
legacy, Kant himself continued publishing important works in the 1790s. The main topic of the Critique of Pure Reason is the possibility of
Among these are Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (1793), metaphysics, understood in a specific way. Kant defines metaphysics in
which drew a censure from the Prussian King when Kant published the terms of “the cognitions after which reason might strive independently of
book after its second essay was rejected by the censor; The Conflict of the all experience,” and his goal in the book is to reach a “decision about the
Faculties (1798), a collection of essays inspired by Kant’s troubles with possibility or impossibility of a metaphysics in general, and the
the censor and dealing with the relationship between the philosophical and determination of its sources, as well as its extent and boundaries, all,
theological faculties of the university; On the Common Saying: That May however, from principles” (Axii. See also Bxiv; and 4:255–257). Thus
be Correct in Theory, But it is of No Use in Practice (1793), Toward metaphysics for Kant concerns a priori knowledge, or knowledge whose

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justification does not depend on experience; and he associates a priori Enlightenment is about thinking for oneself rather than letting others think
knowledge with reason. The project of the Critique is to examine whether, for you, according to What is Enlightenment? (8:35). In this essay, Kant
how, and to what extent human reason is capable of a priori knowledge. also expresses the Enlightenment faith in the inevitability of progress. A
few independent thinkers will gradually inspire a broader cultural
2.1 The crisis of the Enlightenment movement, which ultimately will lead to greater freedom of action and
governmental reform. A culture of enlightenment is “almost inevitable” if
To understand the project of the Critique better, let us consider the only there is “freedom to make public use of one’s reason in all matters”
historical and intellectual context in which it was written.[5] Kant wrote (8:36).
the Critique toward the end of the Enlightenment, which was then in a
state of crisis. Hindsight enables us to see that the 1780’s was a The problem is that to some it seemed unclear whether progress would in
transitional decade in which the cultural balance shifted decisively away fact ensue if reason enjoyed full sovereignty over traditional authorities; or
from the Enlightenment toward Romanticism, but Kant did not have the whether unaided reasoning would instead lead straight to materialism,
benefit of such hindsight. fatalism, atheism, skepticism (Bxxxiv), or even libertinism and
authoritarianism (8:146). The Enlightenment commitment to the
The Enlightenment was a reaction to the rise and successes of modern sovereignty of reason was tied to the expectation that it would not lead to
science in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The spectacular any of these consequences but instead would support certain key beliefs
achievements of Newton in particular engendered widespread confidence that tradition had always sanctioned. Crucially, these included belief in
and optimism about the power of human reason to control nature and to God, the soul, freedom, and the compatibility of science with morality and
improve human life. One effect of this new confidence in reason was that religion. Although a few intellectuals rejected some or all of these beliefs,
traditional authorities were increasingly questioned. Why should we need the general spirit of the Enlightenment was not so radical. The
political or religious authorities to tell us how to live or what to believe, if Enlightenment was about replacing traditional authorities with the
each of us has the capacity to figure these things out for ourselves? Kant authority of individual human reason, but it was not about overturning
expresses this Enlightenment commitment to the sovereignty of reason in traditional moral and religious beliefs.
the Critique:
Yet the original inspiration for the Enlightenment was the new physics,
Our age is the age of criticism, to which everything must submit. which was mechanistic. If nature is entirely governed by mechanistic,
Religion through its holiness and legislation through its majesty causal laws, then it may seem that there is no room for freedom, a soul, or
commonly seek to exempt themselves from it. But in this way they anything but matter in motion. This threatened the traditional view that
excite a just suspicion against themselves, and cannot lay claim to morality requires freedom. We must be free in order to choose what is
that unfeigned respect that reason grants only to that which has right over what is wrong, because otherwise we cannot be held
been able to withstand its free and public examination. (Axi) responsible. It also threatened the traditional religious belief in a soul that
can survive death or be resurrected in an afterlife. So modern science, the

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pride of the Enlightenment, the source of its optimism about the powers of Soon after writing the Inaugural Dissertation, however, Kant expressed
human reason, threatened to undermine traditional moral and religious doubts about this view. As he explained in a February 21, 1772 letter to his
beliefs that free rational thought was expected to support. This was the friend and former student, Marcus Herz:
main intellectual crisis of the Enlightenment.
In my dissertation I was content to explain the nature of
The Critique of Pure Reason is Kant’s response to this crisis. Its main intellectual representations in a merely negative way, namely, to
topic is metaphysics because, for Kant, metaphysics is the domain of state that they were not modifications of the soul brought about by
reason – it is “the inventory of all we possess through pure reason, ordered the object. However, I silently passed over the further question of
systematically” (Axx) – and the authority of reason was in question. how a representation that refers to an object without being in any
Kant’s main goal is to show that a critique of reason by reason itself, way affected by it can be possible…. [B]y what means are these
unaided and unrestrained by traditional authorities, establishes a secure [intellectual representations] given to us, if not by the way in
and consistent basis for both Newtonian science and traditional morality which they affect us? And if such intellectual representations
and religion. In other words, free rational inquiry adequately supports all depend on our inner activity, whence comes the agreement that
of these essential human interests and shows them to be mutually they are supposed to have with objects – objects that are
consistent. So reason deserves the sovereignty attributed to it by the nevertheless not possibly produced thereby?…[A]s to how my
Enlightenment. understanding may form for itself concepts of things completely a
priori, with which concepts the things must necessarily agree, and
2.2 Kant’s Copernican revolution in philosophy as to how my understanding may formulate real principles
concerning the possibility of such concepts, with which principles
To see how Kant attempts to achieve this goal in the Critique, it helps to experience must be in exact agreement and which nevertheless are
reflect on his grounds for rejecting the Platonism of the Inaugural independent of experience – this question, of how the faculty of
Dissertation. The Inaugural Dissertation also tries to reconcile Newtonian understanding achieves this conformity with the things themselves,
science with traditional morality and religion in a way, but its strategy is is still left in a state of obscurity. (10:130–131)
different from that of the Critique. According to the Inaugural
Dissertation, Newtonian science is true of the sensible world, to which Here Kant entertains doubts about how a priori knowledge of an
sensibility gives us access; and the understanding grasps principles of intelligible world would be possible. The position of the Inaugural
divine and moral perfection in a distinct intelligible world, which are Dissertation is that the intelligible world is independent of the human
paradigms for measuring everything in the sensible world. So on this view understanding and of the sensible world, both of which (in different ways)
our knowledge of the intelligible world is a priori because it does not conform to the intelligible world. But, leaving aside questions about what
depend on sensibility, and this a priori knowledge furnishes principles for it means for the sensible world to conform to an intelligible world, how is
judging the sensible world because in some way the sensible world itself it possible for the human understanding to conform to or grasp an
conforms to or imitates the intelligible world. intelligible world? If the intelligible world is independent of our

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understanding, then it seems that we could grasp it only if we are passively supplied by our cognitive faculties. We can have a priori knowledge only
affected by it in some way. But for Kant sensibility is our passive or about aspects of the sensible world that reflect the a priori forms supplied
receptive capacity to be affected by objects that are independent of us by our cognitive faculties. In Kant’s words, “we can cognize of things a
(2:392, A51/B75). So the only way we could grasp an intelligible world priori only what we ourselves have put into them” (Bxviii). So according
that is independent of us is through sensibility, which means that our to the Critique, a priori knowledge is possible only if and to the extent that
knowledge of it could not be a priori. The pure understanding alone could the sensible world itself depends on the way the human mind structures its
at best enable us to form representations of an intelligible world. But since experience.
these intellectual representations would entirely “depend on our inner
activity,” as Kant says to Herz, we have no good reason to believe that Kant characterizes this new constructivist view of experience in the
they would conform to an independent intelligible world. Such a priori Critique through an analogy with the revolution wrought by Copernicus in
intellectual representations could well be figments of the brain that do not astronomy:
correspond to anything independent of the human mind. In any case, it is
Up to now it has been assumed that all our cognition must conform
completely mysterious how there might come to be a correspondence
to the objects; but all attempts to find out something about them a
between purely intellectual representations and an independent intelligible
priori through concepts that would extend our cognition have, on
world.
this presupposition, come to nothing. Hence let us once try whether
Kant’s strategy in the Critique is similar to that of the Inaugural we do not get farther with the problems of metaphysics by
Dissertation in that both works attempt to reconcile modern science with assuming that the objects must conform to our cognition, which
traditional morality and religion by relegating them to distinct sensible and would agree better with the requested possibility of an a priori
intelligible worlds, respectively. But the Critique gives a far more modest cognition of them, which is to establish something about objects
and yet revolutionary account of a priori knowledge. As Kant’s letter to before they are given to us. This would be just like the first
Herz suggests, the main problem with his view in the Inaugural thoughts of Copernicus, who, when he did not make good progress
Dissertation is that it tries to explain the possibility of a priori knowledge in the explanation of the celestial motions if he assumed that the
about a world that is entirely independent of the human mind. This turned entire celestial host revolves around the observer, tried to see if he
out to be a dead end, and Kant never again maintained that we can have a might not have greater success if he made the observer revolve and
priori knowledge about an intelligible world precisely because such a left the stars at rest. Now in metaphysics we can try in a similar
world would be entirely independent of us. However, Kant’s revolutionary way regarding the intuition of objects. If intuition has to conform
position in the Critique is that we can have a priori knowledge about the to the constitution of the objects, then I do not see how we can
general structure of the sensible world because it is not entirely know anything of them a priori; but if the object (as an object of
independent of the human mind. The sensible world, or the world of the senses) conforms to the constitution of our faculty of intuition,
appearances, is constructed by the human mind from a combination of then I can very well represent this possibility to myself. Yet
sensory matter that we receive passively and a priori forms that are because I cannot stop with these intuitions, if they are to become

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cognitions, but must refer them as representations to something as bodies and the motion of the earth, which is not a stationary body around
their object and determine this object through them, I can assume which everything else revolves. For Kant, analogously, the phenomena of
either that the concepts through which I bring about this human experience depend on both the sensory data that we receive
determination also conform to the objects, and then I am once passively through sensibility and the way our mind actively processes this
again in the same difficulty about how I could know anything data according to its own a priori rules. These rules supply the general
about them a priori, or else I assume that the objects, or what is the framework in which the sensible world and all the objects (or phenomena)
same thing, the experience in which alone they can be cognized (as in it appear to us. So the sensible world and its phenomena are not entirely
given objects) conforms to those concepts, in which case I independent of the human mind, which contributes its basic structure.
immediately see an easier way out of the difficulty, since
experience itself is a kind of cognition requiring the understanding, How does Kant’s Copernican revolution in philosophy improve on the
whose rule I have to presuppose in myself before any object is strategy of the Inaugural Dissertation for reconciling modern science with
given to me, hence a priori, which rule is expressed in concepts a traditional morality and religion? First, it gives Kant a new and ingenious
priori, to which all objects of experience must therefore necessarily way of placing modern science on an a priori foundation. He is now in a
conform, and with which they must agree. (Bxvi–xviii) position to argue that we can have a priori knowledge about the basic laws
of modern science because those laws reflect the human mind’s
As this passage suggests, what Kant has changed in the Critique is contribution to structuring our experience. In other words, the sensible
primarily his view about the role and powers of the understanding, since world necessarily conforms to certain fundamental laws – such as that
he already held in the Inaugural Dissertation that sensibility contributes every event has a cause – because the human mind constructs it according
the forms of space and time – which he calls pure (or a priori) intuitions to those laws. Moreover, we can identify those laws by reflecting on the
(2:397) – to our cognition of the sensible world. But the Critique claims conditions of possible experience, which reveals that it would be
that pure understanding too, rather than giving us insight into an impossible for us to experience a world in which, for example, any given
intelligible world, is limited to providing forms – which he calls pure or a event fails to have a cause. From this Kant concludes that metaphysics is
priori concepts – that structure our cognition of the sensible world. So now indeed possible in the sense that we can have a priori knowledge that the
both sensibility and understanding work together to construct cognition of entire sensible world – not just our actual experience, but any possible
the sensible world, which therefore conforms to the a priori forms that are human experience – necessarily conforms to certain laws. Kant calls this
supplied by our cognitive faculties: the a priori intuitions of sensibility and immanent metaphysics or the metaphysics of experience, because it deals
the a priori concepts of the understanding. This account is analogous to the with the essential principles that are immanent to human experience.
heliocentric revolution of Copernicus in astronomy because both require
contributions from the observer to be factored into explanations of But, second, if “we can cognize of things a priori only what we ourselves
phenomena, although neither reduces phenomena to the contributions of have put into them,” then we cannot have a priori knowledge about things
observers alone.[6] The way celestial phenomena appear to us on earth, whose existence and nature are entirely independent of the human mind,
according to Copernicus, is affected by both the motions of celestial which Kant calls things in themselves (Bxviii). In his words: “[F]rom this

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deduction of our faculty of cognizing a priori […] there emerges a very metaphysics of experience (or nature) and the metaphysics of morals, both
strange result […], namely that with this faculty we can never get beyond of which depend on Kant’s Copernican revolution in philosophy.
the boundaries of possible experience, […and] that such cognition reaches
appearances only, leaving the thing in itself as something actual for itself 3. Transcendental idealism
but uncognized by us” (Bxix–xx). That is, Kant’s constructivist foundation
for scientific knowledge restricts science to the realm of appearances and Perhaps the central and most controversial thesis of the Critique of Pure
implies that transcendent metaphysics – i.e., a priori knowledge of things Reason is that human beings experience only appearances, not things in
in themselves that transcend possible human experience – is impossible. In themselves; and that space and time are only subjective forms of human
the Critique Kant thus rejects the insight into an intelligible world that he intuition that would not subsist in themselves if one were to abstract from
defended in the Inaugural Dissertation, and he now claims that rejecting all subjective conditions of human intuition. Kant calls this thesis
knowledge about things in themselves is necessary for reconciling science transcendental idealism.[7] One of his best summaries of it is arguably the
with traditional morality and religion. This is because he claims that belief following:
in God, freedom, and immortality have a strictly moral basis, and yet
We have therefore wanted to say that all our intuition is nothing
adopting these beliefs on moral grounds would be unjustified if we could
but the representation of appearance; that the things that we intuit
know that they were false. “Thus,” Kant says, “I had to deny knowledge in
are not in themselves what we intuit them to be, nor are their
order to make room for faith” (Bxxx). Restricting knowledge to
relations so constituted in themselves as they appear to us; and that
appearances and relegating God and the soul to an unknowable realm of
if we remove our own subject or even only the subjective
things in themselves guarantees that it is impossible to disprove claims
constitution of the senses in general, then all constitution, all
about God and the freedom or immortality of the soul, which moral
relations of objects in space and time, indeed space and time
arguments may therefore justify us in believing. Moreover, the
themselves would disappear, and as appearances they cannot exist
determinism of modern science no longer threatens the freedom required
in themselves, but only in us. What may be the case with objects in
by traditional morality, because science and therefore determinism apply
themselves and abstracted from all this receptivity of our
only to appearances, and there is room for freedom in the realm of things
sensibility remains entirely unknown to us. We are acquainted with
in themselves, where the self or soul is located. We cannot know
nothing except our way of perceiving them, which is peculiar to us,
(theoretically) that we are free, because we cannot know anything about
and which therefore does not necessarily pertain to every being,
things in themselves. But there are especially strong moral grounds for the
though to be sure it pertains to every human being. We are
belief in human freedom, which acts as “the keystone” supporting other
concerned solely with this. Space and time are its pure forms,
morally grounded beliefs (5:3–4). In this way, Kant replaces transcendent
sensation in general its matter. We can cognize only the former a
metaphysics with a new practical science that he calls the metaphysics of
priori, i.e., prior to all actual perception, and they are therefore
morals. It thus turns out that two kinds of metaphysics are possible: the
called pure intuition; the latter, however, is that in our cognition
that is responsible for its being called a posteriori cognition, i.e.,

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empirical intuition. The former adheres to our sensibility 3.1 The two-objects interpretation
absolutely necessarily, whatever sort of sensations we may have;
the latter can be very different. (A42/B59–60)[8] The two-objects reading is the traditional interpretation of Kant’s
transcendental idealism. It goes back to the earliest review of the Critique
Kant introduces transcendental idealism in the part of the Critique called – the so-called Göttingen review by Christian Garve (1742–1798) and J.
the Transcendental Aesthetic, and scholars generally agree that for Kant G. Feder (1740–1821)[9] – and it was the dominant way of interpreting
transcendental idealism encompasses at least the following claims: Kant’s transcendental idealism during his own lifetime. It has been a live
interpretive option since then and remains so today, although it no longer
In some sense, human beings experience only appearances, not things
enjoys the dominance that it once did.[10]
in themselves.
Space and time are not things in themselves, or determinations of According to the two-objects interpretation, transcendental idealism is
things in themselves that would remain if one abstracted from all essentially a metaphysical thesis that distinguishes between two classes of
subjective conditions of human intuition. [Kant labels this conclusion objects: appearances and things in themselves. Another name for this view
a) at A26/B42 and again at A32–33/B49. It is at least a crucial part of is the two-worlds interpretation, since it can also be expressed by saying
what he means by calling space and time transcendentally ideal that transcendental idealism essentially distinguishes between a world of
(A28/B44, A35–36/B52)]. appearances and another world of things in themselves.
Space and time are nothing other than the subjective forms of human
sensible intuition. [Kant labels this conclusion b) at A26/B42 and Things in themselves, on this interpretation, are absolutely real in the
again at A33/B49–50]. sense that they would exist and have whatever properties they have even if
Space and time are empirically real, which means that “everything no human beings were around to perceive them. Appearances, on the other
that can come before us externally as an object” is in both space and hand, are not absolutely real in that sense, because their existence and
time, and that our internal intuitions of ourselves are in time properties depend on human perceivers. Moreover, whenever appearances
(A28/B44, A34–35/B51–51). do exist, in some sense they exist in the mind of human perceivers. So
appearances are mental entities or mental representations. This, coupled
But scholars disagree widely on how to interpret these claims, and there is with the claim that we experience only appearances, makes transcendental
no such thing as the standard interpretation of Kant’s transcendental idealism a form of phenomenalism on this interpretation, because it
idealism. Two general types of interpretation have been especially reduces the objects of experience to mental representations. All of our
influential, however. This section provides an overview of these two experiences – all of our perceptions of objects and events in space, even
interpretations, although it should be emphasized that much important those objects and events themselves, and all non-spatial but still temporal
scholarship on transcendental idealism does not fall neatly into either of thoughts and feelings – fall into the class of appearances that exist in the
these two camps. mind of human perceivers. These appearances cut us off entirely from the
reality of things in themselves, which are non-spatial and non-temporal.

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Yet Kant’s theory, on this interpretation, nevertheless requires that things correspondence between mental representations and things in themselves,
in themselves exist, because they must transmit to us the sensory data from which it would follow that on Kant’s view it is impossible for us to
from which we construct appearances. In principle we cannot know how have true beliefs about the world. But just as Kant denies that things in
things in themselves affect our senses, because our experience and themselves are the only (or privileged) reality, he also denies that
knowledge is limited to the world of appearances constructed by and in the correspondence with things in themselves is the only kind of truth.
mind. Things in themselves are therefore a sort of theoretical posit, whose Empirical judgments are true just in case they correspond with their
existence and role are required by the theory but are not directly verifiable. empirical objects in accordance with the a priori principles that structure
all possible human experience. But the fact that Kant can appeal in this
The main problems with the two-objects interpretation are philosophical. way to an objective criterion of empirical truth that is internal to our
Most readers of Kant who have interpreted his transcendental idealism in experience has not been enough to convince some critics that Kant is
this way have been – often very – critical of it, for reasons such as the innocent of an unacceptable form of skepticism, mainly because of his
following: insistence on our irreparable ignorance about things in themselves.

First, at best Kant is walking a fine line in claiming on the one hand that Third and finally, Kant’s denial that things in themselves are spatial or
we can have no knowledge about things in themselves, but on the other temporal has struck many of his readers as incoherent. The role of things
hand that we know that things in themselves exist, that they affect our in themselves, on the two-object interpretation, is to affect our senses and
senses, and that they are non-spatial and non-temporal. At worst his theory thereby to provide the sensory data from which our cognitive faculties
depends on contradictory claims about what we can and cannot know construct appearances within the framework of our a priori intuitions of
about things in themselves. This objection was influentially articulated by space and time and a priori concepts such as causality. But if there is no
Jacobi, when he complained that “without that presupposition [of things in space, time, change, or causation in the realm of things in themselves, then
themselves] I could not enter into the system, but with it I could not stay how can things in themselves affect us? Transcendental affection seems to
within it” (Jacobi 1787, 336). involve a causal relation between things in themselves and our sensibility.
If this is simply the way we unavoidably think about transcendental
Second, even if that problem is surmounted, it has seemed to many that
affection, because we can give positive content to this thought only by
Kant’s theory, interpreted in this way, implies a radical form of skepticism
employing the concept of a cause, while it is nevertheless strictly false that
that traps each of us within the contents of our own mind and cuts us off
things in themselves affect us causally, then it seems not only that we are
from reality. Some versions of this objection proceed from premises that
ignorant of how things in themselves really affect us. It seems, rather, to
Kant rejects. One version maintains that things in themselves are real
be incoherent that things in themselves could affect us at all if they are not
while appearances are not, and hence that on Kant’s view we cannot have
in space or time.
experience or knowledge of reality. But Kant denies that appearances are
unreal: they are just as real as things in themselves but are in a different
metaphysical class. Another version claims that truth always involves a

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3.2 The two-aspects interpretation A second version of the two-aspects theory departs more radically from
the traditional two-objects interpretation by denying that transcendental
The two-aspects reading attempts to interpret Kant’s transcendental idealism is at bottom a metaphysical theory. Instead, it interprets
idealism in a way that enables it to be defended against at least some of transcendental idealism as a fundamentally epistemological theory that
these objections. On this view, transcendental idealism does not distinguishes between two standpoints on the objects of experience: the
distinguish between two classes of objects but rather between two human standpoint, from which objects are viewed relative to epistemic
different aspects of one and the same class of objects. For this reason it is conditions that are peculiar to human cognitive faculties (namely, the a
also called the one-world interpretation, since it holds that there is only priori forms of our sensible intuition); and the standpoint of an intuitive
one world in Kant’s ontology, and that at least some objects in that world intellect, from which the same objects could be known in themselves and
have two different aspects: one aspect that appears to us, and another independently of any epistemic conditions (Allison 2004). Human beings
aspect that does not appear to us. That is, appearances are aspects of the cannot really take up the latter standpoint but can form only an empty
same objects that also exist in themselves. So, on this reading, appearances concept of things as they exist in themselves by abstracting from all the
are not mental representations, and transcendental idealism is not a form content of our experience and leaving only the purely formal thought of an
of phenomenalism.[11] object in general. So transcendental idealism, on this interpretation, is
essentially the thesis that we are limited to the human standpoint, and the
There are at least two main versions of the two-aspects theory. One concept of a thing in itself plays the role of enabling us to chart the
version treats transcendental idealism as a metaphysical theory according boundaries of the human standpoint by stepping beyond them in abstract
to which objects have two aspects in the sense that they have two sets of (but empty) thought.
properties: one set of relational properties that appear to us and are spatial
and temporal, and another set of intrinsic properties that do not appear to One criticism of this epistemological version of the two-aspects theory is
us and are not spatial or temporal (Langton 1998). This property-dualist that it avoids the objections to other interpretations by attributing to Kant a
interpretation faces epistemological objections similar to those faced by more limited project than the text of the Critique warrants. There are
the two-objects interpretation, because we are in no better position to passages that support this reading.[12] But there are also many passages in
acquire knowledge about properties that do not appear to us than we are to both editions of the Critique in which Kant describes appearances as
acquire knowledge about objects that do not appear to us. Moreover, this representations in the mind and in which his distinction between
interpretation also seems to imply that things in themselves are spatial and appearances and things in themselves is given not only epistemological
temporal, since appearances have spatial and temporal properties, and on but metaphysical significance.[13] It is unclear whether all of these texts
this view appearances are the same objects as things in themselves. But admit of a single, consistent interpretation.
Kant explicitly denies that space and time are properties of things in
themselves.

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4. The transcendental deduction objective ground of the possibility of experience are necessary just
for that reason. (A93–94/B126)
The transcendental deduction is the central argument of the Critique of
Pure Reason and one of the most complex and difficult texts in the history The strategy Kant employs to argue that the categories are conditions of
of philosophy. Given its complexity, there are naturally many different experience is the main source of both the obscurity and the ingenuity of
ways of interpreting the deduction.[14] This brief overview provides one the transcendental deduction. His strategy is to argue that the categories
perspective on some of its main ideas. are necessary specifically for self-consciousness, for which Kant often
uses the Leibnizian term “apperception.”
The transcendental deduction occurs in the part of the Critique called the
Analytic of Concepts, which deals with the a priori concepts that, on 4.1 Self-consciousness
Kant’s view, our understanding uses to construct experience together with
the a priori forms of our sensible intuition (space and time), which he One way to approach Kant’s argument is to contrast his view of self-
discussed in the Transcendental Aesthetic. Kant calls these a priori consciousness with two alternative views that he rejects. Each of these
concepts “categories,” and he argues elsewhere (in the so-called views, both Kant’s and those he rejects, can be seen as offering competing
metaphysical deduction) that they include such concepts as substance and answers the question: what is the source of our sense of an ongoing and
cause. The goal of the transcendental deduction is to show that we have a invariable self that persists throughout all the changes in our experience?
priori concepts or categories that are objectively valid, or that apply
The first answer to this question that Kant rejects is that self-consciousness
necessarily to all objects in the world that we experience. To show this,
arises from some particular content being present in each of one’s
Kant argues that the categories are necessary conditions of experience, or
representations. This material conception of self-consciousness, as we may
that we could not have experience without the categories. In Kant’s words:
call it, is suggested by Locke’s account of personal identity. According to
[T]he objective validity of the categories, as a priori concepts, rests Locke, “it being the same consciousness that makes a Man be himself to
on the fact that through them alone is experience possible (as far as himself, personal Identity depends on that only, whether it be annexed
the form of thinking is concerned). For they then are related only to one individual Substance, or can be continued in a succession of
necessarily and a priori to objects of experience, since only by several Substances” (Essay 2.27.10). What Locke calls “the same
means of them can any object of experience be thought at all. consciousness” may be understood as some representational content that is
always present in my experience and that both identifies any experience as
The transcendental deduction of all a priori concepts therefore has mine and gives me a sense of a continuous self by virtue of its continual
a principle toward which the entire investigation must be directed, presence in my experience. One problem with this view, Kant believes, is
namely this: that they must be recognized as a priori conditions of that there is no such representational content that is invariably present in
the possibility of experiences (whether of the intuition that is experience, so the sense of an ongoing self cannot possibly arise from that
encountered in them, or of the thinking). Concepts that supply the non-existent content (what Locke calls “consciousness”) being present in

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each of one’s representations. In Kant’s words, self-consciousness “does construct a unified experience. As he expresses it, “this unity of
not yet come about by my accompanying each representation with consciousness would be impossible if in the cognition of the manifold the
consciousness, but rather by my adding one representation to the other and mind could not become conscious of the identity of the function by means
being conscious of their synthesis. Therefore it is only because I can of which this manifold is synthetically combined into one cognition”
combine a manifold of given representations in one consciousness that it is (A108).
possible for me to represent the identity of the consciousness in these
representations” (B133). Here Kant claims, against the Lockean view, that Kant argues for this formal idealist conception of self-consciousness, and
self-consciousness arises from combining (or synthesizing) representations against the formal realist view, on the grounds that “we can represent
with one another regardless of their content. In short, Kant has a formal nothing as combined in the object without having previously combined it
conception of self-consciousness rather than a material one. Since no ourselves” (B130). In other words, even if reality in itself were law-
particular content of my experience is invariable, self-consciousness must governed, its laws could not simply migrate over to our mind or imprint
derive from my experience having an invariable form or structure, and themselves on us while our mind is entirely passive. We must exercise an
consciousness of the identity of myself through all of my changing active capacity to represent the world as combined or ordered in a law-
experiences must consist in awareness of the formal unity and law- governed way, because otherwise we could not represent the world as law-
governed regularity of my experience. The continuous form of my governed even if it were law-governed in itself. Moreover, this capacity to
experience is the necessary correlate for my sense of a continuous self. represent the world as law-governed must be a priori because it is a
condition of self-consciousness, and we would already have to be self-
There are at least two possible versions of the formal conception of self- conscious in order to learn from our experience that there are law-
consciousness: a realist and an idealist version. On the realist version, governed regularities in the world. So it is necessary for self-
nature itself is law-governed and we become self-conscious by attending consciousness that we exercise an a priori capacity to represent the world
to its law-governed regularities, which also makes this an empiricist view as law-governed. But this would also be sufficient for self-consciousness if
of self-consciousness. The idea of an identical self that persists throughout we could exercise our a priori capacity to represent the world as law-
all of our experience, on this view, arises from the law-governed regularity governed even if reality in itself were not law-governed. In that case, the
of nature, and our representations exhibit order and regularity because realist and empiricist conception of self-consciousness would be false, and
reality itself is ordered and regular. Kant rejects this realist view and the formal idealist view would be true.
embraces a conception of self-consciousness that is both formal and
idealist. According to Kant, the formal structure of our experience, its Kant’s confidence that no empiricist account could possibly explain self-
unity and law-governed regularity, is an achievement of our cognitive consciousness may be based on his assumption that the sense of self each
faculties rather than a property of reality in itself. Our experience has a of us has, the thought of oneself as identical throughout all of one’s
constant form because our mind constructs experience in a law-governed changing experiences, involves necessity and universality, which on his
way. So self-consciousness, for Kant, consists in awareness of the mind’s view are the hallmarks of the a priori. This assumption is reflected in what
law-governed activity of synthesizing or combining sensible data to we may call Kant’s principle of apperception: “The I think must be able

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to accompany all my representations; for otherwise something would be – that is, distinct from my thoughts about and sensations of that objective
represented in me that could not be thought at all, which is as much as to world. Kant uses this connection between self-consciousness and
say that the representation would either be impossible or else at least objectivity to insert the categories into his argument.
would be nothing for me” (B131–132).[15] Notice the claims about
necessity and universality embodied in the words “must” and “all” here. In order to be self-conscious, I cannot be wholly absorbed in the contents
Kant is saying that for a representation to count as mine, it must of my perceptions but must distinguish myself from the rest of the world.
necessarily be accessible to conscious awareness in some (perhaps But if self-consciousness is an achievement of the mind, then how does
indirect) way: I must be able to accompany it with “I think….” All of my the mind achieve this sense that there is a distinction between the I that
representations must be accessible to consciousness in this way (but they perceives and the contents of its perceptions? According to Kant, the mind
need not actually be conscious), because again that is simply what makes a achieves this sense by distinguishing representations that necessarily
representation count as mine. Self-consciousness for Kant therefore belong together from representations that are not necessarily connected
involves a priori knowledge about the necessary and universal truth but are merely associated in a contingent way. Consider Kant’s example of
expressed in this principle of apperception, and a priori knowledge cannot the perception of a house (B162). Imagine a house that is too large to fit
be based on experience. into your visual field from your vantage point near its front door. Now
imagine that you walk around the house, successively perceiving each of
Kant may have developed this thread of his argument in the transcendental its sides. Eventually you perceive the entire house, but not all at once, and
deduction after reading Johann Nicolaus Tetens (1736–1807) rather than you judge that each of your representations of the sides of the house
through a direct encounter with Locke’s texts (Tetens 1777, Kitcher 2011). necessarily belong together (as sides of one house) and that anyone who
On the subject of self-consciousness, Tetens was a follower of Locke and denied this would be mistaken. But now imagine that you grew up in this
also engaged with Hume’s arguments for rejecting a continuing self. So house and associate a feeling of nostalgia with it. You would not judge
Kant’s actual opponents in the deduction may have been Lockean and that representations of this house are necessarily connected with feelings
Humean positions as represented by Tetens, as well as rationalist views of nostalgia. That is, you would not think that other people seeing the
that Kant would have encountered directly in texts by Leibniz, Wolff, and house for the first time would be mistaken if they denied that it is
some of their followers. connected with nostalgia, because you recognize that this house is
connected with nostalgia for you but not necessarily for everyone. Yet you
4.2 Objectivity and judgment distinguish this merely subjective connection from the objective
connection between sides of the house, which is objective because the
On the basis of this formal idealist conception of self-consciousness, sides of the house necessarily belong together “in the object,” because this
Kant’s argument (at least one central thread of it) moves through two more connection holds for everyone universally, and because it is possible to be
conditions of self-consciousness in order to establish the objective validity mistaken about it. The point here is not that we must successfully identify
of the categories. The next condition is that self-consciousness requires me which representations necessarily belong together and which are merely
to represent an objective world distinct from my subjective representations associated contingently, but rather that to be self-conscious we must at

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least make this general distinction between objective and merely we represent an objective world by judging that some representations
subjective connections of representations. necessarily belong together. Moreover, recall from 4.1 that, for Kant, we
must have an a priori capacity to represent the world as law-governed,
At this point (at least in the second edition text) Kant introduces the key because “we can represent nothing as combined (or connected) in the
claim that judgment is what enables us to distinguish objective object without having previously combined it ourselves” (B130). It
connections of representations that necessarily belong together from follows that objective connections in the world cannot simply imprint
merely subjective and contingent associations: “[A] judgment is nothing themselves on our mind. Rather, experience of an objective world must be
other than the way to bring given cognitions to the objective unity of constructed by exercising an a priori capacity to judge, which Kant calls
apperception. That is the aim of the copula is in them: to distinguish the the faculty of understanding (A80–81/B106). The understanding
objective unity of given representations from the subjective. For this word constructs experience by providing the a priori rules, or the framework of
designates the relation of the representations to the original apperception necessary laws, in accordance with which we judge representations to be
and its necessary unity” (B141–142). Kant is speaking here about the objective. These rules are the pure concepts of the understanding or
mental act of judging that results in the formation of a judgment. Judging categories, which are therefore conditions of self-consciousness, since
is an act of what Kant calls synthesis, which he defines as “the action of they are rules for judging about an objective world, and self-consciousness
putting different representations together with each other and requires that we distinguish ourselves from an objective world.
comprehending their manifoldness in one cognition” (A77/B103). In other
words, to synthesize is in general to combine several representations into a Kant identifies the categories in what he calls the metaphysical deduction,
single (more) complex representation, and to judge is specifically to which precedes the transcendental deduction.[17] Very briefly, since the
combine concepts into a judgment – that is, to join a subject concept to a categories are a priori rules for judging, Kant argues that an exhaustive
predicate concept by means of the copula, as in “the body is heavy” or table of categories can be derived from a table of the basic logical forms of
“the house is four-sided.” Judgments need not be true, of course, but they judgments. For example, according to Kant the logical form of the
always have a truth value (true or false) because they make claims to judgment that “the body is heavy” would be singular, affirmative,
objective validity. When I say, by contrast, that “If I carry a body, I feel a categorical, and assertoric. But since categories are not mere logical
pressure of weight,” or that “if I see this house, I feel nostalgia,” I am not functions but instead are rules for making judgments about objects or an
making a judgment about the object (the body or the house) but rather I objective world, Kant arrives at his table of categories by considering how
am expressing a subjective association that may apply only to me (B142). each logical function would structure judgments about objects (within our
[16] spatio-temporal forms of intuition). For example, he claims that
categorical judgments express a logical relation between subject and
Kant’s reference to the necessary unity of apperception or self- predicate that corresponds to the ontological relation between substance
consciousness in the quotation above means (at least) that the action of and accident; and the logical form of a hypothetical judgment expresses a
judging is the way our mind achieves self-consciousness. We must relation that corresponds to cause and effect. Taken together with this
represent an objective world in order to distinguish ourselves from it, and argument, then, the transcendental deduction argues that we become self-

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conscious by representing an objective world of substances that interact possible to represent them as objectively real. So self-consciousness
according to causal laws. requires that I can relate all of my representations to a single objective
world.
4.3 The law-giver of nature
The reason why I must represent this one objective world by means of a
The final condition of self-consciousness that Kant adds to the preceding unified and unbounded space-time is that, as Kant argued in the
conditions is that our understanding must cooperate with sensibility to Transcendental Aesthetic, space and time are the pure forms of human
construct one, unbounded, and unified space-time to which all of our intuition. If we had different forms of intuition, then our experience would
representations may be related. still have to constitute a unified whole in order for us to be self-conscious,
but this would not be a spatio-temporal whole. Given that space and time
To see why this further condition is required, consider that so far we have are our forms of intuition, however, our understanding must still cooperate
seen why Kant holds that we must represent an objective world in order to with sensibility to construct a spatio-temporal whole of experience
be self-conscious, but we could represent an objective world even if it because, once again, “we can represent nothing as combined in the object
were not possible to relate all of our representations to this objective without having previously combined it ourselves,” and “all combination
world. For all that has been said so far, we might still have unruly […] is an action of the understanding” (B130). So Kant distinguishes
representations that we cannot relate in any way to the objective between space and time as pure forms of intuition, which belong solely to
framework of our experience. On Kant’s view, this would be a problem sensibility; and the formal intuitions of space and time (or space-time),
because, as we have seen, he holds that self-consciousness involves which are unified by the understanding (B160–161). These formal
universality and necessity: according to his principle of apperception, “the intuitions are the spatio-temporal whole within which our understanding
I think must be able to accompany all my representations” (B131). Yet if, constructs experience in accordance with the categories.[18]
on the one hand, I had representations that I could not relate in some way
to an objective world, then I could not accompany those representations The most important implication of Kant’s claim that the understanding
with “I think” or recognize them as my representations, because I can say constructs a single whole of experience to which all of our representations
“I think…” about any given representation only by relating it to an can be related is that, since he defines nature “regarded materially” as “the
objective world, according to the argument just discussed. So I must be sum total of all appearances” and he has argued that the categories are
able to relate any given representation to an objective world in order for it objectively valid of all possible appearances, on his view it follows that
to count as mine. On the other hand, self-consciousness would also be our categories are the source of the fundamental laws of nature “regarded
impossible if I represented multiple objective worlds, even if I could relate formally” (B163, 165). So Kant concludes on this basis that the
all of my representations to some objective world or other. In that case, I understanding is the true law-giver of nature. In his words: “all
could not become conscious of an identical self that has, say, appearances in nature, as far as their combination is concerned, stand
representation 1 in space-time A and representation 2 in space-time B. It under the categories, on which nature (considered merely as nature in
may be possible to imagine disjointed spaces and times, but it is not general) depends, as the original ground of its necessary lawfulness (as

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nature regarded formally)” (B165). Or more strongly: “we ourselves bring Kant’s moral philosophy is also based on the idea of autonomy. He holds
into the appearances that order and regularity that we call nature, and that there is a single fundamental principle of morality, on which all
moreover we would not be able to find it there if we, or the nature of our specific moral duties are based. He calls this moral law (as it is manifested
mind, had not originally put it there. […] The understanding is thus not to us) the categorical imperative (see 5.4). The moral law is a product of
merely a faculty for making rules through the comparison of the reason, for Kant, while the basic laws of nature are products of our
appearances: it is itself the legislation for nature, i.e., without understanding. There are important differences between the senses in
understanding there would not be any nature at all” (A125–126). which we are autonomous in constructing our experience and in morality.
For example, Kant regards understanding and reason as different cognitive
5. Morality and freedom faculties, although he sometimes uses “reason” in a wide sense to cover
both.[19] The categories and therefore the laws of nature are dependent on
Having examined two central parts of Kant’s positive project in theoretical our specifically human forms of intuition, while reason is not. The moral
philosophy from the Critique of Pure Reason, transcendental idealism and law does not depend on any qualities that are peculiar to human nature but
the transcendental deduction, let us now turn to his practical philosophy in only on the nature of reason as such, although its manifestation to us as a
the Critique of Practical Reason. Since Kant’s philosophy is deeply categorical imperative (as a law of duty) reflects the fact that the human
systematic, this section begins with a preliminary look at how his will is not necessarily determined by pure reason but is also influenced by
theoretical and practical philosophy fit together (see also section 7). other incentives rooted in our needs and inclinations; and our specific
duties deriving from the categorical imperative do reflect human nature
5.1 Theoretical and practical autonomy and the contingencies of human life. Despite these differences, however,
Kant holds that we give the moral law to ourselves, as we also give the
The fundamental idea of Kant’s philosophy is human autonomy. So far we general laws of nature to ourselves, though in a different sense. Moreover,
have seen this in Kant’s constructivist view of experience, according to we each necessarily give the same moral law to ourselves, just as we each
which our understanding is the source of the general laws of nature. construct our experience in accordance with the same categories. To
“Autonomy” literally means giving the law to oneself, and on Kant’s view summarize:
our understanding provides laws that constitute the a priori framework of
our experience. Our understanding does not provide the matter or content Theoretical philosophy is about how the world is (A633/B661). Its
of our experience, but it does provide the basic formal structure within highest principle is self-consciousness, on which our knowledge of
which we experience any matter received through our senses. Kant’s the basic laws of nature is based. Given sensory data, our
central argument for this view is the transcendental deduction, according understanding constructs experience according to these a priori laws.
to which it is a condition of self-consciousness that our understanding Practical philosophy is about how the world ought to be (ibid., A800–
constructs experience in this way. So we may call self-consciousness the 801/B828–829). Its highest principle is the moral law, from which we
highest principle of Kant’s theoretical philosophy, since it is (at least) the derive duties that command how we ought to act in specific
basis for all of our a priori knowledge about the structure of nature. situations. Kant also claims that reflection on our moral duties and

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our need for happiness leads to the thought of an ideal world, which knowledge about transcendent objects corresponding to them. This is an
he calls the highest good (see section 6). Given how the world is illusion, however, because in fact we are not capable of a priori knowledge
(theoretical philosophy) and how it ought to be (practical about any such transcendent objects. Nevertheless, Kant attempts to show
philosophy), we aim to make the world better by constructing or that these illusory ideas have a positive, practical use. He thus reframes
realizing the highest good. Leibniz-Wolffian special metaphysics as a practical science that he calls
the metaphysics of morals. On Kant’s view, our ideas of the soul, the
So both parts of Kant’s philosophy are about autonomously constructing a world-whole, and God provide the content of morally justified beliefs
world, but in different senses. In theoretical philosophy, we use our about human immortality, human freedom, and the existence of God,
categories and forms of intuition to construct a world of experience or respectively; but they are not proper objects of speculative knowledge.[20]
nature. In practical philosophy, we use the moral law to construct the idea
of a moral world or a realm of ends that guides our conduct (4:433), and 5.2 Freedom
ultimately to transform the natural world into the highest good. Finally,
transcendental idealism is the framework within which these two parts of The most important belief about things in themselves that Kant thinks only
Kant’s philosophy fit together (20:311). Theoretical philosophy deals with practical philosophy can justify concerns human freedom. Freedom is
appearances, to which our knowledge is strictly limited; and practical important because, on Kant’s view, moral appraisal presupposes that we
philosophy deals with things in themselves, although it does not give us are free in the sense that we have the ability to do otherwise. To see why,
knowledge about things in themselves but only provides rational consider Kant’s example of a man who commits a theft (5:95ff.). Kant
justification for certain beliefs about them for practical purposes. holds that in order for this man’s action to be morally wrong, it must have
been within his control in the sense that it was within his power at the time
To understand Kant’s arguments that practical philosophy justifies certain
not to have committed the theft. If this was not within his control at the
beliefs about things in themselves, it is necessary to see them in the
time, then, while it may be useful to punish him in order to shape his
context of his criticism of German rationalist metaphysics. The three
behavior or to influence others, it nevertheless would not be correct to say
traditional topics of Leibniz-Wolffian special metaphysics were rational
that his action was morally wrong. Moral rightness and wrongness apply
psychology, rational cosmology, and rational theology, which dealt,
only to free agents who control their actions and have it in their power, at
respectively, with the human soul, the world-whole, and God. In the part
the time of their actions, either to act rightly or not. According to Kant,
of the Critique of Pure Reason called the Transcendental Dialectic, Kant
this is just common sense.
argues against the Leibniz-Wolffian view that human beings are capable of
a priori knowledge in each of these domains, and he claims that the errors On these grounds, Kant rejects a type of compatibilism that he calls the
of Leibniz-Wolffian metaphysics are due to an illusion that has its seat in “comparative concept of freedom” and associates with Leibniz (5:96–97).
the nature of human reason itself. According to Kant, human reason (Note that Kant has a specific type of compatibilism in mind, which I will
necessarily produces ideas of the soul, the world-whole, and God; and refer to simply as “compatibilism,” although there may be other types of
these ideas unavoidably produce the illusion that we have a priori compatibilism that do not fit Kant’s characterization of that view). On the

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compatibilist view, as Kant understands it, I am free whenever the cause of The root of the problem, for Kant, is time. Again, if the thief’s choice to
my action is within me. So I am unfree only when something external to commit the theft is a natural event in time, then it is the effect of a causal
me pushes or moves me, but I am free whenever the proximate cause of chain extending into the distant past. But the past is out of his control now,
my body’s movement is internal to me as an “acting being” (5:96). If we in the present. Once the past is past, he can’t change it. On Kant’s view,
distinguish between involuntary convulsions and voluntary bodily that is why his actions would not be in his control in the present if they are
movements, then on this view free actions are just voluntary bodily determined by events in the past. Even if he could control those past
movements. Kant ridicules this view as a “wretched subterfuge” that tries events in the past, he cannot control them now. But in fact past events
to solve an ancient philosophical problem “with a little quibbling about were not in his control in the past either if they too were determined by
words” (ibid.). This view, he says, assimilates human freedom to “the events in the more distant past, because eventually the causal antecedents
freedom of a turnspit,” or a projectile in flight, or the motion of a clock’s of his action stretch back before his birth, and obviously events that
hands (5:96–97). The proximate causes of these movements are internal to occurred before his birth were never in his control. So if the thief’s choice
the turnspit, the projectile, and the clock at the time of the movement. This to commit the theft is a natural event in time, then it is not now and never
cannot be sufficient for moral responsibility. was in his control, and he could not have done otherwise than to commit
the theft. In that case, it would be a mistake to hold him morally
Why not? The reason, Kant says, is ultimately that the causes of these responsible for it.
movements occur in time. Return to the theft example. A compatibilist
would say that the thief’s action is free because its proximate cause is Compatibilism, as Kant understands it, therefore locates the issue in the
inside him, and because the theft was not an involuntary convulsion but a wrong place. Even if the cause of my action is internal to me, if it is in the
voluntary action. The thief decided to commit the theft, and his action past – for example, if my action today is determined by a decision I made
flowed from this decision. According to Kant, however, if the thief’s yesterday, or from the character I developed in childhood – then it is not
decision is a natural phenomenon that occurs in time, then it must be the within my control now. The real issue is not whether the cause of my
effect of some cause that occurred in a previous time. This is an essential action is internal or external to me, but whether it is in my control now.
part of Kant’s Newtonian worldview and is grounded in the a priori laws For Kant, however, the cause of my action can be within my control now
(specifically, the category of cause and effect) in accordance with which only if it is not in time. This is why Kant thinks that transcendental
our understanding constructs experience: every event has a cause that idealism is the only way to make sense of the kind of freedom that
begins in an earlier time. If that cause too was an event occurring in time, morality requires. Transcendental idealism allows that the cause of my
then it must also have a cause beginning in a still earlier time, etc. All action may be a thing in itself outside of time: namely, my noumenal self,
natural events occur in time and are thoroughly determined by causal which is free because it is not part of nature. No matter what kind of
chains that stretch backwards into the distant past. So there is no room for character I have developed or what external influences act on me, on
freedom in nature, which is deterministic in a strong sense. Kant’s view all of my intentional, voluntary actions are immediate effects
of my noumenal self, which is causally undetermined (5:97–98). My
noumenal self is an uncaused cause outside of time, which therefore is not

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subject to the deterministic laws of nature in accordance with which our can help to settle disputes about the proper interpretation of transcendental
understanding constructs experience. idealism, since there are serious questions about the coherence of Kant’s
theory on either interpretation.
Many puzzles arise on this picture that Kant does not resolve. For
example, if my understanding constructs all appearances in my experience 5.3 The fact of reason
of nature, not only appearances of my own actions, then why am I
responsible only for my own actions but not for everything that happens in Can we know that we are free in this transcendental sense? Kant’s
the natural world? Moreover, if I am not alone in the world but there are response is tricky. On the one hand, he distinguishes between theoretical
many noumenal selves acting freely and incorporating their free actions knowledge and morally justified belief (A820–831/B848–859). We do not
into the experience they construct, then how do multiple transcendentally have theoretical knowledge that we are free or about anything beyond the
free agents interact? How do you integrate my free actions into the limits of possible experience, but we are morally justified in believing that
experience that your understanding constructs?[21] In spite of these we are free in this sense. On the other hand, Kant also uses stronger
unsolved puzzles, Kant holds that we can make sense of moral appraisal language than this when discussing freedom. For example, he says that
and responsibility only by thinking about human freedom in this way, “among all the ideas of speculative reason freedom is the only one the
because it is the only way to prevent natural necessity from undermining possibility of which we know a priori, though without having any insight
both. into it, because it is the condition of the moral law, which we do know.” In
a footnote to this passage, Kant explains that we know freedom a priori
Finally, since Kant invokes transcendental idealism to make sense of
because “were there no freedom, the moral law would not be encountered
freedom, interpreting his thinking about freedom leads us back to disputes
at all in ourselves,” and on Kant’s view everyone does encounter the moral
between the two-objects and two-aspects interpretations of transcendental
law a priori (5:4). For this reason, Kant claims that the moral law “proves”
idealism. On the face of it, the two-objects interpretation seems to make
the objective, “though only practical, undoubted reality” of freedom
better sense of Kant’s view of transcendental freedom than the two-aspects
(5:48–49). So Kant wants to say that we do have knowledge of the reality
interpretation. If morality requires that I am transcendentally free, then it
of freedom, but that this is practical knowledge of a practical reality, or
seems that my true self, and not just an aspect of my self, must be outside
cognition “only for practical purposes,” by which he means to distinguish
of time, according to Kant’s argument. But applying the two-objects
it from theoretical knowledge based on experience or reflection on the
interpretation to freedom raises problems of its own, since it involves
conditions of experience (5:133). Our practical knowledge of freedom is
making a distinction between noumenal and phenomenal selves that does
based instead on the moral law. The difference between Kant’s stronger
not arise on the two-aspects view. If only my noumenal self is free, and
and weaker language seems mainly to be that his stronger language
freedom is required for moral responsibility, then my phenomenal self is
emphasizes that our belief or practical knowledge about freedom is
not morally responsible. But how are my noumenal and phenomenal
unshakeable and that it in turn provides support for other morally
selves related, and why is punishment inflicted on phenomenal selves? It is
grounded beliefs in God and the immortality of the soul.
unclear whether and to what extent appealing to Kant’s theory of freedom

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Kant calls our consciousness of the moral law, our awareness that the do it and cognizes freedom within him, which, without the moral law,
moral law binds us or has authority over us, the “fact of reason” (5:31–32, would have remained unknown to him” (5:30). This is a hypothetical
42–43, 47, 55). So, on his view, the fact of reason is the practical basis for example of an action not yet carried out. It seems that pangs of guilt about
our belief or practical knowledge that we are free. Kant insists that this the immorality of an action that you carried out in the past, on this
moral consciousness is “undeniable,” “a priori,” and “unavoidable” (5:32, reasoning, would imply more directly that you have (or at least had) the
47, 55). Every human being has a conscience, a common sense grasp of ability to act otherwise than you did, and therefore that you are free in
morality, and a firm conviction that he or she is morally accountable. We Kant’s sense.
may have different beliefs about the source of morality’s authority – God,
social convention, human reason. We may arrive at different conclusions 5.4 The categorical imperative
about what morality requires in specific situations. And we may violate
our own sense of duty. But we all have a conscience, and an unshakeable In both the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of
belief that morality applies to us. According to Kant, this belief cannot and Practical Reason, Kant also gives a more detailed argument for the
does not need to be justified or “proved by any deduction” (5:47). It is just conclusion that morality and freedom reciprocally imply one another,
a ground-level fact about human beings that we hold ourselves morally which is sometimes called the reciprocity thesis (Allison 1990). On this
accountable. But Kant is making a normative claim here as well: it is also view, to act morally is to exercise freedom, and the only way to fully
a fact, which cannot and does not need to be justified, that we are morally exercise freedom is to act morally. Kant’s arguments for this view differ in
accountable, that morality does have authority over us. Kant holds that these texts, but the general structure of his argument in the Critique of
philosophy should be in the business of defending this common sense Practical Reason may be summarized as follows.
moral belief, and that in any case we could never prove or disprove it
First, it follows from the basic idea of having a will that to act at all is to
(4:459).
act on some principle, or what Kant calls a maxim. A maxim is a
Kant may hold that the fact of reason, or our consciousness of moral subjective rule or policy of action: it says what you are doing and why.
obligation, implies that we are free on the grounds that ought implies can. Kant gives as examples the maxims “to let no insult pass unavenged” and
In other words, Kant may believe that it follows from the fact that we “to increase my wealth by every safe means” (5:19, 27). We may be
ought (morally) to do something that we can or are able to do it. This is unaware of our maxims, we may not act consistently on the same maxims,
suggested, for example, by a passage in which Kant asks us to imagine and our maxims may not be consistent with one another. But Kant holds
someone threatened by his prince with immediate execution unless he that since we are rational beings our actions always aim at some sort of
“give[s] false testimony against an honorable man whom the prince would end or goal, which our maxim expresses. The goal of an action may be
like to destroy under a plausible pretext.” Kant says that “[h]e would something as basic as gratifying a desire, or it may be something more
perhaps not venture to assert whether he would do it or not, but he must complex such as becoming a doctor or a lawyer. In any case, the causes of
admit without hesitation that it would be possible for him. He judges, our actions are never our desires or impulses, on Kant’s view. If I act to
therefore, that he can do something because he is aware that he ought to gratify some desire, then I choose to act on a maxim that specifies the

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gratification of that desire as the goal of my action. For example, if I desire and the duty not to steal is not suspended if I have some desire that I could
some coffee, then I may act on the maxim to go to a cafe and buy some satisfy by stealing. Moral laws do not have such conditions but rather
coffee in order to gratify that desire. apply unconditionally. That is why they apply to everyone in the same
way.
Second, Kant distinguishes between two basic kinds of principles or rules
that we can act on: what he calls material and formal principles. To act in Third, insofar as I act only on material principles or hypothetical
order to satisfy some desire, as when I act on the maxim to go for coffee at imperatives, I do not act freely, but rather I act only to satisfy some
a cafe, is to act on a material principle (5:21ff.). Here the desire (for desire(s) that I have, and what I desire is not ultimately within my control.
coffee) fixes the goal, which Kant calls the object or matter of the action, To some limited extent we are capable of rationally shaping our desires,
and the principle says how to achieve that goal (go to a cafe). but insofar as we choose to act in order to satisfy desires we are choosing
Corresponding to material principles, on Kant’s view, are what he calls to let nature govern us rather than governing ourselves (5:118). We are
hypothetical imperatives. A hypothetical imperative is a principle of always free in the sense that we always have the capacity to govern
rationality that says I should act in a certain way if I choose to satisfy ourselves rationally instead of letting our desires set our ends for us. But
some desire. If maxims in general are rules that describe how one does act, we may (freely) fail to exercise that capacity. Moreover, since Kant holds
then imperatives in general prescribe how one should act. An imperative is that desires never cause us to act, but rather we always choose to act on a
hypothetical if it says how I should act only if I choose to pursue some maxim even when that maxim specifies the satisfaction of a desire as the
goal in order to gratify a desire (5:20). This, for example, is a hypothetical goal of our action, it also follows that we are always free in the sense that
imperative: if you want coffee, then go to the cafe. This hypothetical we freely choose our maxims. Nevertheless, our actions are not free in the
imperative applies to you only if you desire coffee and choose to gratify sense of being autonomous if we choose to act only on material principles,
that desire. because in that case we do not give the law to ourselves, but instead we
choose to allow nature in us (our desires) to determine the law for our
In contrast to material principles, formal principles describe how one acts actions.
without making reference to any desires. This is easiest to understand
through the corresponding kind of imperative, which Kant calls a Finally, the only way to act freely in the full sense of exercising autonomy
categorical imperative. A categorical imperative commands is therefore to act on formal principles or categorical imperatives, which is
unconditionally that I should act in some way. So while hypothetical also to act morally. Kant does not mean that acting autonomously requires
imperatives apply to me only on the condition that I have and set the goal that we take no account of our desires, which would be impossible (5:25,
of satisfying the desires that they tell me how to satisfy, categorical 61). Rather, he holds that we typically formulate maxims with a view to
imperatives apply to me no matter what my goals and desires may be. satisfying our desires, but that “as soon as we draw up maxims of the will
Kant regards moral laws as categorical imperatives, which apply to for ourselves” we become immediately conscious of the moral law (5:29).
everyone unconditionally. For example, the moral requirement to help This immediate consciousness of the moral law takes the following form:
others in need does not apply to me only if I desire to help others in need,

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I have, for example, made it my maxim to increase my wealth by maxim when the feeling of sympathy so moves me. But helping others in
every safe means. Now I have a deposit in my hands, the owner of need would not fully exercise my autonomy unless my fundamental reason
which has died and left no record of it. This is, naturally, a case for for doing so is not that I have some feeling or desire, but rather that it
my maxim. Now I want only to know whether that maxim could would be right or at least permissible to do so. Only when such a purely
also hold as a universal practical law. I therefore apply the maxim formal principle supplies the fundamental motive for my action do I act
to the present case and ask whether it could indeed take the form of autonomously.
a law, and consequently whether I could through my maxim at the
same time give such a law as this: that everyone may deny a So the moral law is a law of autonomy in the sense that “freedom and
deposit which no one can prove has been made. I at once become unconditional practical law reciprocally imply each another” (5:29). Even
aware that such a principle, as a law, would annihilate itself since it when my maxims are originally suggested by my feelings and desires, if I
would bring it about that there would be no deposits at all. (5:27) act only on morally permissible (or required) maxims because they are
morally permissible (or required), then my actions will be autonomous.
In other words, to assess the moral permissibility of my maxim, I ask And the reverse is true as well: for Kant this is the only way to act
whether everyone could act on it, or whether it could be willed as a autonomously.[22]
universal law. The issue is not whether it would be good if everyone acted
on my maxim, or whether I would like it, but only whether it would be 6. The highest good and practical postulates
possible for my maxim to be willed as a universal law. This gets at the
form, not the matter or content, of the maxim. A maxim has morally Kant holds that reason unavoidably produces not only consciousness of
permissible form, for Kant, only if it could be willed as a universal law. If the moral law but also the idea of a world in which there is both complete
my maxim fails this test, as this one does, then it is morally impermissible virtue and complete happiness, which he calls the highest good. Our duty
for me to act on it. to promote the highest good, on Kant’s view, is the sum of all moral
duties, and we can fulfill this duty only if we believe that the highest good
If my maxim passes the universal law test, then it is morally permissible is a possible state of affairs. Furthermore, we can believe that the highest
for me to act on it, but I fully exercise my autonomy only if my good is possible only if we also believe in the immortality of the soul and
fundamental reason for acting on this maxim is that it is morally the existence of God, according to Kant. On this basis, he claims that it is
permissible or required that I do so. Imagine that I am moved by a feeling morally necessary to believe in the immortality of the soul and the
of sympathy to formulate the maxim to help someone in need. In this case, existence of God, which he calls postulates of pure practical reason. This
my original reason for formulating this maxim is that a certain feeling section briefly outlines Kant’s view of the highest good and his argument
moved me. Such feelings are not entirely within my control and may not for these practical postulates in the Critique of Practical Reason and other
be present when someone actually needs my help. But this maxim passes works.
Kant’s test: it could be willed as a universal law that everyone help others
in need from motives of sympathy. So it would not be wrong to act on this

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6.1 The highest good But neither of these ideas by itself expresses our unconditionally complete
end, as human reason demands in its practical use. A perfectly moral
In the previous section we saw that, on Kant’s view, the moral law is a world by itself would not constitute our “whole and complete good […]
purely formal principle that commands us to act only on maxims that have even in the judgment of an impartial reason,” because it is human nature
what he calls lawgiving form, which maxims have only if they can be also to need happiness (5:110, 25). And happiness by itself would not be
willed as universal laws. Moreover, our fundamental reason for choosing unconditionally good, because moral virtue is a condition of worthiness to
to act on such maxims should be that they have this lawgiving form, rather be happy (5:111). So our unconditionally complete end must combine both
than that acting on them would achieve some end or goal that would virtue and happiness. In Kant’s words, “virtue and happiness together
satisfy a desire (5:27). For example, I should help others in need not, at constitute possession of the highest good in a person, and happiness
bottom, because doing so would make me feel good, even if it would, but distributed in exact proportion to morality (as the worth of a person and
rather because it is right; and it is right (or permissible) to help others in his worthiness to be happy) constitutes the highest good of a possible
need because this maxim can be willed as a universal law. world” (5:110–111). It is this ideal world combining complete virtue with
complete happiness that Kant normally has in mind when he discusses the
Although Kant holds that the morality of an action depends on the form of highest good.
its maxim rather than its end or goal, he nevertheless claims both that
every human action has an end and that we are unavoidably concerned Kant says that we have a duty to promote the highest good, taken in this
with the consequences of our actions (4:437; 5:34; 6:5–7, 385). This is not sense (5:125). He does not mean, however, to be identifying some new
a moral requirement but simply part of what it means to be a rational duty that is not derived from the moral law, in addition to all the particular
being. Moreover, Kant also holds the stronger view that it is an duties we have that are derived from the moral law.[24] For example, he is
unavoidable feature of human reason that we form ideas not only about the not claiming that in addition to my duties to help others in need, not to
immediate and near-term consequences of our actions, but also about commit theft, etc., I also have the additional duty to represent the highest
ultimate consequences. This is the practical manifestation of reason’s good as the final end of all moral conduct, combined with happiness, and
general demand for what Kant calls “the unconditioned” (5:107–108).[23] to promote that end. Rather, as we have seen, Kant holds that it is an
In particular, since we naturally have desires and inclinations, and our unavoidable feature of human reasoning, instead of a moral requirement,
reason has “a commission” to attend to the satisfaction of our desires and that we represent all particular duties as leading toward the promotion of
inclinations, on Kant’s view we unavoidably form an idea of the maximal the highest good. So the duty to promote the highest good is not a
satisfaction of all our inclinations and desires, which he calls happiness particular duty at all, but the sum of all our duties derived from the moral
(5:61, 22, 124). This idea is indeterminate, however, since nobody can law – it “does not increase the number of morality’s duties but rather
know “what he really wishes and wills” and thus what would make him provides these with a special point of reference for the unification of all
completely happy (4:418). We also form the idea of a moral world or ends” (6:5). Nor does Kant mean that anyone has a duty to realize or
realm of ends, in which everyone acts only in accordance with maxims actually bring about the highest good through their own power, although
that can be universal laws (A808/B836, 4:433ff.). his language sometimes suggests this (5:113, 122). Rather, at least in his

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later works Kant claims that only the common striving of an entire “ethical sensible world” to exhibit “complete conformity of dispositions with the
community” can actually produce the highest good, and that the duty of moral law,” which he calls “holiness,” because we can never extirpate the
individuals is to promote (but not single-handedly produce) this end with propensity of our reason to give priority to the incentives of inclination
all of their strength by doing what the moral law commands (6:97–98, over the incentive of duty, which propensity Kant calls radical evil (5:122,
390–394).[25] 6:37). Kant claims that the moral law nevertheless requires holiness,
however, and that it therefore “can only be found in an endless progress
Finally, according to Kant we must conceive of the highest good as a toward that complete conformity,” or progress that goes to infinity (5:122).
possible state of affairs in order to fulfill our duty to promote it. Here Kant This does not mean that we can substitute endless progress toward
does not mean that we unavoidably represent the highest good as possible, complete conformity with the moral law for holiness in the concept of the
since his view is that we must represent it as possible only if we are to highest good, but rather that we must represent that complete conformity
fulfill our duty of promoting it, and yet we may fail at doing our duty. as an infinite progress toward the limit of holiness. Kant continues: “This
Rather, we have a choice about whether to conceive of the highest good as endless progress is, however, possible only on the presupposition of the
possible, to regard it as impossible, or to remain noncommittal (5:144– existence and personality of the same rational being continuing endlessly
145). But we can fulfill our duty of promoting the highest good only by (which is called the immortality of the soul). Hence the highest good is
choosing to conceive of the highest good as possible, because we cannot practically possible only on the presupposition of the immortality of the
promote any end without believing that it is possible to achieve that end soul, so that this, as inseparable with the moral law, is a postulate of pure
(5:122). So fulfilling the sum of all moral duties to promote the highest practical reason” (ibid.). Kant’s idea is not that we should imagine
good requires believing that a world of complete virtue and happiness is ourselves attaining holiness later although we are not capable of it in this
not simply “a phantom of the mind” but could actually be realized (5:472). life. Rather, his view is that we must represent holiness as continual
progress toward complete conformity of our dispositions with the moral
6.2 The postulates of pure practical reason law that begins in this life and extends into infinity.

Kant argues that we can comply with our duty to promote the highest good Kant’s moral argument for belief in God in the Critique of Practical
only if we believe in the immortality of the soul and the existence of God. Reason may be summarized as follows. Kant holds that virtue and
This is because to comply with that duty we must believe that the highest happiness are not just combined but necessarily combined in the idea of
good is possible, and yet to believe that the highest good is possible we the highest good, because only possessing virtue makes one worthy of
must believe that the soul is immortal and that God exists, according to happiness – a claim that Kant seems to regard as part of the content of the
Kant.[26] moral law (4:393; 5:110, 124). But we can represent virtue and happiness
as necessarily combined only by representing virtue as the efficient cause
Consider first Kant’s moral argument for belief in immortality. The highest
of happiness. This means that we must represent the highest good not
good, as we have seen, would be a world of complete morality and
simply as a state of affairs in which everyone is both happy and virtuous,
happiness. But Kant holds that it is impossible for “a rational being of the
but rather as one in which everyone is happy because they are virtuous

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(5:113–114, 124). However, it is beyond the power of human beings, both To see why, consider what would happen if we did not believe in God or
individually and collectively, to guarantee that happiness results from immortality, according to Kant. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant
virtue, and we do not know any law of nature that guarantees this either. seems to say that this would leave us without any incentive to be moral,
Therefore, we must conclude that the highest good is impossible, unless and even that the moral law would be invalid without God and immortality
we postulate “the existence of a cause of nature, distinct from nature, (A813/B841, A468/B496). But Kant later rejects this view (8:139). His
which contains the ground of this connection, namely the exact mature view is that our reason would be in conflict with itself if we did not
correspondence of happiness with morality” (5:125). This cause of nature believe in God and immortality, because pure practical reason would
would have to be God since it must have both understanding and will. represent the moral law as authoritative for us and so present us with an
Kant probably does not conceive of God as the efficient cause of a incentive that is sufficient to determine our will; but pure theoretical (i.e.,
happiness that is rewarded in a future life to those who are virtuous in this speculative) reason would undermine this incentive by declaring morality
one. Rather, his view is probably that we represent our endless progress an empty ideal, since it would not be able to conceive of the highest good
toward holiness, beginning with this life and extending into infinity, as the as possible (5:121, 143, 471–472, 450–453). In other words, the moral law
efficient cause of our happiness, which likewise begins in this life and would remain valid and provide any rational being with sufficient
extends to a future one, in accordance with teleological laws that God incentive to act from duty, but we would be incapable of acting as rational
authors and causes to harmonize with efficient causes in nature (A809– beings, since “it is a condition of having reason at all […] that its
812/B837–840; 5:127–131, 447–450). principles and affirmations must not contradict one another” (5:120). The
only way to bring speculative and practical reason “into that relation of
Both of these arguments are subjective in the sense that, rather than equality in which reason in general can be used purposively” is to affirm
attempting to show how the world must be constituted objectively in order the postulates on the grounds that pure practical reason has primacy over
for the highest good to be possible, they purport to show only how we speculative reason. This means, Kant explains, that if the capacity of
must conceive of the highest good in order to be subjectively capable both speculative reason “does not extend to establishing certain propositions
of representing it as possible and of fulfilling our duty to promote it. But affirmatively, although they do not contradict it, as soon as these same
Kant also claims that both arguments have an objective basis: first, in the propositions belong inseparably to the practical interest of pure reason it
sense that it cannot be proven objectively either that immortality or God’s must accept them […,] being mindful, however, that these are not its
existence are impossible; and, second, in the sense that both arguments insights but are yet extensions of its use from another, namely a practical
proceed from a duty to promote the highest good that is based not on the perspective” (5:121). The primacy of practical reason is a key element of
subjective character of human reason but on the moral law, which is Kant’s response to the crisis of the Enlightenment, since he holds that
objectively valid for all rational beings. So while it is not, strictly reason deserves the sovereign authority entrusted to it by the
speaking, a duty to believe in God or immortality, we must believe both in Enlightenment only on this basis.
order to fulfill our duty to promote the highest good, given the subjective
character of human reason.

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7. The unity of nature and freedom at the price of sacrificing a unified view of the world and our place in it. If
science applies only to appearances, while moral and religious beliefs
This final section briefly discusses how Kant attempts to unify the refer to things in themselves or “the supersensible,” then how can we
theoretical and practical parts of his philosophical system in the Critique integrate these into a single conception of the world that enables us to
of the Power of Judgment. transition from the one domain to the other? Kant’s solution is to introduce
a third a priori cognitive faculty, which he calls the reflecting power of
7.1 The great chasm judgment, that gives us a teleological perspective on the world. Reflecting
judgment provides the concept of teleology or purposiveness that bridges
In the Preface and Introduction to the Critique of the Power of Judgment, the chasm between nature and freedom, and thus unifies the theoretical
Kant announces that his goal in the work is to “bring [his] entire critical and practical parts of Kant’s philosophy into a single system (5:196–197).
enterprise to an end” by bridging the “gulf” or “chasm” that separates the
domain of his theoretical philosophy (discussed mainly in the Critique of It is important to Kant that a third faculty independent of both
Pure Reason) from the domain of his practical philosophy (discussed understanding and reason provides this mediating perspective, because he
mainly in the Critique of Practical Reason) (5:170, 176, 195). In his holds that we do not have adequate theoretical grounds for attributing
words: “The understanding legislates a priori for nature, as object of the objective teleology to nature itself, and yet regarding nature as teleological
senses, for a theoretical cognition of it in a possible experience. Reason solely on moral grounds would only heighten the disconnect between our
legislates a priori for freedom and its own causality, as the supersensible in scientific and moral ways of viewing the world. Theoretical grounds do
the subject, for an unconditioned practical cognition. The domain of the not justify us in attributing objective teleology to nature, because it is not a
concept of nature under the one legislation and that of the concept of condition of self-consciousness that our understanding construct
freedom under the other are entirely barred from any mutual influence that experience in accordance with the concept of teleology, which is not
they could have on each other by themselves (each in accordance with its among Kant’s categories or the principles of pure understanding that
fundamental laws) by the great chasm that separates the supersensible ground the fundamental laws of nature. That is why his theoretical
from the appearances” (5:195). philosophy licenses us only in attributing mechanical causation to nature
itself. To this limited extent, Kant is sympathetic to the dominant strain in
One way to understand the problem Kant is articulating here is to consider modern philosophy that banishes final causes from nature and instead
it once again in terms of the crisis of the Enlightenment.[27] The crisis was treats nature as nothing but matter in motion, which can be fully described
that modern science threatened to undermine traditional moral and mathematically. But Kant wants somehow to reconcile this mechanistic
religious beliefs, and Kant’s response is to argue that in fact these essential view of nature with a conception of human agency that is essentially
interests of humanity are consistent with one another when reason is teleological. As we saw in the previous section, Kant holds that every
granted sovereignty and practical reason is given primacy over speculative human action has an end and that the sum of all moral duties is to promote
reason. But the transcendental idealist framework within which Kant the highest good. It is essential to Kant’s approach, however, to maintain
develops this response seems to purchase the consistency of these interests the autonomy of both understanding (in nature) and reason (in morality),

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without allowing either to encroach on the other’s domain, and yet to this principle only regulates our cognition but is not constitutive of nature
harmonize them in a single system. This harmony can be orchestrated only itself, this does not amount to assuming that nature really is the product of
from an independent standpoint, from which we do not judge how nature intelligent design, which according to Kant we are not justified in
is constituted objectively (that is the job of understanding) or how the believing on theoretical grounds. Rather, it amounts only to approaching
world ought to be (the job of reason), but from which we merely regulate nature in the practice of science as if it were designed to be understood by
or reflect on our cognition in a way that enables us to regard it as us. We are justified in doing this because it enables us to discover
systematically unified. According to Kant, this is the task of reflecting empirical laws of nature. But it is only a regulative principle of reflecting
judgment, whose a priori principle is to regard nature as purposive or judgment, not genuine theoretical knowledge, that nature is purposive in
teleological, “but only as a regulative principle of the faculty of cognition” this way.
(5:197).
Second, Kant thinks that aesthetic judgments about both beauty and
7.2 The purposiveness of nature sublimity involve a kind of purposiveness, and that the beauty of nature in
particular suggests to us that nature is hospitable to our ends. According to
In the Critique of the Power of Judgment, Kant discusses four main ways his aesthetic theory, we judge objects to be beautiful not because they
in which reflecting judgment leads us to regard nature as purposive: first, it gratify our desires, since aesthetic judgments are disinterested, but rather
leads us to regard nature as governed by a system of empirical laws; because apprehending their form stimulates what he calls the harmonious
second, it enables us to make aesthetic judgments; third, it leads us to “free play” of our understanding and imagination, in which we take a
think of organisms as objectively purposive; and, fourth, it ultimately distinctively aesthetic pleasure (5:204–207, 217–218, 287). So beauty is
leads us to think about the final end of nature as a whole.[28] not a property of objects, but a relation between their form and the way
our cognitive faculties work. Yet we make aesthetic judgments that claim
First, reflecting judgment enables us to discover empirical laws of nature intersubjective validity because we assume that there is a common sense
by leading us to regard nature as if it were the product of intelligent design that enables all human beings to communicate aesthetic feeling (5:237–
(5:179–186). We do not need reflecting judgment to grasp the a priori laws 240, 293–296). Beautiful art is intentionally created to stimulate this
of nature based on our categories, such as that every event has a cause. But universally communicable aesthetic pleasure, although it is effective only
in addition to these a priori laws nature is also governed by particular, when it seems unintentional (5:305–307). Natural beauty, however, is
empirical laws, such as that fire causes smoke, which we cannot know unintentional: landscapes do not know how to stimulate the free play of
without consulting experience. To discover these laws, we must form our cognitive faculties, and they do not have the goal of giving us aesthetic
hypotheses and devise experiments on the assumption that nature is pleasure. In both cases, then, beautiful objects appear purposive to us
governed by empirical laws that we can grasp (Bxiii–xiv). Reflecting because they give us aesthetic pleasure in the free play of our faculties, but
judgment makes this assumption through its principle to regard nature as they also do not appear purposive because they either do not or do not
purposive for our understanding, which leads us to treat nature as if its seem to do this intentionally. Kant calls this relation between our cognitive
empirical laws were designed to be understood by us (5:180–181). Since faculties and the formal qualities of objects that we judge to be beautiful

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“subjective purposiveness” (5:221). Although it is only subjective, the limitation of the human, discursive intellect, imagine a being with an
purposiveness exhibited by natural beauty in particular may be interpreted intuitive understanding whose thought does not depend, as ours does, on
as a sign that nature is hospitable to our moral interests (5:300). Moreover, receiving sensory information passively, but rather creates the content of
Kant also interprets the experience of sublimity in nature as involving its thought in the act of thinking it. Such a (divine) being could understand
purposiveness. But in this case it is not so much the purposiveness of how a whole can be the cause of its parts, since it could grasp a whole
nature as our own purpose or “vocation” as moral beings that we become immediately without first thinking particulars and then combining them
aware of in the experience of the sublime, in which the size and power of into a whole (5:401–410). Therefore, since we have a discursive intellect
nature stand in vivid contrast to the superior power of our reason (5:257– and cannot know how things would appear to a being with an intuitive
260, 267–269). intellect, and yet we can only think of organisms teleologically, which
excludes mechanism, Kant now says that we must think of both
Third, Kant argues that reflecting judgment enables us to regard living mechanism and teleology only as regulative principles that we need to
organisms as objectively purposive, but only as a regulative principle that explain nature, rather than as constitutive principles that describe how
compensates for our inability to fully understand them mechanistically, nature is intrinsically constituted (5:410ff.).
which reflects the limitations of our cognitive faculties rather than any
intrinsic teleology in nature. We cannot fully understand organisms Fourth, Kant concludes the Critique of the Power of Judgment with a long
mechanistically because they are “self-organizing” beings, whose parts are appendix arguing that reflecting judgment supports morality by leading us
“combined into a whole by being reciprocally the cause and effect of their to think about the final end of nature, which we can only understand in
form” (5:373–374). The parts of a watch are also possible only through moral terms, and that conversely morality reinforces a teleological
their relation to the whole, but that is because the watch is designed and conception of nature. Once it is granted on theoretical grounds that we
produced by some rational being. An organism, by contrast, produces and must understand certain parts of nature (organisms) teleologically,
sustains itself, which is inexplicable to us unless we attribute to organisms although only as a regulative principle of reflecting judgment, Kant says
purposes by analogy with human art (5:374–376). But Kant claims that it we may go further and regard the whole of nature as a teleological system
is only a regulative principle of reflecting judgment to regard organisms in (5:380–381). But we can regard the whole of nature as a teleological
this way, and that we are not justified in attributing objective system only by employing the idea of God, again only regulatively, as its
purposiveness to organisms themselves, since it is only “because of the intelligent designer. This involves attributing what Kant calls external
peculiar constitution of my cognitive faculties [that] I cannot judge about purposiveness to nature – that is, attributing purposes to God in creating
the possibility of those things and their generation except by thinking of a nature (5:425). What, then, is God’s final end in creating nature?
cause for these acts in accordance with intentions” (5:397–398). According to Kant, the final end of nature must be human beings, but only
Specifically, we cannot understand how a whole can be the cause of its as moral beings (5:435, 444–445). This is because only human beings use
own parts because we depend on sensible intuition for the content of our reason to set and pursue ends, using the rest of nature as means to their
thoughts and therefore must think the particular (intuition) first by ends (5:426–427). Moreover, Kant claims that human happiness cannot be
subsuming it under the general (a concept). To see that this is just a the final end of nature, because as we have seen he holds that happiness is

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not unconditionally valuable (5:430–431). Rather, human life has value Kant, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Its individual
not because of what we passively enjoy, but only because of what we volumes are:
actively do (5:434). We can be fully active and autonomous, however, Allison, H., and Heath, P. (eds.), 2002, Theoretical Philosophy
only by acting morally, which implies that God created the world so that after 1781, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
human beings could exercise moral autonomy. Since we also need Ameriks, K., and Naragon, S. (eds.), 1997, Lectures on
happiness, this too may be admitted as a conditioned and consequent end, Metaphysics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
so that reflecting judgment eventually leads us to the highest good (5:436). Förster, E. (ed.), 1993, Opus Postumum, Cambridge: Cambridge
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judgment began. Guyer, P., and Wood, A. (eds.), 1998, Critique of Pure Reason,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Thus Kant argues that although theoretical and practical philosophy Guyer, P. (ed.), 2000, Critique of the Power of Judgment,
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Louden, R., and Wood, A. (eds.), 2013, Lectures on
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of Pure Reason, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. and Hume on morality | Kant, Immanuel: and Leibniz | Kant, Immanuel:
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73–101; reprinted in Kitcher (ed.) 1998, pp. 239–263. philosophy of science | Kant, Immanuel: social and political philosophy |
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Kant, Immanuel: views on space and time | Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm | the Prolegomena (4:372ff.). Both Garve’s original review and the version
metaphysics | Reinhold, Karl Leonhard | Wolff, Christian edited by Feder are translated and discussed in Sassen 2000.

Notes to Immanuel Kant 10. Recent proponents of the two-objects interpretation include Strawson
1966, Aquila 1983, Guyer 1987, Van Cleve 1999, and Jankowiak 2017.
1. The best biography of Kant, on which this section draws, is Kuehn
11. Recent proponents of the two-aspects interpretation include Bird 1962,
2001.
Bird 2006, Prauss 1974, Langton 1998, Allison 2004, and Allais 2015.
2. Kuehn 2001, 38, 44. See also 54.
12. For example, Bxviii–xix, A38–39/B55–56, A42/B59, A247/B303,
3. On Kant’s intellectual development and pre-critical thought, see A490–491/B518–519, and passages about the problematic boundary
Walford and Meerbote 1992, Beiser 1992, Laywine 1993, Schönfeld 2000, concept of noumena in the chapter on Phenomena and Noumena and at the
Kanterian 2018, Allison 2020, and Kant, Immanuel: philosophical end of the Amphiboly.
development.
13. For examples and discussion, see Robinson 1994 and Ameriks 1992.
4. Citations from Kant’s texts refer to volume and page numbers in the See also Allison’s replies in Allison 1996, chapter 1.
Akademie edition (see bibliography), except for references to the Critique
14. For example, see Henrich 1969; Henrich 1976; Ameriks 1978; Guyer
of Pure Reason, which is cited by page numbers in the original first (A)
1987, part II; Guyer 1992; Kitcher 2011; Longuenesse 1998; Longuenesse
and second (B) editions. All quotations from Kant follow, with some
2005, part I; Allison 2004, chapter 7; Bird 2006, chapters 13–16; and
minor alterations, the English translations in The Cambridge Edition of the
Allison 2015. See also Kant, Immanuel: theory of judgment, Kant,
Works of Immanuel Kant (see bibliography).
Immanuel: transcendental arguments, and Kant, Immanuel: view of mind
5. See Gardner 1999, chapters 1-2; and Beiser 2000. and consciousness of self.

6. Bird 2006, 31. 15. See also A116 and Guyer 1987, 132–139.

7. In the Prolegomena, Kant renames it “critical idealism,” but this name 16. In fact, these too are judgments, which in the Prolegomena Kant calls
did not stick (4:293). judgments of perception (4:298–299). But they are judgments about my
subjective states rather than about objects distinct from me. As judgments
8. See also A369, which however occurs only in the first edition. For they have a truth value: it is either true or false that I feel nostalgia when I
further discussion, see Kant, Immanuel: views on space and time. see this house. Kant’s point, however, is that I can make such judgments
about my own subject only if I also make judgments about objects distinct
9. Garve’s original review was drastically shortened, heavily edited, and
from me. Merely subjective judgments of perception are parasitic on
published anonymously by Feder in January, 1782. Kant replied directly in

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objectively valid judgments of experience, because self-consciousness 26. See Wood 1970, chapter 4; Guyer 2000, chapter 10; and Kant,
requires that I place myself in an objective world and refer at least some of Immanuel: philosophy of religion.
my representations to objects distinct from me. See Beck 1978.
27. Rohlf 2008 develops another way of understanding this problem that
17. See A66–83/B91–116, B159, and Longuenesse (2006). emphasizes its moral significance for Kant.

18. Kant calls space, in particular, an “ens imaginarium” or being of the 28. See Ginsborg 1990, Guyer 1997; Allison 2001; Zuckert 2007; and
imagination to emphasize that on his view we are not somehow conscious Kant, Immanuel: aesthetics and teleology.
of the whole of space, which he also describes as “an infinite given
magnitude” (292/B348–349, A25/B39). Rather, we are conscious of space Copyright © 2020 by the author

only to the extent that we represent objects in it, but we must represent Michael Rohlf

objects in a single space and cannot represent any boundaries of space.

See Longuenesse 2005, chapter 3.

19. See Kemp Smith 1923, 2; and Kant, Immanuel: account of reason.

20. See Grier 2001, Rohlf 2010, Willaschek 2018, and Kant, Immanuel:
critique of metaphysics.

21. See Wood 1984, Allison 1990, and Allison 2020. Kant’s important
discussions of freedom include not only the texts cited here from the
Critique of Practical Reason, but also the third antinomy and its resolution
in the Critique of Pure Reason and section III of the Groundwork.

22. For further discussion of Kant’s practical philosophy, see Kant,

Immanuel: moral philosophy, Kant, Immanuel: and Hume on morality,
and Kant, Immanuel: social and political philosophy.

23. See Rohlf 2010.

24. See Beck 1960, 244–45; and Wood 1970, 95–96.

25. See Silber 1959; Wood 1970, 94–95; Reath 1988; and Engstrom 1992,
776–777.

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