10.7 Kant — «Critik der reinen Vernunft» (preface of 1781) — Epoché
What you will be able to do Read the preface to the first edition of Immanuel Kant's Critik der reinen Vernunft (1781), almost complete: reason's strange fate, the decline of metaphysics, the court of reason, and Kant's promises of completeness, certainty and clarity. Follow the hardest kind of German sentence: a long period with several levels of subordinate clauses, read from the main clause outwards. Recognise an argument carried by one extended image: metaphysics as a queen, her rule, her civil wars, her exile and her trial. Read the spellings of 1781: kan , iede , Erkentniß , Gränze , and vor where today one writes für . Sentences from this text, before the notes. Read the German aloud; all of them come back below. German English Die menschliche Vernunft hat das besondere Schicksal in einer Gattung ihrer Erkentnisse: Human reason has a peculiar fate in one kind of its knowledge: daß sie durch Fragen belästigt wird, die sie nicht abweisen kan; that it is troubled by questions which it cannot dismiss; Dadurch aber stürzt sie sich in Dunkelheit und Widersprüche, But in this way it plunges into darkness and contradictions, keinen Probierstein der Erfahrung mehr anerkennen. no longer recognise any touchstone of experience. Es ist nemlich umsonst, Gleichgültigkeit in Ansehung solcher Nachforschungen erkünsteln zu wollen, For it is useless to try to feign indifference towards such inquiries, einen Gerichtshof einzusetzen, to set up a court, Prerequisites : 10.6 — you have read Kant's Was ist Aufklärung? in 10.3 Argument ; you need the vocabulary of philosophy from 5.18 Vocabulary and the subjunctive from 2.36 Grammar . About this text Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) spent his whole life in Königsberg in East Prussia and taught at its university from 1755 to 1796. After more than ten years of silence he published in 1781 the Critik der reinen Vernunft , Critique of Pure Reason , the book that divides the history of modern philosophy into before and after. Its question is what reason can know independently of all experience, a priori , and where the limits of such knowledge lie. The book is famous for its difficulty; even Kant's contemporaries complained. The preface, however, is one of the most readable parts: Kant explains why the book was necessary and what it promises. The text here is the preface to the first edition of 1781, about 2,500 words, as transcribed in German Wikisource. It is complete except for its last paragraph, a note on misprints, and a footnote. In 1787 Kant wrote a new and longer preface for the second edition; English translations usually print both, as the A and B prefaces. Kant quotes two Latin poets: Ovid, where Hecuba, once the greatest of queens, laments her exile, and Persius, live with yourself, and you will know how poor your household is . The plan Paragraphs Kant's step Key words 1–2 Reason's fate: it is troubled by questions it can neither dismiss nor answer. Starting from experience, it rises to principles beyond all experience and falls into darkness and contradictions. Their battlefield is metaphysics. Schicksal , Widersprüche , Kampfplatz 3–4 Metaphysics, once queen of the sciences, is now despised like the exiled Hecuba. The dogmatists ruled as despots, the sceptics wandered like nomads, Locke's physiology of the understanding failed, and now indifference reigns. Königin , Dogmatiker , Sceptiker , Indifferentism 5–6 The indifference is a sign of the mature judgement of the age, which demands that reason know itself and set up a court: the critique of pure reason, not of books, but of the faculty of reason itself. Gerichtshof , Selbsterkentniß 7–9 Kant claims completeness: no metaphysical question should remain unsolved, or at least without the key to its solution. He expects the reader's contempt for this claim, and answers that it is far more modest than the claim of any author of a common school programme who sets out to prove the simple nature of the soul or a first beginning of the world. Vollständigkeit 10–12 Certainty: in such an inquiry no opinion is allowed; anything like a hypothesis is contraband. Kant points to the deduction of the concepts of the understanding and distinguishes its objective side, which matters most, from its subjective side. Gewißheit , Hypothese , Deduction 13 Clarity: the reader may ask for clarity through concepts and through examples. Kant has left out examples for the sake of length, and quotes Terrasson: many a book would be much shorter if it were not so short. Deutlichkeit 14–15 Metaphysics is the only science that can be completed, an inventory of all we possess through pure reason. Kant promises a Metaphysik der Natur to follow, and asks the reader for the patience of a judge. Inventarium , System The extended image. Kant's history of metaphysics in paragraphs 3 and 4 is told as the history of a kingdom: a queen, despotic rule under the dogmatists, civil wars and anarchy, nomadic sceptics who abhor all settled farming and break up civil society, a false genealogy, and at the end exhaustion and indifference. In paragraph 5 the image changes from politics to law: reason must set up a court that protects its just claims and dismisses groundless ones, not by decree but by its own eternal laws. The title of the book names this court. Worked example A close reading of the first sentence, the most famous in the book. Die menschliche Vernunft hat das besondere Schicksal in einer Gattung ihrer Erkentnisse: The main clause comes first and ends with a colon, Kant's sign that an explanation follows. Schicksal , fate , presents reason almost as a tragic hero. daß sie durch Fragen belästigt wird, die sie nicht abweisen kan; The daß clause gives the fate; inside it a relative clause describes the questions. Read the levels: fate, questions, which reason cannot dismiss. denn sie sind ihr durch die Natur der Vernunft selbst aufgegeben, The reason why reason cannot dismiss them: they are set by its own nature. Note the pronouns: sie are