Preview
The Critique of Pure Reason is the most important work of philosophy written in modern times. ‘The background of Kant's thought’ presents, with as few technicalities as possible, an explanation of what Kant was trying to achieve in this work. The first question to ask is: what are the questions that Kant hoped to answer? The most important problem that confronted him was the notion of objective knowledge. Kant's aim was firstly to show that synthetic a priori knowledge is possible, and to offer examples; and secondly, it was to demonstrate that ‘pure reason’ alone, operating outside the constraints placed on it by experience, leads only to illusion, so that there is no a priori knowledge of ‘things-in-themselves’.
Keywords: St Thomas Aquinas; Boethius; Christian; Critique of Pure Reason; empiricism; Enlightenment; David Hume; positivism; rationalism; science; substance
Chapter. 3950 words. Illustrated.
Subjects: History of Western Philosophy ; 17th - 18th Century Philosophy ; Christianity ; Political Theory
Go to Very Short Introductions » abstract
Full text: subscription required
How to subscribe Recommend to my Librarian
Buy this work at Oxford University Press »
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content. Please, subscribe or login to access all content.