Critique of Pure Reason

German philosopher Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason is one of the most influential texts in the history of modern philosophy. Situated in the intellectual milieu of 18th century Europe, the Critique of Pure Reason is a philosophical document of the Age of Enlightenment and offers an answer to the philosophical debates of its day touching on metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical inquiries. Written in 1781 and substantially revised in 1787, Kant’s Critique inaugurated a philosophical tradition now known as German Idealism, which includes such other German luminaries as Fichte, Schelling, and, most notably, Hegel.

Among other things, the Critique of Pure Reason functions as a sustained introduction to Kant’s philosophy of critical idealism, a system of ideas that seeks to determine the limits of metaphysical knowledge via a “science” of human reason. It is the business of the critique to set determinant boundaries to all possible knowledge through an investigation into the nature of human experience. This is part of a larger Kantian project known as transcendental idealism, a philosophy that seeks the necessary conditions for the possibility of objective reality by investigating the powers of the human mind.

The Critique of Pure Reason is the first of three critiques. The second,

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