The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Dedication
• Preface 1
• Translator’s Preface
• Translator’s Preface to Second Edition
• Introduction [p. 1]
• I: The Idea of Transcendental Philosophy
• II: Division of Transcendental Philosophy
• I: The Elements of Transcendentalism
• Part I: Transcendental Æsthetic [p. 19]
• Section I: Of Space
• Section II: Of Time
• Part II: Transcendental Logic [p. 50]
• Introduction the Idea of a Transcendental Logic
• I: Of Logic In General
• II: Of Transcendental Logic
• III: Of the Division of General Logic Into Analytic and Dialectic
• IV: Of the Division of Transcendental Logic Into Transcendental Analytic and Dialectic
• Division I: Transcendental Analytic In Two Books, With Their Chapters and Sections
• Book I: Analytic of Concepts
• Chapter I: Method of Discovering All Pure Concepts of the Understanding
• Section I: Of the Logical Use of the Understanding In General
• Section II: Of the Logical Function of the Understanding In Judgments [p. 70]
• Section III: Of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding, Or of the Categories
• Chapter II: Of the Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding [p. 84]
• Section I: Of the Principles of a Transcendental Deduction In General
• Section II: Of the a Priori Grounds For the Possibility of Experience
• I: Of the Synthesis of Apprehension In Intuition
• II: Of the Synthesis of Reproduction In Imagination
• III: Of the Synthesis of Recognition In Concepts [p. 103]
• IV: Preliminary Explanation of the Possibility of the Categories As Knowledge a Priori
• Section III: Of the Relation of the Understanding to Objects In General, and the Possibility of Knowing Them a Priori [p. 115]
• Book II: Analytic of Principles
• Introduction of the Transcendental Faculty of Judgment In General
• Chapter I: Of the Schematism of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding [p. 137]
• Chapter II: System of All Principles of the Pure Understanding [p. 148]
• Section I: Of the Highest Principle of All Analytical Judgments
• Section II: Of the Highest Principle of All Synthetical Judgments [p. 154]
• Section III: Systematical Representation of All Synthetical Principles of the Understanding
• I: [of the Axioms of Intuition 1 Principle of the Pure Understanding
• II: [ Anticipations of Perception
• III: [ the Analogies of Experience
• IV: The Postulates of Empirical Thought In General
• Chapter III: On the Ground of Distinction of All Subjects Into Phenomena and Noumena
• I.: Identity and Difference
• II.: Agreement and Opposition
• III.: The Internal and the External
• IV.: Matter and Form
• Note On the Amphiboly of Reflective Concepts
• Division II: Transcendental Dialectic In Two Books, With Their Chapters and Sections [p. 293]
• Introduction: 1.
• Book I: Of the Concepts of Pure Reason [p. 310]
• First Section of Ideas In General
• Second Section of Transcendental Ideas [p. 321]
• Third Section System of Transcendental Ideas [p. 333]
• Book II: Of the Dialectical Conclusions of Pure Reason
• Chapter I: Of the Paralogisms of Pure Reason [p. 341]
• Chapter II: The Antinomy of Pure Reason
• Section I: System of Cosmological Ideas
• Section II: Antithetic of Pure Reason
• Section III: Of the Interest of Reason In These Conflicts [p. 462]
• Section IV: Of the Transcendental Problems of Pure Reason, and the Absolute Necessity of Their Solution
• Section V: Sceptical Representation of the Cosmological Questions In the Four Transcendental Ideas [p. 485]
• Section VI: Transcendental Idealism As the Key to the Solution of Cosmological Dialectic
• Section VII: Critical Decision of the Cosmological Conflict of Reason With Itself
• Section VIII: The Regulative Principle of Pure Reason With Regard to the Cosmological Ideas [p. 508]
• Section IX: Of the Empirical Use of the Regulative Principle of Reason With Regard to All Cosmological Ideas
• Chapter III: The Ideal of Pure Reason
• Section I: Of the Ideal In General
• Section II: Of the Transcendental Ideal ( Prototypon Transcendentale )
• Section III: Of the Arguments of Speculative Reason In Proof of the Existence of a Supreme Being
• Section IV: Of the Impossibility of an Ontological Proof of the Existence of God [p. 592]
• Section V: Of the Impossibility of a Cosmological Proof of the Existence of God [p. 603]
• Section VI: Of the Impossibility of the Physico-theological Proof
• Section VII: Criticism of All Theology Based On Speculative Principles of Reason [p. 631]
• Chapter I: The Discipline of Pure Reason
• Section I: The Discipline of Pure Reason In Its Dogmatical Use
• Section II: The Discipline of Pure Reason In Its Polemical Use
• Section III: The Discipline of Pure Reason With Regard to Hypotheses
• Section IV: The Discipline of Pure Reason With Regard to Its Proofs
• Chapter II: The Canon of Pure Reason [p. 795]
• First Section: of the Ultimate Aim of the Pure Use of Our Reason
• Section II: Of the Ideal of the Summum Bonum As Determining the Ultimate Aim of Pure Reason
• Section III: Of Trowing, Knowing, and Believing [p. 820]
• Chapter III: The Architectonic of Pure Reason [p. 832]
• Chapter IV: The History of Pure Reason [p. 852]
• Supplement I: Motto to Second Edition
• Supplement II: Preface to the Second Edition. 1787. [p. Vii]
• Supplement III: Supplement Iv
• Supplement V
• Supplement Vi
• Supplement V
• Supplement Vi
• Supplement Vii
• Supplement Viii
• Supplement Ix
• Supplement X
• Supplement Xi
• Supplement Xii
• Supplement Xiii
• Supplement Xiv
• Supplement Xv
• Supplement Xvi a
• Supplement Xvi B
• Supplement Xvii
• Supplement Xviii
• Supplement Xix
• Supplement Xx
• Supplement Xxi
• Supplement Xxii
• Supplement Xxiii
• Supplement Xxiv
• Supplement Xxv
• Supplement Xxvi
• Supplement Xxvii
• Supplement Xxviii

Section I

Of the Ideal in General

We have seen that without the conditions of sensibility, it is impossible to represent objects by means of the pure concepts of the understanding, because the conditions of their objective reality are absent, and they contain the mere form of thought only. If, however, we apply these concepts to phenomena, they can be represented in concreto, because in the phenomena they have the material for forming concepts of experience, which are nothing but concepts of the understanding in concreto. Ideas, however, are still further removed from objective reality than the categories, because they can meet with no phenomenon in which they could be represented in concreto. They contain a certain completeness unattainable by any [p. 568] possible empirical knowledge, and reason aims in them at a systematical unity only, to which the empirically possible unity is to approximate, without ever fully reaching it.

Still further removed from objective reality than the Idea, would seem to be what I call the Ideal, by which I mean the idea, not only in concreto, but in individuo, that is, an individual thing determinable or even determined by the idea alone.

Humanity (as an idea), in its complete perfection, implies not only all essential qualities belonging to human nature, which constitute our concept of it, enlarged to a degree of complete agreement with the highest aims that would represent our idea of perfect humanity, but everything also which, beside this concept, is required for the complete determination of the idea. For of all contradictory predicates one only can agree with the idea of the most perfect man. What to us is an ideal, was in Plato’s language an Idea of a divine mind, an individual object present to its pure intuition, the most perfect of every kind of possible beings, and the archetype of all phenomenal copies.

Without soaring so high, we have to admit [p. 569] that human reason contains not only ideas, but ideals also, which though they have not, like those of Plato, creative, yet have certainly practical power (as regulative principles), and form the basis of the possible perfection of certain acts. Moral concepts are not entirely pure concepts of reason, because they rest on something empirical, pleasure or pain. Nevertheless, with regard to the principle by which reason imposes limits on freedom, which in itself is without laws, these moral concepts (with regard to their form at least) may well serve as examples of pure concepts of reason. Virtue and human wisdom in its perfect purity are ideas, while the wise man (of the Stoics) is an ideal, that is, a man existing in thought only, but in complete agreement with the idea of wisdom. While the idea gives rules, the ideal serves as the archetype for the permanent determination of the copy; and we have no other rule of our actions but the conduct of that divine man within us, with which we compare ourselves, and by which we judge and better ourselves, though we can never reach it. These ideals, though they cannot claim objective reality (existence), are not therefore to be considered as mere chimeras, but supply reason with an indispensable standard, because it requires the concept of that which is perfect of its kind, in order to estimate and [p. 570] measure by it the degree and the number of the defects in the imperfect. To attempt to realise the ideal in an example, that is, as a real phenomenon, as we might represent a perfectly wise man in a novel, is impossible, nay, absurd, and but little encouraging, because the natural limits, which are constantly interfering with the perfection in the idea, make all illusion in such an experiment impossible, and thus render the good itself in the idea suspicious and unreal.

This is the case with the ideal of reason, which must always rest on definite concepts, and serve as rule and model, whether for imitation or for criticism. The case is totally different with those creations of our imagination of which it is impossible to give an intelligible concept, or say anything, — which are in fact a kind of monogram, consisting of single lines without any apparent rule, a vague outline rather of different experiences than a definite image, such as painters and physiognomists pretend to carry in their heads, and of which they speak as a kind of vague shadow only of their creations and criticisms that can never be communicated to others. They may be termed, though improperly, ideals of sensibility, because they are meant to be the never-attainable model of possible empirical intuitions, and yet furnish no rule capable of being explained or examined. [p. 571]

In its ideal, on the contrary, reason aims at a perfect determination, according to rules a priori, and it conceives an object throughout determinable according to principles, though without the sufficient conditions of experience, so that the concept itself is transcendent.