Critique of Pure Reason

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1781

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prefaces and Introduction

Part I: “Transcendental Aesthetic”

Part II: “Transcendental Logic,” Book I, Chapter I

Part II: “Transcendental Logic,” Book I, Chapter II

Part II: “Transcendental Logic,” Book II, Chapters I-II

Part II: “Transcendental Logic,” Book II, Chapter III

Part II: “Transcendental Logic,” Division II, Books I-II, Chapter I

Part II: “Transcendental Logic,” Division II, Book II, Chapter II

Part II: “Transcendental Logic,” Division II, Book II, Chapter III

Transcendental Doctrine of the Method

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Transcendental Doctrine of the MethodChapter Summaries & Analyses

Transcendental Doctrine of the Method Summary

The “Transcendental Doctrine of the Method” forms the second of the two most general sections of the Critique of Pure Reason, but its scope and function are limited compared to the “Doctrine of the Elements.”

In this section, Kant discusses the discipline, canon, “architectonic,” and history of pure reason. The discipline of pure reason is the aspect of the method through which the philosopher learns to constrain and restrain reason within certain rules of thought so that it does not venture into absurd and mistaken illusion. The task of discipline is to prevent error more than anything else. Kant takes pains to distinguish the discipline of reason in philosophy from mathematics and emphasizes the failure of mathematics as a reasonable standard for philosophical inquiry. Kant also discusses the value of skepticism in moving the work of reason forward through constantly forcing it to answer skeptical claims. The use of hypotheticals in the discipline of reason is also restricted. The final section of the discipline of reason concerns rules for the nature of proofs. Proofs must conform to specific rules to be transcendentally appropriate and comprehensible.

The next chapter of the doctrine of the method is the canon of pure reason. “By canon,” Kant writes, “ I mean the sum of a priori principles governing the correct use of certain cognitive powers” (729). The transcendental analytic for instance, is the canon of the understanding. Kant says there can be no canon of speculative reason, but there is a canon of practical reason. This includes the “ultimate purpose” of the canon of practical reason is the interest of humanity (730). There are three objects of reason to which this purpose is oriented: free will, the soul and its immortality, and God. Moral laws are in the canon of pure practical reason. Kant writes that there are only “two questions, which concern the practical interest of pure reason” (734). These concern the existence of God and the possibility of a life after death. However, all of reason’s interests (speculative and practical together) can be outlined in three fundamental questions:

1. What knowledge is possible?

2. What should I do?

3. What future ought I hope for?

Kant writes that reason demands the approach to systematic unity, both theoretically and practically. The ideal of the highest good helps orient this search for unity. He distinguishes between opinion, knowledge, and faith. Faith is necessary regarding the objects of pure reason, like God and the soul. The “architectonic” concerns the “art of systems,” or the skill of composing systematic unity. Kant ends with a very brief sketch of the history of reason.

Transcendental Doctrine of the Method Analysis

Kant introduces the doctrine of the method using an analogy with the doctrine on the method: “In the transcendental doctrine of elements we assessed the building equipment available to us, and determined for what edifice–and for what height and firmness thereof–the equipment suffices…Here we are concerned not so much with the materials, as rather with the plan” (663). In other words, Kant spent most of the Critique discovering and investigating the materials needed for the project of pure reason. Now he is outlining the blueprint for the correct usage of those materials: “Hence by transcendental doctrine of method I mean the determination of the formal conditions of a complete system of pure reason” (664). Both the elements and the method are necessary for the proper fortification and composition of the critique and the advancement of transcendental philosophy more generally.

The two most substantial subsections of the method are the discipline and the canon of pure reason, and they serve opposite but equally necessary functions in the development of the method. The discipline of pure reason outlines the specific ways in which reason ought to act to properly understand itself. It should not imitate the method of mathematics or natural science but must find its own path. Hence, the discipline is imposed to limit and restrain reason within the boundaries of a set of rules for its proper employment. In short, it has a useful negative function: It articulates what reason ought not to do in its transcendental use. The positive contributions of reason are gathered in the canon of pure reason.

One of the most essential aspects of the canon is its development of the importance of practical reason for the future of the Kantian project. In these final chapters Kant is justifying the method that he used throughout the book and revealing the path forward in the advancement of his philosophy, especially moral philosophy.

Practical reason is concerned with a few essential objects of reason that have been of continuous importance to Kant throughout the transcendental dialectic. However, as opposed to the transcendental dialectic in which no good answers can ever be provided for the dubious reality of these objects, in the canon of pure reason Kant shows that they must be accepted on faith. These include the freedom of the will, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of God. They are imperative for the development of the ideal of the highest good of human beings, beyond which there is no higher good.

Beyond all the technical discussions of the nature of human faculties of the mind for the possible cognition of objects, Kant is always concerned with practical matters, i.e., with the good toward which humans can aspire. Reason and faith are supposedly reconciled in this project. We do not abandon reason for faith, nor do we abandon faith for reason. Instead, reason and faith go hand in hand as is proven through the limitations of speculative (theoretical) reason, the requirements of practical reason, and the ideal of the highest good.