Prolegomena to any future metaphysics that will be able to come forward as science, with Kant's letter to Marcus Herz, February 27, 1772 / the Paul Carus translation extensively rev. by James W. Ellington

160 Pages·2001·0.61 MB·English

by  Kant

Immanuel Kant
Prolegomena
to Any Future
Metaphysics
Second Edition
and the
Letter to Marcus Herz, February 1772
Translated, with Introduction
and Notes, by
James W. Ellington
PROLEGOMENA

Immanuel Kant
PROLEGOMENA
To Any Future Metaphysics
That Will Be Able to
Come Forward as Science
with
Kant’s Letter to Marcus Herz
February 27, 1772
Second Edition
The Paul Carus Translation
extensively revised by
James W. Ellington
Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
Indianapolis/Cambridge
Copyright © 1977 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
New material copyright © 2001 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kant, Immanuel, 1724–1804.
[Prolegomena. English]
Prolegomena to any future metaphysics that will be able to come
forward as science with Kant’s letter to Marcus Herz, February 27, 1772 :
the Paul Carus translation / Immanuel Kant ; extensively rev. by James W.
Ellington.—2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-87220-594-0—ISBN 0-8722-593-2 (paper)
1. Metaphysics. 2. Knowledge, Theory of. I. Ellington, James W.
(James Wesley), 1927– . II. Title.
B2787.E5 C3 2001
110—dc21 2001016882
ISBN-13: 978-0-87220-594-9 (cloth)
ISBN-13: 978-0-87220-593-2 (pbk.)
Adobe PDF ebook ISBN: 978-1-60384-453-6
CONTENTS
Preface vii
Introduction ix
Selected Bibliography xvi
Note on the Text xvii
PROLEGOMENA TO ANY FUTURE METAPHYSICS
Preface 1
Preamble on the Peculiarities of All
Metaphysical Cognition 9
First Part of the Main Transcendental Question
How Is Pure Mathematics Possible? 23
Second Part of the Main Transcendental Question
How Is Pure Natural Science Possible? 35
Appendix to Pure Natural Science 60
Third Part of the Main Transcendental Question
How Is Metaphysics in General Possible? 64
Conclusion
On the Determination of the Bounds of Pure Reason 85
Solution of the General Question of the Prolegomena
“How Is Metaphysics Possible as Science?” 99
Appendix
On What Can Be Done to Make Metaphysics as
a Science Actual 105
A Specimen of a Judgment about the Critique Prior
to Its Examination 105
Proposals as to an Investigation of the Critique upon
Which a Judgment May Follow 112
Supplement
Kant’s Letter to Marcus Herz, February 21, 1772 117
German-English List of Terms 123
Index 129

PREFACE
This edition of the Prolegomena includes a letter that Immanuel
Kant wrote to his friend Marcus Herz in 1772, in which he points
out that in his Inaugural Dissertation entitled On the Form and
PrinciplesoftheSensibleandtheIntelligibleWorld(thathedelivered
in 1770 and that procured for him a position at the University of
Ko¨nigsberg) he had characterized intellectual representations (or
rationalconcepts)merelynegatively:humanthoughtpossessescon-
cepts not brought about by the objects that such concepts purport
to present to the mind—that is, there are thoughts that are a priori
(e.g.,ourmathematicalconcepts)andarenotaposteriori(orempiri-
cal).Healsosaysthatheisreadytotakeanextstepthatwillpropel
himintowhathecallstheCriticalPhilosophy.Thecruxofhisnew
philosophy is this: What assurance do we have that our a priori
(rational) thoughts have in reality a relation to objects that exist
apart from us? And how is one to determine which of our rational
thoughtsarerealandwhicharefictitious?Inthecaseofoursensible
(a posteriori) thoughts regarding colors, odors, flavors, and so forth,
thequestionastorealityisnoproblem;suchthoughtsareproduced
by the action of external objects upon our awareness. But in the
caseof ourrationalthinking, howismy intellectitself toconstitute
entirely a priori concepts of things with which the things must
necessarily agree? And how is the mind to lay out real principles
regarding the possibility of things such that our experience must
truly agree with these principles even though such principles are
independent of immediate and particular sensations?
Thesolutiontothiscrucialproblemdidnotcomeuntilthe1780s,
whenKantpublishedtheCritiqueofPureReason.Thereheclaims
that pure (rational) forms of thought synthesize (or make) valid
experienceforusbycombiningsenseperceptionsintoarealwhole.
Forexample,atB128–129hesaysthis:Thefunctionofthecategori-
cal judgment is the relation of subject to predicate (S is P). In the
judgment ‘All bodies are divisible’ there is no determination from
theviewpointofpurelyformallogicastowhichofthetwoconcepts
(‘bodies’ and ‘divisible’) is to be assigned the function of subject
and which is to be assigned that of predicate, inasmuch as one
mightalsosay‘Somethingdivisibleisabody’.Butwhentheconcept
of body is brought under the category (pure concept) of substance,
vii
viii EDITOR’SPREFACE
a determination is thereby made that the sense perception of the
bodyinrealexperiencemustalwaysberegardedassubjectbutnever
aspredicate.Inthiswaythepureconcept(category)of‘substance’(as
form) determines how the parts (‘bodies’ and ‘divisible’) are to be
combined(synthesized)intoawholeofcognition(objectiveknowl-
edge).And,thus,aprioriformsofthoughtmakeobjectiveexperience
oftheworldforus,butsenseperceptionsalonewithoutthesynthesiz-
ingactivityofpureformsofthoughtdonotprovideuswithobjective
experience of the world.
Many readers of the Critique of Pure Reason (first published in
1781) found it to be a tough nut to crack (and many still do). To
alleviate this situation to a degree, Kant wrote the Prolegomena to
AnyFutureMetaphysics(publishedin1783).Thehopehereisthat
readingthisworkwillprovidesomelightontheCriticalPhilosophy,
which many consider to be one of the most profound systems ever
to appear in the republic of letters.
James W. Ellington
University of Connecticut
Storrs
INTRODUCTION
Kant’s philosophical excogitations culminated in three grand
booksentitledCritiqueofPureReason,CritiqueofPracticalReason,
and Critique of Judgment. The areas covered by these books corre-
spondroughlytothoseareasdesignatedbyAristotleasthetheoretical,
practical(moralandpolitical),andproductive(aesthetic).Allthree
books are quite technical and difficult; but none of them “fell
deadborn from the press,” as Hume said had been the fate of his
grand book entitled A Treatise of Human Nature. To remedy this
unfortunate state of affairs, Hume popularized the doctrines of his
Treatise intwo otherbooks entitledAn InquiryConcerning Human
UnderstandingandAnInquiryConcerningthePrinciplesofMorals.
Kant did not exactly popularize his first two Critiques when he
composed two shorter works entitled Prolegomena to Any Future
MetaphysicsandGroundingfortheMetaphysicsofMorals,butthese
booksdoserveasintroductionsofsortstothefirsttwocritiquesand
are very likely the most widely read of all Kant’s works.
TowardtheendofthePrefaceoftheProlegomena,Kantcautions
that this work is properly a sequel to the Critique of Pure Reason,
inasmuch as the former affords the reader a compact overall view
of the latter and is written in a manner that makes the doctrines of
the Critique more accessible than they are in the Critique itself.
This is to say that in case a reading of the Critique has given one
largely a view of the trees, a reading of the Prolegomena may help
give one a view of the forest. In spite of Kant’s warning, much can
be learned about the Kantian epistemology and metaphysics from
a careful reading of the Prolegomena before one plunges into the
intricaciesoftheCritiqueorevenifonenevertakesthatplungeatall.
The Prolegomena is based on an analytical method of exposition
whichproceedsregressivelyfromconditionedtocondition,whereas
theCritiqueisbasedonasyntheticalmethodthatproceedsprogres-
sivelyfromconditiontoconditioned. IntheProlegomenaonestarts
withsomeuncontestedpureknowledge(e.g.,arithmeticandgeome-
try)andneedsnotinquireastowhethersuchknowledgeispossible,
since it is already actual, but needs to inquire only as to how such
knowledge is possible (because time and space are given as pure
intuitions). In other words, the apriority of time and space is estab-
lished merely by the fact that arithmetic and geometry do already
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