Second Part of Intro to the Critique of Pure Reason

1. What is Kant's perspective on "dogmatist promises"? What is a dogmatist? Why do you think Kant may have an issue with their perspective?

2. What are the two indispensable conditions? Do you agree that these two things are indispensable?

3. At the bottom of p. 8, Kant talks about prior investigations and that they had "two sides". Explain his prior investigations into pure reason. What were the issues? Were there any conclusions?

4. Explain/describe the moment when Kant became "aware of the magnitude of my task". What did he realize?

5. How does Kant define and describe Metaphysics in this second reading? How are Reason and Metaphysics related to one another?

6 Write a 6-7 sentence summary of this quote- it is one of the most important ones from the CPR.
"Up to now it has been assumed that all our cognition must conform to the objects; but all attempts to find out something about them a priori through concepts that would extend our cognition have, on this presupposition, come to nothing. Hence let us once try whether we do not get farther with the problems of metaphysics by assuming that the objects must conform to our cognition, which would agree better with the requested possibility of an a priori cognition of them, which is to establish something about objects before they are given to us. This would be just like the first thoughts of Copernicus, who, when he did not make good progress in the explanation of the celestial motions if he assumed that the entire celestial host revolves around the observer, tried to see if he might not have greater success if he made the observer revolve and left the stars at rest. Now in metaphysics we can try in a similar way regarding the intuition of objects. If intuition has to conform to the constitution of the objects, then I do not see how we can know anything of them a priori; but if the object (as an object of the senses) conforms to the constitution of our faculty of intuition, then I can very well represent this possibility to myself. Yet because I cannot stop with these intuitions, if they are to become cognitions, but must refer them as representations to something as their object and determine this object through them, I can assume either that the concepts through which I bring about this determination also conform to the objects, and then I am once again in the same difficulty about how I could know anything about them a priori, or else I assume that the objects, or what is the same thing, the experience in which alone they can be cognized (as given objects) conforms to those concepts, in which case I immediately see an easier way out of the difficulty, since experience itself is a kind of cognition requiring the understanding, whose rule I have to presuppose in myself before any object is given to me, hence a priori, which rule is expressed in concepts a priori, to which all objects of experience must therefore necessarily conform, and with which they must agree. "

Questions from the Critique of Pure Reason

  

1.       Put Slide #5 into your own words.

2.       Desc. Difficulty Reason falls into on pp. 3-4. Do you agree? Why/WN?

3.       How does Kant describe Metaphys.’ Evolution on pp. 4-5. What is the current state of Metaphys, IKO.

4.       Explain K’s “critical investigation of pure reason” starting on top of p.6

5.       Put the last full paragraph on pp. 5-6 into your own words. This should be 7-8 sentences. This is where the thesis of the entire work starts to unfold.

Two Page Paper

PAPERS NOW HAVE A DEADLINE OF MARCH 13th- we do not have class on the 13th, but, you can hand them into me by coming to my office. 

After reading the handout (also available on the Edline page), you are going to write a 2 page paper (double spaced, 12 pt Times New Roman font) on a topic of your choosing based on the reading. 

The paper is to be objective- no use of "I".

An "easy" way to generate a topic would be to choose a philosopher we have studied and compare and contrast. 

This paper is due in class on March 11th. Papers should be printed out and handed in hard copy. 

PAPERS NOW HAVE A DEADLINE OF MARCH 13th- we do not have class on the 13th, but, you can hand them into me by coming to my office.