A Commentary to Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason'

by Norman Kemp Smith

In asserting the goodness and self-sufficiency of our natural impulses Rousseau is the spokesman of a philosophy which has dominated social and political theory since his day, and which is still prevalent. This philosophy, in Kant’s view, is disastrous in its consequences. As a reading of human nature and of our moral vocation, it is hardly less false than the Epicurean teaching, which finds in the pursuit of pleasure the motive of all our actions. A naturalistic ethics, in either form, is incapacitated, by the very nature of its controlling assumptions, from appreciating the distinguishing features of the moral consciousness. Neither the successes nor the failures of man’s spiritual endeavour can be rightly understood from any such standpoint. The human race, in its endurance and tenacity, in its dauntless courage and in its soaring spirit, reveals the presence of a prevenient influence, non-natural in character; and only if human nature be taken as including this higher, directive power, can it assume to itself the eulogy which Rousseau so mistakenly passes upon the natural and undisciplined tendencies of the human heart. For as history demonstrates, while men are weak, humanity is marvellous.

“There is one thing in our soul which, when we take a right view of it, we cannot cease to regard with the highest astonishment, and in regard to which admiration is right and indeed elevating, and that is our original moral capacity in general.... Even the incomprehensibility of this capacity,[61] a capacity which proclaims a Divine origin, must rouse man’s spirit to enthusiasm and strengthen it for any sacrifices which respect for his duty may impose on him.”[62]

We are not here concerned with the detail of Kant’s ethical teaching, or with the manner in which he establishes the freedom of the will, and justifies belief in the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. In many respects his argument lies open to criticism. There is an unhappy contrast between the largeness of his fundamental thesis and the formal, doctrinaire manner in which it is developed. Indeed, in the Critique of Practical Reason the individualist, deistic, rationalistic modes of thinking of his time are much more in evidence than in any other of his chief writings; and incidentally he also displays a curious insensibility—again characteristic of his period—to all that is specific in the religious attitude. But when due allowances have been made, we can still maintain that in resting his constructive views upon the supreme value of the moral personality Kant has influenced subsequent philosophy in hardly less degree than by his teaching in the Critique of Pure Reason.[63]

The two Critiques, in method of exposition and argument, in general outcome, and indeed in the total impression they leave upon the mind, are extraordinarily different. In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant is meticulously scrupulous in testing the validity of each link in his argument. Constantly he retraces his steps; and in many of his chief problems he halts between competing solutions. Kant’s sceptical spirit is awake, and it refuses to cease from its questionings. In the Critique of Practical Reason, on the other hand, there is an austere simplicity of argument, which advances, without looking to right or left, from a few simple principles direct to their ultimate consequences. The impressiveness of the first Critique consists in its appreciation of the complexity of the problems, and in the care with which their various, conflicting aspects are separately dealt with. The second Critique derives its force from the fundamental conviction upon which it is based.

Such, then, stated in the most general terms, is the manner in which Kant conceives the Critique of Pure Reason as contributing to the establishment of a humanistic philosophy. It clears the ground for the practical Reason, and secures it in the autonomous control of its own domain. While preserving to the intellect and to science certain definitely prescribed rights, Kant places in the forefront of his system the moral values; and he does so under the conviction that in living up to the opportunities, in whatever rank of life, of our common heritage, we obtain a truer and deeper insight into ultimate issues than can be acquired through the abstruse subtleties of metaphysical speculation.

I may again draw attention to the consequences which follow from Kant’s habitual method of isolating his problems. Truth is a value of universal jurisdiction, and from its criteria the judgments of moral and other values can claim no exemption. Existences and values do not constitute independent orders. They interpenetrate, and neither can be adequately dealt with apart from the considerations appropriate to the other. In failing to co-ordinate his problems, Kant has over-emphasised the negative aspects of his logical enquiries and has formulated his ethical doctrines in a needlessly dogmatic form.

These defects are, however, in some degree remedied in the last of his chief works, the Critique of Judgment. In certain respects it is the most interesting of all Kant’s writings. The qualities of both the earlier Critiques here appear in happy combination, while in addition his concrete interests are more in evidence, to the great enrichment of his abstract argument. Many of the doctrines of the Critique of Pure Reason, especially those that bear on the problems of teleology, are restated in a less negative manner, and in their connection with the kindred problems of natural beauty and the fine arts. For though the final decision in all metaphysical questions is still reserved to moral considerations, Kant now takes a more catholic view of the field of philosophy. He allows, though with characteristic reservations, that the empirical evidence obtainable through examination of the broader features of our total experience is of genuinely philosophical value, and that it can safely be employed to amplify and confirm the independent convictions of the moral consciousness. The embargo which in the Critique of Pure Reason, in matters metaphysical, is placed upon all tentative and probable reasoning is thus tacitly removed; and the term knowledge again acquires the wider meaning very properly ascribed to it in ordinary speech.

A COMMENTARY TO KANT’S “CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON”

TITLE: KRITIK DER REINEN VERNUNFT

THE term critique or criticism, as employed by Kant, is of English origin. It appears in seventeenth and eighteenth century English, chiefly in adjectival form, as a literary and artistic term—for instance, in the works of Pope, who was Kant’s favourite English poet. Kant was the first to employ it in German, extending it from the field of aesthetics to that of general philosophy. A reference in Kant’s Logic[64] to Home’s Elements of Criticism[65] would seem to indicate that it was Home’s use of the term which suggested to him its wider employment. “Critique of pure reason,” in its primary meaning, signifies the passing of critical judgments upon pure reason. In this sense Kant speaks of his time as “the age of criticism (Zeitalter der Kritik).” Frequently, however, he takes the term more specifically as meaning a critical investigation leading to positive as well as to negative results. Occasionally, especially in the Dialectic, it also signifies a discipline applied to pure reason, limiting it within due bounds. The first appearance of the word in Kant’s writings is in 1765 in the Nachricht[66] of his lectures for the winter term 1765-1766. Kant seldom employs the corresponding adjective, critical (kritisch). His usual substitute for it is the term transcendental.