The Journal of Speculative Philosophy

It is intended as a vehicle for such translations, commentaries, and original articles
as will best promote the interests of Speculative Philosophy in all its departments.

TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION:

Three dollars per volume; single number, 75 cents. Vols. I and II, bound in one

volume, in muslin, will be sent by mail for $5.00. Volumes III to XIII, in muslin,

$3.00 each. Back volumes (unbound) may be had at $2.00 per volume. To English

subscribers the price is 16s per volume, 4s per number. All foreign subscribers

should order through Messrs. Trübner & Co., 57 Ludgate Hill, London. All sub-

scriptions (within the United States) should be addressed to the Editor,

WM. T. HARRIS, Box 2398, St. Louis, Mo.

N. B.-Green muslin covers for binding the JOURNAL can be had at 40 cents each (including
postage). Any one sending for covers should specify which volume he wishes to bind, inas-
much as the ninth is thicker than the others. Volumes I and II, bound together, are

KANT'S CRITIC OF PURE REASON, CRITICISED
AND EXPLAINED BY HIMSELF.

[TRANSLATED FROM KANT'S APPENDIX TO HIS PROLEGOMENA.]

BY A. E. KROEGER.

Since all the methods heretofore pursued to constitute Metaphysics a real science have proved fruitless, and since it is most likely that such endeavors will never be realized unless a preliminary Criticism of Pure Reason1 be established, it seems to be not an unfair request that the attempt to estab

1 "Science of Knowledge." [The translator desires to remark that the term Critik der reinen Vernunft is literally translated Criticism of Pure Reason, and that the words "Pure Reason" signify, in Kant's terminology, the purely intellectual faculty of the human mind, to the exclusion of the moral faculty, which Kant treats in his Critic of Practical Reason, and also of the faculty of judgment, which he treats in his Critic of that name. Those three critics go together, and constitute one great work, a fact that should not be lost sight of. The following article, wherein Kant, in vigorous and unmistakable language, declares the real drift of his Critic of Pure Reason, concerning which there has been foolishly, as the translator believes-so much misunderstanding, appeared as an appendix to his Prolegomena, which is, as Kant himself expresses it, a sort of text-book of, or guide to, his Critic of Pure Reason. In short, the Prolegomena are the Critic of Pure Reason itself, in a very condensed form (reduced to about one-eighth in bulk, I should say), and arrayed in the analytical-not, like the Critic, in the synthetical method. Students of Kant cannot take hold of a better work as a general introduction to his system. - A. E. K.]

lish such a Criticism be carefully and thoroughly examined; unless, indeed, students choose rather to give up all claim to Metaphysics, in which case no objection can be made, provided those students remain true to their purpose.

If we take the course of things as it is in reality, and not as it ought to be, we find that there are two kinds of judgments: one which precedes an investigation—which would occur in our case if the reader should pronounce a judgment on my Criticism of Pure Reason from the standpoint of his Metaphysics, the very possibility whereof my Criticism undertakes to question and another kind, which follows an investigation as, where the reader is able to put aside for awhile the consequences that result from my critical investigations, and that may run very hard against his adopted Metaphysics. If the doctrines of ordinary Metaphysics were acknowledgedly certain, as those of geometry, the former kind of judgment would be valid; for, if the results of certain principles are in conflict with established truths, those principles are false, and to be rejected without further investigation. But if this is not so; if in Metaphysics there is not a hoard of indisputably certain synthetical propositions; and if it should turn out to be that a number of its propositions, seemingly as valid as the best of them, are yet at variance with each other as to their results; and that the science of Metaphysics, indeed, does not show us at all a sure criterion of the truth of really metaphysical (synthetical) propositions - then the former mode of passing judgment is not allowable, and an investigation of the principles of my Criticism must precede any attempt to judge of its worth or worthlessness.

Specimen of a Judgment on my Critic of Pure Reason Preceding an Investigation.

Such a judgment may be found in a review published in the Goettingischen Gelehrten Anzeiger, third supplement, of date January 19, 1782, page 40:

"When an author, who is well acquainted with the subject of his work, and has generally been anxious to put down the

« Previous Continue »