Critique of Pure Reason as a Science

Reason [wisdom] is the faculty which furnishes us with the principles of knowledge within-the-mind.

Hence, pure reason [abstract wisdom] is the faculty which contains the principles of cognizing anything absolutely within-the-mind.

An organon of pure reason [abstract wisdom] would be a compendium of those principles according to which alone all abstract within-the-mind ideas can be obtained.

The completely extended application of such an organon would afford us a system of abstract wisdom.

A science of abstract wisdom is not a doctrine.

It is only a critique of abstract wisdom.

It purifies our wisdom and shields it from error.

“Transcendental” is the way of knowing objects within-the-mind.

“Transcendental philosophy” is a system of how objects are known confined-to-mind.

Transcendental philosophy must contain a complete exposition of our knowledge:

• active-thinking within-the-mind
• passive-thinking within-the-mind

This investigation is not a doctrine, but only a transcendental critique because it:

• aims not at the enlargement, but at the correction and guidance, of our knowledge
• is a touchstone of the worth or worthlessness of all within-the-mind knowledge, is the sole object of our present essay.

Such a critique is a preparation for an organon.

If this new organon fails, it should at least succeed as a canon of abstract wisdom.

• This canon would be the basis for the complete system of the philosophy of abstract wisdom.

The Critique of Abstract Wisdom must lay the plan for the science of transcendental philosophy.

It is the system of all the principles of pure reason.

Transcendental philosophy is a complete system that has a full analysis of all human knowledge within-the-mind.

My critique must lay before us a complete enumeration of all the radical conceptions which constitute the said pure knowledge.

But from the complete analysis of these conceptions themselves, as also from a complete investigation of those derived from them, it abstains with reason

My critique is not the full system because:

• it is devoted to synthesis, not analysis
• this essay is not about the complete system.

This completeness of the analysis of these radical ideas will be easy if my ideas can serve as principles of the synthesis.

The Critique of Abstract Wisdom is the basis of transcendental philosophy.

Nothing empirical must enter this critique.

The highest principles of morality are within-the-mind ideas.

• But they do not belong to transcendental philosophy because empirical ideas enter into the idea of duty.

Transcendental philosophy is consequently speculative.