Introduction [Logic]

ON PHILOSOPHY IN GENERAL

All human cognitions are, according to form, of a twofold kind: (i) historical, which are from things given <ex datis>, taken merely from experience; and (2) rational cognitions, which are from principles <exprincipiis>, taken from certain principles. The rational cognitions are again: (1) philosophical, cognitions from concepts, and (2) mathematical, from the construction of concepts. One can distinguish cognitions according to their objective origin, i.e., according to the sources from which alone a cognition is possible; and according to the subjective origin, i.e., according to the manner in which cognition can be acquired by a human being. With respect to the former, cognitions are either rational or empirical, with respect to the latter, rational or historical; in itself the cognition may have come about however it will. – The system of rational cognition through concepts would thus be philosophy. But first we must consider the cognitions themselves, and then the system of them. – Because mathematics and philosophy agree in that they are rational cognitions, we must first define rational cognitions. The rational cognitions are opposed to the historical ones. The historical ones are derived from things given <ex datis>, and the rational cognitions from principles <ex principiis>, as we have already indicated above. The first, namely, the historical, are cognitions which are possible only insofar as they are given.

Metaphysics lectures of Prof Kant written in the years 1784 and 85 by I. W. Volckmann

[Rational psychology]

wanted to annihilate. However, both presuppose this: that we have a soul, therefore one could insert another idea here, namely: that we have no soul at all, and yet will live after death, this idea considers life only as property of the body, and so even the materialist can hope for a future life. In England, Priestley maintained this. One cannot demonstrate, however, the complete impossibility of the transitoriness of the soul, but rather only the impossibility of its passing away like a body. With this there is to prove (1) its perdurability, i.e., the survival of the substance, (2) its survival as intelligence, i.e., of a being whose faculty of reason and its acts <actus> also survive, (3) the actual survival of the personality of the human soul, that after death it be conscious of itself that it was the same soul, for otherwise I could not say that it itself exists in the future world, but rather that there would be another rational being there. – One can infer the immortality of the soul either from empirical or pure rational psychology, from the empirical one would have to do it in this manner: that from the experiences which we have of the soul, its survival followed; but this is not feasible, for from all perceptions of it in interaction <commercio> with the body we cannot infer how it would be constituted outside the interaction <commercio> with the body we would then have to have a faculty for positing our soul outside the interaction <commercio> with the body, or we would have to observe other souls (e.g., if there were ghosts), neither of which is feasible.

Metaphysics according to the lectures of Professor Kant in the winter semester 1792/93 from 7—8. by H. L. A. Dohna, begun Monday the 15th October 1792 (compendium by Baumgarten)

SPECIAL METAPHYSICS […]

The objects of our ideas are world and God – thus cosmology and theology The first concerns objects of the senses – (e.g., objects of nature, insofar as they constitute an absolute whole) but now also only insofar as they are not objects of the senses. Objects of the senses are:

1. of outer sense, these concern body, thus somatology, but only insofar as this cognition is unconditioned does it belong to the transcendental.

2. Of inner sense, this concerns the soul. We can think an immanent doctrine of body and of soul, a somatology and empirical psychology, [and] in order to indicate the connection of these empirical sciences with the rational ones, we want to mention something of them in the following. We divide metaphysics into:

1. critique of pure reason and ontology {contains immanent and transcendental concepts};

2. into the transcendent part of philosophy, now this is the one which contains cosmology and natural theology. – With respect to the transcendent our cognition is dialectical, I can affirm and deny a proposition with equally good grounds, maintain and refute it. This is a peculiar phenomenon of reason, it is called antinomy {conflict in its own subjective laws}. Thus we now go to the first section of this second part.

Rational psychology

<Psychologia rationalis>

teaches the nature of the human soul. Soul is the subject of sensation. In German it always indicates something inner, as e.g., the soul of a feather, a canon, i.e., the line drawn through the center of the mouth to the center of the ground. Mind <psyche> means butterfly <papillori>. Thus in this naming of the soul there lies an analogy with a butterfly, which is hidden preformed in the caterpillar, which is nothing more than its husk. This teaches that in this world dying is nothing more than regeneration. Soul <anima> is the animating principle in an animal. Matter cannot live for itself. This is a proposition against hylozoism. If one assumes that matter as matter thinks, lives, i.e., acts according to representations, then this is above all contrary to physics; that parts of matter are not moved by others, but rather can move themselves, contradicts the principle of inertia. Pythagoras says something mystical: the soul is a number moving itself <numerus se ipsum movens>. Soul <anima> is the sensible, mind <animus> the intellectual faculty of the soul. Mind <mens, nous> is this in any event. – Soul and spirit are to be sure two distinct relations but only two faculties of one and the same subject.

A living being has only one soul, this is a principle in psychology. The consciousness of the unity of my soul follows already from the conscious-ness of my subject.

Within a few years of the publication of his Critique of Pure Reason in 1781, Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) was recognized by his contemporaries as one of the seminal philosophers of modern times – indeed as one of the great philosophers of all time. This renown soon spread beyond Germanspeaking lands, and translations of Kant's work into English were published even before 1800. Since then, interpretations of Kant's views have come and gone and loyalty to his positions has waxed and waned, but his importance has not diminished. Generations of scholars have devoted their efforts to producing reliable translations of Kant into English as well as into other languages.

There are four main reasons for the present edition of Kant's writings:

1. Completeness. Although most of the works published in Kant's lifetime have been translated before, the most important ones more than once, only fragments of Kant's many important unpublished works have ever been translated. These include the Opus postumum, Kant's unfinished magnum opus on the transition from philosophy to physics; transcriptions of his classroom lectures; his correspondence; and his marginalia and other notes. One aim of this edition is to make a comprehensive sampling of these materials available in English for the first time.

2. Availability. Many English translations of Kant's works, especially those that have not individually played a large role in the subsequent development of philosophy, have long been inaccessible or out of print.

PRELIMINARY OVERVIEW

Kant was eloquent about the centrality of metaphysics in his view of philosophy: “Metaphysics is the spirit of philosophy. It is related to philosophy as the spirit of wine [spiritus vini] is to wine. It purifies our elementary concepts and thereby makes us capable of comprehending all sciences. In short, it is the greatest culture of the human understanding” (Ak. 29: 940).

These words are from the end of the Metaphysik Mrongovius, perhaps the most significant of the sets of student notes from Kant's lectures that are being translated here for the first time. Given the importance of metaphysics in Kant's system, it must seem remarkable that it has taken so long for his lectures on metaphysics to see the full light of day. Although notes from his lectures were widely used and distributed during his lifetime, only parts of two sets of lectures on metaphysics were published (by Pölitz) in the first half century after Kant's death. Parts of a few other sets were reproduced by other editors within the next hundred years, and in the 1920s philosophers such as Heinz Heimsoeth and Martin Heidegger made a strong case that Kant's traditional metaphysical concerns remained central even throughout his Critical period. Nonetheless, it was not until 1968 and 1970 that versions of these lectures appeared in the Academy edition of Kant's works, and they were seldom cited by scholars, let alone reviewed or discussed at length.

Introduction to metaphysics

<Prolegomena metaphysices>

Our cognitions are connected in a twofold way: first as an aggregate, when one is added to another [in order to] constitute a whole, e.g., a sand hill is not in itself a connection of things, but rather they are arbitrarily put together (there is nothing determinate here), second, as a series of ground and consequences, the parts of the series being called members because we can cognize one part only through the others, e.g., in a human body each part is there through the others. We easily comprehend that a connection of cognitions as an aggregate provides no determinate concept of a whole, and it is as if I add one small piece to another until a hill arises, etc., until a planet or terrestrial body comes into being; at least we can so think of it. In a series there is something that makes the connection according to a rule, namely, grounds and consequences. With grounds and consequences we must think of a priori boundaries, i.e., a ground that is not also a consequence, and a posteriori boundaries, i.e., a consequence that is not a ground, e.g., with human generations: human beings are members in a series, yet here we must think of a human being who does conceive but is not born, thus an a priori limit <terminus>, and of one who is born but conceives no one, thus an a posteriori limit <terminus>.

[On universal practical philosophy]

PROEM

All philosophy is either theoretical or practical. Theoretical philosophy is the rule of knowledge, practical the rule of behaviour in regard to free choice The difference between theoretical and practical philosophy is in the object. The one has theory for its object, and the other practice. Philosophy is otherwise divided into speculative and practical. Sciences are in general called theoretical and practical, be the objects what they may. They are theoretical if they are the ground of concepts of the objects, but practical if they are the ground of exercising knowledge of the objects; thus there is, for example, a theoretical and a practical geometry, a theoretical and a practical mechanics, a theoretical and a practical medicine, and a theoretical and a practical jurisprudence: the object is always the same. So if, regardless of the object, the sciences are nevertheless theoretical and practical, it has to do merely with the form of the science, the theoretical being for judgement of the object, and the practical for producing it. But in the present case there is a difference between theoretical and practical in regard to the object. Practical philosophy is practical not by form, but by the object, and this object is free acts and free behaviour. The theoretical is knowing, and the practical is behaving. If I abstract from the particular matter in hand, the philosophy of behaviour is that which gives a rule for the proper use of freedom, and this is the object of practical philosophy, without regard to particulars.