Revista Interdisciplinar de Direito (Jul 2016)

Do Problema Geral da Razão Pura

  • Theresa Calvet de Magalhães

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13, no. 1

Abstract

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The Critique of Pure Reason (CPR), at least by Kant’s own reckoning, is an extended reflection on a single question: “Now the real problem of pure reason is contained in the question: how are synthetic a priori judgements possible?” (CPR B19). The question “how is synthetic a priori cognition possible?” is the transcendental question. Kant’s famous 1772 letter to Marcus Herz – a letter this paper aims to explicate – already contains an outline of the first Critique and is quite important if we want to understand the genesis of the transcendental question. For Kant, transcendental philosophy, “which necessarily precedes all metaphysics”, is nothing but the complete solution, “in systematical order and completeness”, of the problem of pure reason, and he can then say that “it is not surprising that when a whole science (...), in itself quite new, is required to answer a – single question satisfactorily, we should find the answer troublesome and difficult, nay even shrouded in obscurity.” (Prolegomena, § 5, Ak IV, p. 279).

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