Philosophy is the history of metaphysics!
What is Knowledge? Reading Kant's Critique of Pure Reason

If metaphysics is the question of what the ultimate basis of the world is, then philosophy is the history of metaphysics.
Metaphysics has a clearly different philosophical structure before and after Kant.
Kant taught that in order to understand the world correctly, we must look at it from the perspective of the ‘self’.
Kant called this distinctly different structure the Copernican revolution.


Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is Kant's metaphysics.
It is a book that is not easy to read even for someone who knows German, and it is not a book that Kant wrote for the general public.
Kant's knowledge also spans a wide range of fields, including humanities and society, including history, religion, and philosophy, as well as natural sciences, including physics and astronomy, and mathematics, so its system is not only profound but also difficult to understand.


Professor Kang Ji-eun received her doctorate in Kantian philosophy and has since continued to research art and communication based on Kantian philosophy.
The general public has few opportunities to access the original text of Kant's philosophy, and it is difficult to read the original text without an understanding of modern philosophy.
So, Professor Kang Ji-eun organized Kant's philosophy from the author's perspective, focusing on the content that anyone would be curious about, and selected the parts that would be good to know while reading the text of the Critique of Pure Reason, and tried to explain them as easily as possible.

The author enters into Kant's problematic consciousness.
Kant seems to have wanted to show the perfect form of enlightened human beings through the critique of reason.
It is said that this can be guessed by looking at the topics that Kant wanted to explain in his three major critiques.
The Age of Enlightenment in which Kant lived.
An enlightened person would be one who possesses knowledge, morality, and art.
Kant may have written about such a desire for humanity in his Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason, and Critique of Judgment, with the questions, “What can humans know?”, “What should humans do?”, and “What may humans hope for?” as his main topics.
Although real humans cannot live like Kant's enlightened human, the author writes that Kant wanted to show us a model of a modern human being, or a model of an ideal human being.

Kant emerged from the confusion between empiricism and rationalism and organized them.
Metaphysics also shows a philosophical structure that is clearly different from before and after Kant, to the point that it can be divided into before and after.
Philosophy before Kant was concerned with the fundamental matter of the world, and the fundamental external conditions that allowed us to know the world.
However, Kant overturned this argument (Copernican revolution) and taught that in order to understand the world correctly, we must look at it from the perspective of the ‘self’.
In any case, unless you are a god, you cannot know the world itself accurately.
We only know the phenomena that the world reveals to us.

---From the "Preface"

According to Kant, “thoughts without content are empty, and intuitions without concepts are blind.”
---From "Chapter 1: The Philosopher Who Knew the Celestial Bodies and Physics, Kant, p. 27"

No, I want to know what the object is, but you insist on basing it on "me"? Isn't that a revolution? That's why Kant himself called his theoretical work the "Copernican Revolution," and for good reason.

---From "Chapter 1: The Philosopher Who Knew the Celestial Bodies and Physics, Kant, pp. 22-23"

Kant enjoyed conversation on a wide range of topics, from philosophy to science, current events, and domestic matters.

After that, time is for a walk.
Around 3:30 PM.
I went for a walk regardless of the weather.
He always took his walks alone, because he had the strange belief that talking outdoors would cause him to breathe through his mouth, which would be bad for his health.
Kant, who was very sickly, had no choice but to take care of his health by taking regular walks, and that is why the famous story of Kant's walks is still talked about by people today.
From the time I became a child until I died, I walked the same path at almost the same time.
What can I say, since the townspeople set their watches after seeing Kant's walk?

---From "Chapter 1: The Philosopher Who Knew the Celestial Bodies and Physics, Kant, p. 28"

Kant was determined to properly understand the work of reason in order to set metaphysics straight.
Kant declares his ambition to undertake the most difficult task of reason: self-knowledge.
To this end, it is also stated that a single court should be established to protect reason in its just claims and to reject all baseless abuses of power, not by the command of authority, but by the eternal and immutable laws of reason.
This court is the Critique of Pure Reason.
---From "Chapter 1: The Philosopher Who Knew the Celestial Bodies and Physics, Kant, p. 37"

Kant sets up a court and begins his critique to settle the metaphysical battlefield that has arisen because of the human reason's natural desire to explore the unconditioned, God, or perfection.
If modern science has helped in the pursuit of material human perfection in human history, then Kant's plan was to pursue the perfection of humanity through metaphysics, that is, philosophy.
---「Chapter 1: The Philosopher Who Knew the Celestial Bodies and Physics, Kant, p. 50

Kant calls the conditions of experience that precede all experience 'transcendental'.
The concept of transcendence became widely known through Kant, but it was already known to medieval philosophy.
Medieval philosophy called the transcendent 'transcendentia', which it understood as the ultimate basis of existence that is valid without limitation for all things that exist, transcending the limits of distinction between species and genus.
That is, when thinking about existence, what is always presupposed is its transcendent nature.
For example, Plato's idea, medieval philosophy's common being (ens), and Heidegger's being (Sein) are the grounds that make all existing things in the world exist.

---From "Reading Chapter 2, Critique of Pure Reason, pp. 65-66"

Kant said that the original task of pure reason lies in the question, “How are synthetic a priori judgments possible?” (B19).
The task of clarifying this question was called “the cross of the metaphysicians” (Prolegomena, verse 29).
'How is a priori synthetic judgment possible?' This is also another expression of Kant's metaphysics and transcendental philosophy.
Rather than simply breaking things down through a priori synthetic judgments, Kant seeks to make metaphysical judgments that are independent of experience and yet expand knowledge.

---From "Reading Chapter 2, Critique of Pure Reason, p. 76"

Kant precisely identified human perception of the world and explored the possibilities of metaphysics.
He is also a philosopher who has tried to find out the extent of the possibilities of God, the universe, and the soul, and also the limits of those possibilities.
The moral world that humans desire, the purposive world that humans hope for, and the world of aesthetic beauty will advance toward the next 『Critique of Practical Reason』 and 『Critique of the Power of Judgment』.

---From "Reading Chapter 2, Critique of Pure Reason, p. 184"

Kant was a philosopher who had extensive experience in rationalism, empiricism, and science before writing the Critique of Pure Reason.
In particular, because rationalism was the basic atmosphere of the German philosophical world in which Kant lived, there were aspects that were more inclined toward rationalism than empiricism.
However, from a young age, he actively participated in scientific debates of the time and realized early on that empirical content was important in philosophy.
Descartes' Discourse on the Method is a short text that is not as difficult as you might think.
It is a classic worth challenging yourself with before or after reading Kant.
---From "Chapter 3: Milestones of Philosophy, pp. 189-190"

Rousseau, through The Social Contract, presents the principles of the formation of a state and government based on the general will.
A citizen with this general will is an enlightened citizen.
The human being that Kant wants is also an enlightened citizen.
Kant, who lived in the Age of Enlightenment, would have dreamed of a vision of free humanity under the influence of Rousseau.
『The Social Contract』 is good, and 『Emile』 is also good.
If you hold it in your hand, you might see a path.
Aren't we still living in an age of enlightenment?

---From "Chapter 3: Milestones of Philosophy, pp. 201-202"