Oyonale - 3D art and graphic experiments
Image mixer TrueSpam ShakeSpam ThinkSpam

ThinkSpam

The phrases in their context!

Extract from THE CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON

But the question is, not what we must join in thought to the given conception, but what we really think therein, though only obscurely, and then it becomes manifest that the predicate pertains to these conceptions, necessarily indeed, yet not as thought in the conception itself, but by virtue of an intuition, which must be added to the conception.
2. The science of natural philosophy (physics) contains in itself synthetical judgements a priori, as principles.
I shall adduce two propositions.
For instance, the proposition, "In all changes of the material world, the quantity of matter remains unchanged"; or, that, "In all communication of motion, action and reaction must always be equal." In both of these, not only is the necessity, and therefore their origin a priori clear, but also that they are synthetical propositions.
For in the conception of matter, I do not cogitate its permanency, but merely its presence in space, which it fills.
I therefore really go out of and beyond the conception of matter, in order to think on to it something a priori, which I did not think in it.
The proposition is therefore not analytical, but synthetical, and nevertheless conceived a priori; and so it is with regard to the other propositions of the pure part of natural philosophy.
3. As to metaphysics, even if we look upon it merely as an attempted science, yet, from the nature of human reason, an indispensable one, we find that it must contain synthetical propositions a priorI. It is not merely the duty of metaphysics to dissect, and thereby analytically to illustrate the conceptions which we form a priori of things; but we seek to widen the range of our a priori knowledge.
For this purpose, we must avail ourselves of such principles as add something to the original conception--something not identical with, nor contained in it, and by means of synthetical judgements a priori, leave far behind us the limits of experience; for example, in the proposition, "the world must have a beginning," and such like.
Thus metaphysics, according to the proper aim of the science, consists merely of synthetical propositions a priorI.
VI. The Universal Problem of Pure Reason.
It is extremely advantageous to be able to bring a number of investigations under the formula of a single problem.
For in this manner, we not only facilitate our own labour, inasmuch as we define it clearly to ourselves, but also render it more easy for others to decide whether we have done justice to our undertaking.
The proper problem of pure reason, then, is contained in the question; "How are synthetical judgements a priori possible?"
That metaphysical science has hitherto remained in so vacillating a state of uncertainty and contradiction, is only to be attributed to the fact that this great problem, and perhaps even the difference between analytical and synthetical judgements, did not sooner suggest itself to philosophers.
Upon the solution of this problem, or upon sufficient proof of the impossibility of synthetical knowledge a priori, depends the existence or downfall of the science of metaphysics.
Among philosophers, David Hume came the nearest of all to this problem; yet it never acquired in his mind sufficient precision, nor did he regard the question in its universality.
On the contrary, he stopped short at the synthetical proposition of the connection of an effect with its cause (principium causalitatis), insisting that such proposition a priori was impossible.
According to his conclusions, then, all that we term metaphysical science is a mere delusion, arising from the fancied insight of reason into that which is in truth borrowed from experience, and to which habit has given the appearance of necessity.
Against this assertion, destructive to all pure philosophy, he would have been guarded, had he had our problem before his eyes in its universality.
For he would then have perceived that, according to his own argument, there likewise could not be any pure mathematical science, which assuredly cannot exist without synthetical propositions a priori--an absurdity from which his good understanding must have saved him.