Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason”.

“Critique of Pure Reason” was written by Imanuel Kant. Below are some (paraphrased) thoughts found in his text.

1. Every form of knowledge has the senses as starting point.
2. But that doesn’t mean that knowledge is down to experience alone.
3. Every information that isn’t formulated a priori must be logical, so it doesn’t need proof, but information proposed a posteriori can be experimental, rather than merely logical, which means that proof is needed.
4. Up to Kant, metaphysics tried to understand some objects without even wondering if such things can be subject of rational analysis (God, for example).
5. A meta-physician has less credibility if he is too detached from sensory information.
6. If metaphysics doesn’t rely on empirical data, no meta-physician can be proved wrong.
7. A lot of metaphysical data is fiction.
8. Analytical statements are produced by decomposing data, while synthetic statements are produced by merging data.
9. Empirical statements are always synthetic.
10. Some questions are out of reason’s grasp.
11. Metaphysics will never cease to exist.
12. When you are between two equally persuasive premises, you may feel tempted to disregard both and conclude that there’s no correct solution.
13. Metaphysics is inherently flawed.
14. It’s also pretty contradictory.
15. Kant wants to reform metaphysics, rather than destroying it.
16. We need to question what kind of data is actually within reach, so we don’t try to make science over things that are impossible to reason about.
17. A “transcendental” science is the study of our own methods to extract knowledge from the world.
18. While our five senses can show us objects, understanding them is a rational effort of interpretation.
19. “Transcendental aesthetics” is the study of our sensual procedures, while “transcendental logic” is the study of our thought and interpretation procedures.
20. We can’t think without conceiving things in space-time constraints.
21. There’s only one space, that our mind divides in sections (“here” and “there”, for example) because it can’t make sense out of the infinite as is.
22. Some characteristics of an object are conditional.
23. We also can not make sense out of eternity, that why we also divide time in sections (“before”, “now” and “after”, for example).
24. That means that the only real time is an eternal “now” which has no actual constraint, while the only real space is an infinite “here”, also uncontrained, but our mind can only make sense of things by limiting them, implying that time and space as measures only exist in our head.
25. Time and space are organs in our cognition system.
26. Time and space, as channels through which we “feel” the world, as studied by transcendental aesthetics.
27. A “thing in itself” doesn’t change according to our senses or according to surrounding conditions.
28. An empirical statement, even if statistically secure, can never be completely generalized; there will always be exceptions.
29. If an information can be traced back to the five senses, it’s knowledge about a “phenomenon” (something perceived by the senses).
30. Intuition and concepts are two sources of knowledge.
31. Intuition is sensual, while understanding is the interpretation of such intuitive data in order to achieve a concept.
32. While there are common rules that are valid for all sciences, each science has also a set of rules that is only valid within it.
33. If reality corresponds to what I think about it, then the idea I have about reality is “truth”.
34. Something can make sense and still be wrong.
35. That happens when the formula of the reasoning is correct, but the data used is wrong.
36. “Transcendental analytics” means “act of decomposing an ‘a priori’ statement”.
37. Transcendental analytics works only with statements that are internally logical and offered without empirical proof.
38. When thinking about an event, I don’t need to relive it.
39. “Synthesis” is the act of merging data from different objects into a single corpus of conclusive data.
40. When talking about empirical things, you always need to give proof.
41. Imagination is the ability to form an idea of something that you haven’t seen, heard or felt.
42. Intuition and imagination are rooted in the five senses (when you imagine something, you also imagine it’s shape, how it sounds or how it feels).
43. You can imagine things that are related to time, but not time itself.
44. We can not fully know ourselves.
45. You have learn common sense alone.
46. Common sense is the ability to correctly employ something that was learned.
47. If something exists in a given time, it’s real.
48. A contradictory argument is automatically false.
49. Thinking objectively is directing your thoughts towards something specific.
50. “Perception” is conscious sensation.
51. “Anticipation” is guessing, by logic, what is going to succeed, while having no empirical proof that the reasoning is correct.
52. Time and space can be infinitely divided.
53. Some metaphysical ideas are part of our lives, to the point of people acting as if they have been sufficiently proved.
54. “Empirism” is knowing something using what I can perceive of it.
55. If we want to understand something using time-based criteria, we must think in terms of succession, permanence and simultaneity.
56. Nothing is created, nothing is destroyed, everything is transformed.
57. It’s not possible to know things as they are, only as they appear to be (their phenomena).
58. Presence of effect doesn’t mean that the cause has stopped acting.
59. Something is possible when it meets the formal conditions of execution.
60. Something is real when it meets the material conditions of execution.
61. We lack senses to feel magnetic fields, which doesn’t mean that they don’t exist.
62. If it’s real, then it’s possible, but not every possible thing is real.
63. A “postulate” is a conclusive statement that has no proof nor demonstration.
64. When you make a wild guess on an issue, you still need to explain why you think that way.