Observations placeholder

Critique of Pure Reason – Of the Ultimate End of the Pure use of our Reason

The ultimate end to which the speculation of reason in its transcendental use is directed concerns three objects:

• the freedom of the will,
• the immortality of the soul and
• the existence of God.

With respect to all three the merely speculative interest of reason is very small; and for its sake alone this fatiguing labour of transcendental investigation, which wrestles with endless obstacles, would hardly have been undertaken; for whatever discoveries may be made, they could never be used in a way that would be beneficial in concreto, that is, in the investigation of Nature.

For instance, our Will may be free, but this can only refer to the intelligible cause of our volition.  With regard to the phenomena in which that Will manifests itself, that is, our actions, we have to account for them (according to an inviolable fundamental maxim without which reason could not be employed for empirical purposes at all) in no other way than how we account for all other appearances of Nature, that is, according to unchangeable laws.

Secondly, the spiritual nature of the soul, and with it its immortality, may be understood by us, yet we could not base upon this any explanation ..with regard to the appearances of this life, or with regard to the peculiar nature of our future state, for our concept of an incorporeal nature is merely negative and does not expand our knowledge in the least [sic], nor does it offer any suitable material for inferences, except perhaps such as are purely fictitious, and could never be sanctioned by philosophy.

Thirdly, even admitting that the existence of a Highest Intelligence has been proved, we might, no doubt, use it in order to render what is purposive in the constitution and order of the world comprehensible in a general way, but we should never be justified in deriving from this existence any particular arrangement or disposition, or in boldly inferring any such arrangement or disposition where it is not perceived.

For it is a necessary rule for the speculative use of reason not to pass over natural causes, and, abandoning something with regard to which we may be instructed by experience, to derive something which we know from something which entirely transcends all our knowledge.

In a word, these three propositions remain always transcendent for speculative reason, and admit of no immanent use [sic] - that is, a use admissible for objects of experience, and therefore of some real benefit to ourselves - but are entirely vain and are yet extremely difficult exertions of our reason.