Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- Chronology
- Further reading
- Critique of Practical Reason
- Preface
- Introduction
- Part I Doctrine of the elements of pure practical reason
- I The analytic of pure practical reason
- II Dialectic of pure practical reason
- Part II Doctrine of the method of pure practical reason
- Index
- Cambridge texts in the history of philosophy
I - The analytic of pure practical reason
from Part I - Doctrine of the elements of pure practical reason
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- Chronology
- Further reading
- Critique of Practical Reason
- Preface
- Introduction
- Part I Doctrine of the elements of pure practical reason
- I The analytic of pure practical reason
- II Dialectic of pure practical reason
- Part II Doctrine of the method of pure practical reason
- Index
- Cambridge texts in the history of philosophy
Summary
DEFINITION
Practical principles are propositions that contain a general determination of the will, having under it several practical rules. They are subjective, or maxims, when the condition is regarded by the subject as holding only for his will; but they are objective, or practical laws, when the condition is cognized as objective, that is, as holding for the will of every rational being.
Remark
If it is assumed that pure reason can contain within itself a practical ground, that is, one sufficient to determine the will, then there are practical laws; otherwise all practical principles will be mere maxims. Within a pathologically affected will of a rational being there can be found a conflict of maxims with the practical laws cognized by himself. For example, someone can make it his maxim to let no insult pass unavenged and yet at the same time see that this is no practical law but only his maxim – that, on the contrary, as being in one and the same maxim a rule for the will of every rational being it could not harmonize with itself. In cognition of nature the principles of what happens (e.g., the principle of equality of action and reaction in the communication of motion) are at the same time laws of nature; for there the use of reason is theoretical and determined by the constitution of the object.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Immanuel Kant Critique of Practical Reason , pp. 17 - 89Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1997
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