Synthesis: The Critique of Pure Reason

Title: Critique of Pure Reason

Date: 1781

Nationality: Germany

Creator: Immanuel Kant

Medium: Print

The light dove, in free flight cutting through the air the resistance of which it feels, could get the idea that it could do even better in airless space. Likewise, Plato abandoned the world of the senses because it posed so many hindrances for the understanding, and dared to go beyond it on the wings of the ideas, in the empty space of pure understanding. 

Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason

The critique of pure reason comes from of a long process of learning and multi-lateral application of both philosophical reasoning and scientific methodology.  Kant initiated a “Copernican revolution” in metaphysical (and moral) thought that redirected almost all philosophical thought after him.  In attempting to establish a firm groundwork for scientific knowledge against Humean empiricism, Kant learned and expressed a new methodology for defining and application of knowledge and perception.  He also established the limitations of pure reason and clamped down on spurious metaphysical and moral philosophies that threatened to jeopardize the worth and validity of both—thus, unbeknownst to many, Kant effectively saved both natural science and moral philosophy, and preserved them for further scrutiny after his time. 

Kant’s First Critique demonstrates the paradigm changing force of the application of synthesis—as his mind adjusted for new concepts in science, religion, epistemology, and metaphysics, he was forced to reorient his entire world view until those concepts could fit together into a cohesive body of knowledge with as few contradictions as possible, thereby producing a landmark monument in the history of learning.  Kant, then, demonstrates what might be called the closest thing to a “full synthesis” a complete and thoroughgoing process where all possible connections for an integrated body of knowledge is pursued to their ultimate ends, so far as they can be perceived.  The personal integrity and discipline of this full synthesis is worthy of praise and ought to be emulated at all levels where possible.

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