CHAPTER I. The Discipline[1685] of Pure Reason

THE DISCIPLINE OF PURE REASON

Kant is neither an intellectualist nor an anti-intellectualist. Reason, the proper duty of which is to prescribe a discipline to all other endeavours, itself requires discipline; and when it is employed in the metaphysical sphere, independently of experience, it demands not merely the correction of single errors, but the eradication of their causes through “a separate negative code,” such as a Critical philosophy can alone supply. In the Transcendental Doctrine of Elements this demand has been met as regards the materials or contents of the Critical system; we are now concerned only with its methods or formal conditions.

This distinction is highly artificial. As already indicated, it is determined by the requirements of Kant’s architectonic. The entire teaching of the Methodology has already been more or less exhaustively expounded in the earlier divisions of the Critique.