The Critique of Practical Reason | Page 7

on
them but on the human mind.

{PREFACE ^paragraph 35}
However, as in this philosophical and critical age such empiricism can
scarcely be serious, and it is probably put forward only as an
intellectual exercise and for the purpose of putting in a clearer light, by
contrast, the necessity of rational a priori principles, we can only be
grateful to those who employ themselves in this otherwise uninstructive
labour.
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION.

Of the Idea of a Critique of Practical Reason.

The theoretical use of reason was concerned with objects of the
cognitive faculty only, and a critical examination of it with reference to
this use applied properly only to the pure faculty of cognition; because
this raised the suspicion, which was afterwards confirmed, that it might
easily pass beyond its limits, and be lost among unattainable objects, or
even contradictory notions. It is quite different with the practical use of

reason. In this, reason is concerned with the grounds of determination
of the will, which is a faculty either to produce objects corresponding
to ideas, or to determine ourselves to the effecting of such objects
(whether the physical power is sufficient or not); that is, to determine
our causality. For here, reason can at least attain so far as to determine
the will, and has always objective reality in so far as it is the volition
only that is in question. The first question here then is whether pure
reason of itself alone suffices to determine the will, or whether it can be
a ground of determination only as dependent on empirical conditions.
Now, here there comes in a notion of causality justified by the critique
of the pure reason, although not capable of being presented empirically,
viz., that of freedom; and if we can now discover means of proving that
this property does in fact belong to the human will (and so to the will of
all rational beings), then it will not only be shown that pure reason can
be practical, but that it alone, and not reason empirically limited, is
indubitably practical; consequently, we shall have to make a critical
examination, not of pure practical reason, but only of practical reason
generally. For when once pure reason is shown to exist, it needs no
critical examination. For reason itself contains the standard for the
critical examination of every use of it. The critique, then, of practical
reason generally is bound to prevent the empirically conditioned reason
from claiming exclusively to furnish the ground of determination of the
will. If it is proved that there is a [practical] reason, its employment is
alone immanent; the empirically conditioned use, which claims
supremacy, is on the contrary transcendent and expresses itself in
demands and precepts which go quite beyond its sphere. This is just the
opposite of what might be said of pure reason in its speculative
employment.
However, as it is still pure reason, the knowledge of which is here the
foundation of its practical employment, the general outline of the
classification of a critique of practical reason must be arranged in
accordance with that of the speculative. We must, then, have the
Elements and the Methodology of it; and in the former an Analytic as
the rule of truth, and a Dialectic as the exposition and dissolution of the
illusion in the judgements of practical reason. But the order in the
subdivision of the Analytic will be the reverse of that in the critique of

the pure speculative reason. For, in the present case, we shall
commence with the principles and proceed to the concepts, and only
then, if possible, to the senses; whereas in the case of the speculative
reason we began with the senses and had to end with the principles.
The reason of this lies again in this: that now we have to do with a will,
and have to consider reason, not in its relation to objects, but to this
will and its causality. We must, then, begin with the principles of a
causality not empirically conditioned, after which the attempt can be
made to establish our notions of the determining grounds of such a will,
of their application to objects, and finally to the subject and its sense
faculty. We necessarily begin with the law of causality from freedom,
that is, with a pure practical principle, and this determines the objects to
which alone it can be applied.
BOOK1|CHAPTER1
FIRST PART.

ELEMENTS OF PURE PRACTICAL REASON.

BOOK I. The Analytic of Pure Practical Reason.
CHAPTER I.
Of the Principles of Pure Practical Reason.
{BOOK1|CHAPTER1 ^paragraph 5}

I. DEFINITION.

Practical principles are propositions which 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