The Critique of Judgement

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The faculty of knowledge from a priori principles is termed pure reason, and the investigation into its possibility and limits is the Critique of Pure Reason. This critique focuses solely on our capacity to know things a priori, excluding feelings of pleasure or displeasure and the faculty of desire. It specifically examines understanding and its a priori principles, while omitting judgment and reason, as understanding is the only cognitive faculty that provides constitutive a priori principles of knowledge. The critique evaluates these faculties to determine their claims to knowledge, ultimately retaining only what understanding prescribes a priori as law for nature, with its forms also furnished a priori. Other pure concepts are deemed ideas, which, while transcendent for theoretical cognition, serve important functions as regulative principles. These concepts help to restrain the overreaching claims of understanding, which may mistakenly assert that it can define the bounds of all possible knowledge. Additionally, they guide understanding in its exploration of nature, striving for a principle of completeness that remains ultimately unattainable, thus advancing the overarching goal of all knowledge.