From Theoretical to Practical Reason

Abstract

The ‘Transcendental Doctrine of Method’, the concluding section of the first Critique, begins with theoretical considerations, and thus with experience, and therefore initially unfolds a negative ontology. But this rejection of intellectual self-deception, of conceptual delusions, fabrications and empty fictions, is immediately followed by a plea on behalf of pure practical reason, and even a claim for the priority of the latter. The ‘dwelling-house’ that is truly ‘appropriate to our needs’ (B 735) thus accommodates not merely theoretical reason, but reason in its entirety.