The Critique of Judgment. Immanuel Kant

Lust and Unlust, and “mental pleasure,” “mental pain,” which would nearly hit the sense, are awkward. Again, the constant rendering of schön by beautiful involves the expression “beautiful art” instead of the more usual phrase “fine art.” Purposive is an ugly word, but it has come into use lately; and its employment enables us to preserve the connexion between Zweck and zweckmässig. I have printed Judgement with a capital letter when it signifies the faculty, with a small initial when it signifies the act, of judging. And in like manner I distinguish Objekt from Gegenstand, by printing the word “Object,” when it represents the former, with a large initial.

      The text I have followed is, in the main, that printed by Hartenstein; but occasionally Rosenkranz preserves the better reading. All important variants between the First and Second Editions have been indicated at the foot of the page. A few notes have been added, which are enclosed in square brackets, to distinguish them from those which formed part of the original work. I have in general quoted Kant’s Introduction to Logic and Critique of Practical Reason in Dr. Abbott’s translations.

      My best thanks are due to Rev. J. H. Kennedy and Mr. F. Purser for much valuable aid during the passage of this translation through the press. And I am under even greater obligations to Mr. Mahaffy, who was good enough to read through the whole of the proof; by his acute and learned criticisms many errors have been avoided. Others I have no doubt still remain, but for these I must be accounted alone responsible.

      J. H. BERNARD.

      Trinity College, Dublin,

       May 24, 1892.

      GLOSSARY OF KANT’S PHILOSOPHICAL TERMS

      Absicht; design. Achtung; respect. Affekt; affection. Angenehm; pleasant. Anschauung; intuition. Attribut; attribute. Aufklärung; enlightenment.

      Begehr; desire. Begriff; concept. Beschaffenheit; constitution or characteristic. Bestimmen; to determine.

      Darstellen; to present. Dasein; presence or being.

      Eigenschaft; property. Empfindung; sensation. Endzweck; final purpose. Erkenntniss; cognition or knowledge. Erklärung; explanation. Erscheinung; phenomenon. Existenz; existence.

      Fürwahrhalten; belief.

      Gebiet; realm. Gefühl; feeling. Gegenstand; object. Geist; spirit. Geniessen; enjoyment. Geschicklichkeit; skill. Geschmack; Taste. Gesetzmässigkeit; conformity to law. Gewalt; dominion or authority. Glaube; faith. Grenze; bound. Grundsatz; fundamental proposition or principle.

      Hang; propension.

      Idee; Idea.

      Leidenschaft; passion. Letzter Zweck; ultimate purpose. Lust; pleasure.

      Meinen; opinion.

      Neigung; inclination.

      Objekt; Object.

      Prinzip; principle.

      Real; real. Reich; kingdom. Reiz; charm. Rührung; emotion.

      Schein; illusion. Schmerz; grief. Schön; beautiful. Schranke; limit. Schwärmerei; fanaticism. Seele; soul.

      Ueberreden; to persuade. Ueberschwänglich; transcendent. Ueberzeugen; to convince. Unlust; pain. Urtheil; judgement. Urtheilskraft; Judgement.

      Verbindung; combination. Vergnügen; gratification. Verknüpfung; connexion. Vermögen; faculty. Vernunft; Reason. Vernünftelei; sophistry or subtlety. Verstand; Understanding. Vorstellung; representation.

      Wahrnehmung; perception. Wesen; being. Willkühr; elective will. Wirklich; actual. Wohlgefallen; satisfaction.

      Zufriedenheit; contentment. Zweck; purpose. Zweckmässig; purposive. Zweckverbindung; purposive combination, etc.

      PREFACE

       Table of Contents

      We may call the faculty of cognition from principles a priori, pure Reason, and the inquiry into its possibility and bounds generally the Critique of pure Reason, although by this faculty we only understand Reason in its theoretical employment, as it appears under that name in the former work; without wishing to inquire into its faculty, as practical Reason, according to its special principles. That [Critique] goes merely into our faculty of knowing things a priori, and busies itself therefore only with the cognitive faculty to the exclusion of the feeling of pleasure and pain and the faculty of desire; and of the cognitive faculties it only concerns itself with Understanding, according to its principles a priori, to the exclusion of Judgement and Reason (as faculties alike belonging to theoretical cognition), because it is found in the sequel that no other cognitive faculty but the Understanding can furnish constitutive principles of cognition a priori. The Critique, then, which sifts them all, as regards the share which each of the other faculties might pretend to have in the clear possession of knowledge from its own peculiar root, leaves nothing but what the Understanding prescribes a priori as law for nature as the complex of phenomena (whose form also is given a priori). It relegates all other pure concepts under Ideas, which are transcendent for our theoretical faculty of cognition, but are not therefore useless or to be dispensed with. For they serve as regulative principles; partly to check the dangerous pretensions of Understanding, as if (because it can furnish a priori the conditions of the possibility of all things which it can know) it had thereby confined within these bounds the possibility of all things in general; and partly to lead it to the consideration of nature according to a principle of completeness, although it can never attain to this, and thus to further the final design of all knowledge.

      It was then properly the Understanding which has its special realm in the cognitive faculty, so far as it contains constitutive principles of cognition a priori, which by the Critique, comprehensively called the Critique of pure Reason, was to be placed in certain and sole possession8 against all other competitors. And so also to Reason, which contains constitutive principles a priori nowhere except simply in respect of the faculty of desire, should be assigned its place in the Critique of practical Reason.

      Whether now the Judgement, which in the order of our cognitive faculties forms a mediating link between Understanding and Reason, has also principles a priori for itself; whether these are constitutive or merely regulative (thus indicating no special realm); and whether they give a rule a priori to the feeling of pleasure and pain, as the mediating link between the cognitive faculty and the faculty of desire (just as the Understanding prescribes laws a priori to the first, Reason to the second); these are the questions with which the present Critique of Judgement is concerned.

      A Critique of pure Reason, i.e. of our faculty of judging a priori according to principles, would be incomplete, if the Judgement, which as a cognitive faculty also makes claim to such principles, were not treated as a particular part of it; although its principles in a system of pure Philosophy need form no particular part between the theoretical and the practical, but can be annexed when needful to one or both as occasion requires. For if such a system is one day to be completed under the general name of Metaphysic (which it is possible to achieve quite completely, and which is supremely important for the use of Reason in every reference), the soil for the edifice must be explored by Criticism as deep down as the foundation of the faculty of principles independent of experience, in order that it may sink in no part, for this would inevitably bring about the downfall