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The Critique of Pure Reason, Part 31 summary

Part 31 of 79 · Part 2: Transcendental Logic · 4 min to read the part

In In Cognition, the Category’s Only Legitimate Use Is Its Application to Objects o, the argument distinguishes thinking from knowing and limits the categories’ use in cognition to objects of experience. Even mathematics requires possible application to empirical intuition, while descriptions that merely deny sensory features cannot establish knowledge of nonsensuous objects.

What happens

  1. The argument distinguishes thinking an object through a concept from knowing it through both a concept and an intuition.
  2. Because human intuition is sensory, pure concepts yield cognition only through application to objects of sense.
  3. Mathematical cognition concerns phenomenal form and requires possible application to empirical intuition.
  4. Categories can express thoughts beyond our sensory range, but these thoughts lack objective reality without corresponding intuition.
  5. Denying sensory properties to a supposed nonsensuous object establishes neither knowledge of it nor the applicability of any category.

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In this part

Theme: Conditions of knowledge

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Why does a merely negative description of a nonsensuous object fail to establish knowledge?

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