Chapter 4: The Logic of Illusion Summary and Analysis

While Kant obviously believed in the possibility of legitimate and substantive a prior knowledge, he was also aware that the faculty of reason was frequently perverted to arrive at conclusions for which it had no warrant. He considers the misuses of reasons in each of the categories he divides metaphysics into: rational psychology, the study of the soul; cosmology, the study of the universe; and theology, the study of God. Generally speaking, every mistake shares the same fundamental error: attempting to go beyond the boundaries of experience and get perspective and "unconditioned" knowledge. For Kant, all experience was necessarily conditioned, or interpreted, by the categories of thought and other mental structures. Since all knowledge is through experience—whether through experiencing particular objects or considering possible objects of experience—this tactic is...