Study Questions
Kant claims in the preface that Hume interrupted his "dogmatic slumber." What was Kant's "dogmatic slumber" and how did Hume's attack on causal reasoning prompt Kant's critical philosophy?
What is the difference between the a priori/a posteriori distinction and the analytic/synthetic distinction? How do both of these distinctions differ from the distinction between necessary and contingent truths?
What is a "thing in itself"? Why can't we perceive it directly? How can we perceive it? How can we even know that things in themselves exist if we cannot perceive them?
What is the difference between judgments of perception and judgments of experience? What is the significance of this distinction?
What is Kant's criticism of Hume? Based on your knowledge of Hume, do you think this criticism is correct?
What is the purpose of our faculty of reason? What can it do? What can't it do?
What is the source of the "antinomies" discussed as cosmological ideas? How are these antinomies resolved?
What is the distinction between limits and bounds? What is the significance in saying that math and science have limits and metaphysics has bounds?
What is a "critique"? What is the solution to the general question of the Prolegomena? How is it a solution?
In what way is Kant's "transcendental" idealism dependent on things in themselves? What problems are there with the doctrine of things in themselves? How might Kant defend this doctrine?
