Kant's Critique of Pure Reason: A Summary of the Preface and the Introduction.
Immanuel Kant was born in the year 1724 in East Prussia, Germany. He first published the Critique of Pure Reason in 1781 and added a new preface in 1787. This essay intends to summarize the two prefaces and single introduction of the Critique of Pure Reason.
Kant opens the preface of the first edition by introducing a natural dilemma facing all humans: human reason asks itself questions it cannot answer. Aristotle defines human beings under the genus animal and the species rational. Later in the critique Kant adopts this definition as his own. This means that for Kant to be human is to be a rational animal which implies that all humans posses the faculty of reason. Every human then must deal with the consequences of reason. One such consequence, however, is rather troublesome for Kant. Reason leads the human mind to certain questions which reason itself if incapable of answering. Kant intentionally raises this frustrating aspect of the human condition at the beginning of his paper in order to entice all readers. .
The very nature of reason leads it to the predicament. All reasoning begins with principles. Reason's power is being able to apply outside rules or principles to experience. The first principles of reason are ones that common sense agrees with. Certain principles, for example the principle of non-contradiction, are so basic and logical that it is almost impossible to doubt them. The path of experience also strengthens these initial principles of reason. The principles always work. Each time one observes the principle of non-contradiction succeeding, one is more inclined to believe it. As human reason becomes more and more comfortable with the first principles it begins to use these principles to form new ones. These new principles are on a higher level then the original ones. Nature requires reason to never cease.