Work · German Idealism & Its Heirs
Critique of Practical Reason
The starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.
Introduction
Kant published the second Critique in Riga; it is dated 1788 but appeared in late 1787. Unlike the first Critique, it does not limit reason but shows that pure reason can be practical, that is, determine the will by itself. The Analytic states the fundamental law: act so that the maxim of your will could always hold at the same time as a principle of universal law. Our awareness of this law is a “fact of reason”, through which we also know ourselves to be free. The Dialectic deals with the highest good, the union of virtue and happiness, and introduces the “postulates” of freedom, the immortality of the soul and the existence of God.
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Connections
Builds on
- Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals1785 · Immanuel Kant
Taken up in
- Foundations of the Entire Science of Knowledge1794 · Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Criticized in
- Negative Dialectics1966 · Theodor W. Adorno
More works by Immanuel Kant
- 1795Perpetual Peace
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