Immanuel Kant Quotes on Mind
Kant's analysis of the mind in the Critique of Pure Reason (1781, second edition 1787) reorganized post-Cartesian philosophy of mind around the transcendental analysis of the conditions of possibility of any experience whatever. The unity of apperception — the I think that must be capable of accompanying every representation — is the supreme principle of synthesis through which the manifold supplied by sensibility is unified into the experience of an objective world by the understanding's a priori categories. The transcendental Aesthetic, Analytic, and Dialectic supply the systematic articulation of the framework, and the corresponding rejection of rational psychology in the Paralogisms shows that the substantial soul of the Cartesian and Wolffian traditions cannot be a legitimate object of theoretical knowledge.
Quotes
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“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”
Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. -
“All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason.”
All human knowledge begins with intuitions, proceeds from thence to concepts, and ends with ideas. -
“Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.”
A 51, B 75 -
“Happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination.”
Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Ethics (1785), Second Section.