A Shorter Critique of Pure Reason

I was in a book store the other day when I came across Immanuel Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason.” A comically large book, it’s almost 900 pages long. (I haven’t read it).

It occurred to me that 900 pages is a lot to critique something that can be disarmed with a single question. (Perhaps there is more in the book, I don’t know). So I am writing my own Critique of Pure Reason. We should be able to get through this in about a page.

As I mentioned above, pure reason can be disarmed with a single question. That question is:

How do you know your logic is logical?

One cannot confirm logic with logic. So there must necessarily be something else.

The obvious answer is that one must test his logic against reality. If the test goes as anticipated, the logic is probably sound. But there is another, much deeper answer as well.

The deeper answer is that there is something within a human being that just knows. I do not have a name for it. But it is a quality that we possess.

It is this direct knowing that is present when one has an epiphany. Anyone who has experienced this knows an epiphany does not come through logic.

It is this capacity for a human being to know directly that confirms or disconfirms his logic. Without it, logic would be useless.