The philosophy which has been distinctive of Germany begins with Kant, and begins as a reaction against Hume. Kant was determined to believe in causality, God, immortality, the moral law, and so on, but perceived that Hume’s philosophy made all this difficult. He therefore invented a distinction between ‘pure’ reason and ‘practical’ reason. ‘Pure’ reason was concerned with what could be proved, which was not much; ‘practical’ reason was concerned with what was necessary for virtue, which was a great deal. It is of course obvious that ‘pure’ reason was simply reason, while ‘practical’ reason
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