Kant Quotes

“Judgement requires, then, the joint operation of sensibility and understanding. A mind without concepts would have no capacity to think; equally, a mind armed with concepts, but with no sensory data to which they could be applied, would have nothing to think about.”
― Roger Scruton, Kant: A Very Short Introduction

“Kant enjoyed the company of women (provided that they did not pretend to understand the Critique of Pure Reason) and”
― Roger Scruton, Kant: A Very Short Introduction

“Every rational being must be tempted to think that the peculiar immediacy and inviolability of self-awareness guarantee its content.”
― Roger Scruton, Kant: A Very Short Introduction

“he divides metaphysics into three parts – rational psychology, concerning the nature of the soul; cosmology, concerning the nature of the universe and our status within it; and theology, concerning the existence of God.”
― Roger Scruton, Kant: A Very Short Introduction

“Kant wishes to draw the limits of the understanding. If there are things that cannot be grasped by the understanding, then all assertions about them are meaningless.”
― Roger Scruton, Kant: A Very Short Introduction

“The content of every thought must be given, in the last analysis, in terms of the experiences that warrant it, and no belief can be established as true except by reference to the sensory ‘impressions’ that provide its guarantee. (This is the general assumption of empiricism.)”
― Roger Scruton, Kant: A Very Short Introduction

“Kant enjoyed the company of women (provided that they did not pretend to understand the Critique of Pure Reason)”
― Roger Scruton, Kant: A Very Short Introduction

“The utopian is the one who thinks that the ideal can be realized, and who therefore sets out to destroy the obstacles that stand in its way. The Kantian believes that ideals cannot be realized, since we live in an imperfect world, impeded by empirical circumstances. Ideals must be construed as regulative principles, which guide us down the path of amelioration. Hence we must strive always to amend things, and never to tear them down.”
― Roger Scruton, Kant: A Very Short Introduction

“…how can I know the world as it is? I can have knowledge of the world as it seems, since that is merely knowledge of my present perceptions, memories, thoughts, and feelings. But can I have knowledge of the world that is not just knowledge of how it seems? To put the question in slightly more general form: can I have knowledge of the world that is not just knowledge of my own point of view?”
― Roger Scruton, Kant: A Very Short Introduction

“The greatest modern philosopher was moved by nothing more than by duty. His life, in consequence, was unremarkable. For Kant, the virtuous man is so much the master of his passions as scarcely to be prompted by them, and so far indifferent to power and reputation as to regard their significance as nothing beside that of duty itself.”
― Roger Scruton, Kant: A Very Short Introduction

“The diagnosis of these errors follows a common pattern. Each attempt by pure reason to establish the metaphysical doctrines towards which it is impelled transgresses the limits of experience, applying concepts in a manner that is ‘unconditioned’ by the faculty of intuition.”
― Roger Scruton, Kant: A Very Short Introduction

“He describes a particular faculty, reason, in its illegitimate employment; he also demolishes all the claims to knowledge that this faculty tempts us to make.”
― Roger Scruton, Kant: A Very Short Introduction

“Habits of secrecy, made necessary by the actual relations between states, violate the ‘transcendental formula of public right’, which is that an action is wrong if it is not compatible with being made public (PP, R. 126).”
― Roger Scruton, Kant: A Very Short Introduction