Critque of Pure Reason

To understand Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, one must first understand the distinction Kant makes between a few sets of parameters: a priori and a posteriori truths, analytic and synthetic judgements, and a clear explanation of transcendental conditions. His critique hinges upon these distinctions and sets him apart from previous philosophers, namely David Hume.

A priori truths do not require any experience to be true. Conditions including space, time, and cause exist outside of human experience and are a priori. What is important here is that a priori truth is completely independent of all experience, not just a particular experience. For example, how does one know a house will fall to the ground if its supports are taken away? It must be because one has experienced other objects behaving the same way. One needs not to have previously experienced a house falling over to know that it will with no supports. This kind of knowledge is a posteriori because it only exists after experience. This is Kant's first distinction.

The division between analytic and synthetic judgements is in many respects more difficult a concept. I will attempt to explain them as clearly as possible. An analytic judgement takes one concept and finds truth in the "unpacking" of that one concept via a proper definition of the concept. For example, saying that men are humans is an analytic statement that simply is true because the definitions of our terms "men" and "human". Accordingly, saying that men are not women is also an analytic statement. Synthetic judgements arise when one starts to make claims that require a posteriori knowledge to back up. Saying, for example, that all men are assholes requires the synthesis of the terms "men" and "asshole".

Finally there is the exploration into the transcendental argument, Kant's most profound discovery. Refuting Hume's strong, empiricist conclusions regarding the existence of truth, Kant found a multitude of conditions for experience that absolutely can not be experienced themselves. These conditions therefore must exist outside of experience, destroying Hume's account of empiricism. Space, time, causality and the rest of the transcendental conditions are simply the wire framework around which we construct our reality.