Prolegomena § 46-55

Conclusion:
Reason, through it’s destination of the absolute, forces understanding beyond its
own bounds to reach its, reason’s, own ends. As reason can only function with the
materials of judgment, it attempts to attain the object in itself, but it fails to attain—
as the categories of judgment are only principles applied to intuition. And thus as
judgment is forced by reason beyond its bounds it only arrives at empty concepts.
68-69/332

“The purity of the categories…may mislead reason into extending their (category’s)
use beyond all experience to thing in themselves; these categories… can represent
a thing in general, but not give by themselves alone a determinate concept of
anything…. Here predicates that only serve to make the conformity-to-law of
experience possible are applied to these concepts, and yet they are deprived of
all the conditions of intuition on which alone experience is possible, and so these
concepts lose all significance.”

Preface:
The Transcendental Ideas as explicated and critiqued in 46 through 55 are examples
of the transcendental illusions which judgment is brought to misguided by reason;
this illusion is the conception of appearances as things in themselves. Though the
explication of this illusion is the immediate aim of this section, in Kant’s critique of
the transcendental ideas the relationship between reason and the understanding
must be developed in order to determine the limitations of reason, and thus the
fallacy which is arrived at through the Transcendental. As the prior sections of the
third chapter define the relationship between the respective functions, the analysis
will approach the critique of the transcendental ideas as further developing the
relationship between them.

 Premise:
 1.) The Psychological Ideas are the instance of reason extending the concept
of substance, which is only achieved through the categories of the
understanding, to the thing in itself.
      a.) The concept of the absolute subject is however rendered empty as
      substance cannot be applied to concepts of the understanding but
      only intuition. Thus the substance of the absolute subject, or thing in
      itself, is rendered an empty concept.
      b.) The implication of this, as reason can only function with the material
      of the understanding, i.e. judgments, reason is bounded by the
      concepts of the understanding, thus illustrating the necessary
      categorical limitation of reason.

2.) The Cosmological Idea continues in spirit of the first but shifts the application
of reason from the understanding to the sensible world. Both the first
and the second ideas begin from experience and extend the categories
of understanding to a thing in itself, instead of extending a category of
understanding, reason attempts to apply its principles to the sensible world,
as understanding would have. It thus mistakes itself for understanding.
The illusion of the cosmological occurs when reason applies its principle
of complete series of conditions, mistaking itself for the principles of the
understanding, and thus attempting to find absolute cause and effect within
the world.
      a.) The Cosmological ideas are split into two categories, illuminating the
      dialectic of the illusion of conceiving as the appearance of the thing in
      itself.
      b.) The first two antinomies are the mathematical, as they deal with
      treating distinct realms as homogenous. The illusion lies within the
      idea itself, as the idea “The world is, as to time and space, infinite.”
      itself requires the sensible world to be conceived of through a
      principle of the reason. Thus the first two antinomies fail on the
      account of internal contradiction.
      c.) The illusion of the latter half of the cosmological ideas, the dynamical,
      occurs not from an internal contradiction of applying reason to
      the sensible world, but conversely from assuming the two are
      contradictory when they are in fact not, as the second ideas are not
      homogenous but rather of cause and effect.
      d.) As the idea is originally presented, as appearance is the thing in
      itself, one cannot create a beginning from homogeneity, but if the
      two realms of reason and the sensible world are distinct it becomes
      possible for one to beget the other.
      e.) What occurs here, is a split between the principles of pure reason
       and the principles of experience, or categories of understanding. In
       that cause and effect belong to the experience, and thus principle of
       understanding and the concept of freedom which must exist beyond
       time and space and thus belongs to a principle of reason. So here Kant
       saves a metaphysical idea, through a distinction between principles of
       faculties.

3.) The Theological Idea is the illusion of the idea of a complete complex of
possibility of pure reason giving an explanation of all other things; and as the
second was a distinction of the first, the third gives limit two the second.
      a.) As the principle of freedom lies at the foundation for causality, one
      may be lead to the conclusion that reason may be able to explain the
      existence of all other things, or the world.
      b.) But unlike the first two ideas, the theological does not begin from
      experience but rather, as the concepts of pure reason can only be built
      upon concepts of understanding, as indicated by the first idea, the idea
      of a complete complex of possibility within reason cannot extend to
      experience, but pertains only to noumena.
      c.) As such, though reason gives rise to understanding, the realm which it
      is applies to is outside of the realm of experience, and thus a concept
      of it, which is different from a principle, such as freedom, cannot give
      grounds for the world.

Implicated Conclusion:
The possibility of metaphysics can only be maintained if, they are concepts or
principles of pure reason which are build upon but are separate from experience.
But though the possibility of metaphysics can be maintained it cannot provide
answers, as it is bounded by experience. Thus metaphysics serves as a guide to
distinguish the faculties of understanding, intuition and reason.