“ A dull or narrow-minded person, to whom nothing is wanting but a proper degree of understanding, may be improved by tuition, even so far as to deserve the epithet of learned. But as such persons frequently labour under a deficiency in the faculty of judgement, it is not uncommon to find men extremely learned who in the application of their science betray a lamentable degree this irremediable want. ”
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (1791). copy citation
Author | Immanuel Kant |
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Source | Critique of Pure Reason |
Topic | judgement science |
Date | 1791 |
Language | English |
Reference | |
Note | Translated by J. M. D. Meiklejohn |
Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4280/4280-h/4280-h.htm |
Context
“Examples are thus the go-cart of the judgement, which he who is naturally deficient in that faculty cannot afford to dispense with.
[*Footnote: Deficiency in judgement is properly that which is called stupidity; and for such a failing we know no remedy. A dull or narrow-minded person, to whom nothing is wanting but a proper degree of understanding, may be improved by tuition, even so far as to deserve the epithet of learned. But as such persons frequently labour under a deficiency in the faculty of judgement, it is not uncommon to find men extremely learned who in the application of their science betray a lamentable degree this irremediable want.]
But although general logic cannot give directions to the faculty of judgement, the case is very different as regards transcendental logic, insomuch that it appears to be the especial duty of the latter to secure and direct, by means of determinate rules, the faculty of judgement in the employment of the pure understanding.”
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