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The Critique of Practical Reason

Immanuel Kant · 1788

passage 6 of 121 · (6/10)

in brief
Kant replies that he is unafraid of introducing new terminology because the knowledge at issue has an everyday character, but he hopes his carefully chosen expressions will prevent misconceptions, especially about categories like permitted/forbidden and various moral ideas.

It is no wonder then if they find inconsistencies everywhere, although the gaps which these indicate are not in the system itself, but in their own incoherent train of thought.

I have no fear, as regards this treatise, of the reproach that I wish to introduce a new language, since the sort of knowledge here in question has itself somewhat of an everyday character. Nor even in the case of the former critique could this reproach occur to anyone who had thought it through and not merely turned over the leaves. To invent new words where the language has no lack of expressions for given notions is a childish effort to distinguish oneself from the crowd, if not by new and true thoughts, yet by new patches on the old garment. If, therefore, the readers of that work know any more familiar expressions which are as suitable to the thought as those seem to me to be, or if they think they can show the futility of these thoughts themselves and hence that of the expression, they would, in the first case, very much oblige me, for I only desire to be understood: and, in the second case, they would deserve well of philosophy. But, as long as these thoughts stand, I very much doubt that suitable and yet more common expressions for them can be found. *

{PREFACE ^paragraph 25}

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topics: duty, conscience, and obligation · language, naming, and meaning · logic, method, and demonstration

The Critique of Practical Reason · Immanuel Kant · 1788