From the Unity of Reason to the Unity of Race

This chapter discusses Kant’s account of cognition, in which he identified the work done to connect concepts and objects, in particular, as that which had cost him “the greatest labor.” Kant explained that there were in fact two parts to this discussion: “The one refers to the objects of pure understanding, and is intended to expound and render the objective validity of its a priori concepts.” As for the second part, Kant explained that this part “seeks to investigate the pure understanding itself, its possibility and the cognitive faculties upon which it rests; and so deals with it in its subjective aspect.” Kant emphasized the independence of these two parts, insisting that “the objective deduction with which I am here chiefly concerned retains its full force even if my subjective deduction should fail to produce that complete conviction for which I hope.”