Abstract

This is a commentary on the Aesthetic and Analytic of the Critique of Pure Reason with frequent reference to the much neglected Methodology and a very brief discussion, in the final chapter, of the Dialectic. Dryer insists that the fundamental question of the Critique is how metaphysical judgments, i.e., judgments about how things are in general, can be verified; that it is neither a theory of knowledge or experience nor the exposition of a system of metaphysical principles except insofar as such concerns are ancillary to the primary task; and that the literature on the first Critique, including Paton's and Kemp Smith's interpretations of it as a "metaphysic of experience," fails to understand Kant's argument by failing to accept Kant's description of his task. In the central chapter, "Verification in Geometry and Metaphysics," Dryer gives a detailed analysis of Kant's theory of verification in geometry and the way in which this is related to his final answer to the question of verification in metaphysics, with emphasis on imagination and the discussions of the Methodology. Chapters devoted to the First and Second Analogies and the Axioms of Intuition follow for the sake of illustration. The emphasis on verification and a large measure of freedom from Kantian terminology give the analyses a freshness which is only partially destroyed by the highly repetitious style. With minor exceptions Kant's arguments are defended throughout.—M. W.