Silent Years 193ofmoral judgment, is known only through the pure intellect and itself be¬
longs to pure philosophy."^20 In 1764 Kant could not decide whether it was
reason or the senses that supplies us with the first principle of moral judg¬
ment; by 1770 he had decided in favor of reason. However, Kant's concept
of reason of 1770 is very different from that of 1764. While the earlier
concept consisted of generalized perceptions, the view of 1770 was char¬
acterized by a certain "ideal" that is independent of sensation. This "ideal"
represented for Kant the "maximum of perfection which is called by Plato
an Idea." It provided him with "the common measure and principle whereby
we have knowledge," and it was identical with the "perfectio noumenon."
Indeed, this ideal was the highest expression of our intellect. Therefore,
the most important concerns of pure reason had to be the determination
of the characteristics of this ideal. It was not only "the principle of knowl¬
edge" but also "the common measure of all other things so far as real." Kant
thought not only that we know things through God, but also that those
things have reality only insofar as God has brought them into existence.
Our answers to the epistemological, ontological, and moral questions turned
for him on the same principle, namely "God ... as the ideal of perfection,"
or the perfectio noumenon. So intellectual concepts have a twofold use. First,
they had what Kant called the "elenctic use," or the "negative service of
keeping sensitive concepts from being applied to noumena," and second,
they had a dogmatic use in establishing true knowledge of reality.
Kant intended the Inaugural Dissertation to be a mere sketch of a new
method that would "occupy the place of a propaedeutic science, to the
immense benefit of all who would explore the innermost recesses of meta¬
physics."^21 The most important aspect of this method was for Kant a clear
distinction between principles of sensitive cognition and principles of in¬
tellectual cognition, and the "all-important rule" for which he argued was
that we must "carefully prevent the principles proper to sensitive cognition from
passing their boundaries and affecting the intellectual."^12 Kant was never again
to abandon this position on thought and sensation. However, he was forced
to change his mind on the way in which he defended it. In 1770 he be¬
lieved that reason could secure the foundation of a universal moral theory
only in knowledge of things "as they are," and he believed that we could
have this kind of knowledge through reason.
Kant concluded the Inaugural Dissertation with a promissory note for
a "more extended treatment" of these matters. Though he did not want to
present in his sketch the positive ideas for reform, he thought he had pro¬
vided a foundation for such a reform. The Critique of Pure Reason, which