Abstract

This paper sustains the thesis that the problem of the possibility of a system of reason can only be systematically legitimated by means of its reconstruction and defense on the ground of the method of Kant’s philosophy. Initially, in order to guarantee the self-revision of the method of philosophy in the Critique of pure reason, the pre-critical consideration of the method as analytical is expounded. It is argued that the “micro-system” of the deduction of the categories is the determining element for the critical justification of the method of philosophy as synthetic a priori. Secondly, the reference of the synthetic a priori method to the “macro-system” of reason is taken into account, in what matters to the relation between its theoretical and practical domains. It is sustained that what Kant takes to be a mystery up to 1785 in relation to this reference consists of the systematic incapacity to legitimate the practical use of reason from the domain of its theoretical use. Finally, on account of Kant’s discovery of the selfsufficiency of the theoretical and practical domains, the specificity of the problem of the system of reason is presented. It is argued that, from the second half of the 1780s on, the approach of the problem of the system of reason essentially aims at guarding this self-sufficiency.