'Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics' Summary

Kant declared that the Prolegomena are for the use of both learners and teachers as an heuristic way to discover a science of metaphysics. Unlike other sciences, metaphysics has not yet attained universal and permanent knowledge. There are no standards to distinguish truth from error. Kant asked, "Can metaphysics even be possible?"

David Hume investigated the problem of the origin of the concept of causality. Is the concept of causality truly independent of experience or is it learned from experience? Hume mistakenly attempted to derive the concept of causality from experience. He thought that causality was really based on seeing two objects that were always together in past experience. If causality is not dependent on experience, however, then it may be applied to metaphysical objects, such as an omnipotent God or an immortal soul. Kant claimed to have logically deduced how causality and other pure concepts originate from human understanding itself, not from experiencing the external world.

Unlike the Critique of Pure Reason, which was written in the synthetic style, Kant wrote the Prolegomena using the analytical method. He divided the question regarding the possibility of metaphysics as a science into three parts. In so doing, he investigated the three problems of the possibility of pure mathematics, pure natural science, and metaphysics in general. His result allowed him to determine the bounds of pure reason and to answer the question regarding the possibility of metaphysics as a science.