Kant on Metaphysics as a Matter of Faith

In the preface to the second edition of his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant wrote: “I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith.” Kant was committed to Newtonian science, he was not a skeptic or a religious rationalist. But he believed that knowledge is limited to the objects of possible experience and metaphysics (like theology) is a matter of faith. Kant is the right in treating metaphysics as a matter of faith. The theories of metaphysics cannot be proved or disproved by scientific experiments, and they cannot be established or refuted by philosophical arguments. Therefore, the belief in metaphysics has to be a matter of faith. In her book on Kant, The Life of the Mind, Hannah Arendt has given an explanation of Kant’s position. She writes, “Kant stated defensively that he had ‘found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith,’ but he had not made room for faith; he had made room for thought, and he had not 'denied knowledge' but separated knowledge from thinking."