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Full Idea
Reason, in a creature, is a faculty which enables that creature to extend far beyond the limits of natural instinct the rules and intentions it follows in using its various powers, and the range of its project is unbounded.
Gist of Idea
Reason enables the unbounded extension of our rules and intentions
Source
Immanuel Kant (Idea for a Universal History [1784], 2nd)
Book Ref
Kant,Immanuel: 'Political Writings', ed/tr. Reiss,Hans [CUP 1996], p.42
A Reaction
I'm inclined to identify the mind's creation of universals as the source of this power, rather than reason. Generalisations are infinitely extensible. Cantor's infinities are a nice example. Can't ideas be extended irrationally?
| 350 | In investigation the body leads us astray, but the soul gets a clear view of the facts [Plato] |
| 17194 | Reason only explains what is universal, so it is timeless, under a certain form of eternity [Spinoza] |
| 4840 | Reason perceives things under a certain form of eternity [Spinoza] |
| 19335 | Reasonings have a natural ordering in God's understanding, but only a temporal order in ours [Leibniz] |
| 5578 | Pure reason deals with concepts in the understanding, not with objects [Kant] |
| 5603 | Pure reason exists outside of time [Kant] |
| 5616 | Pure reason is only concerned with itself because it deals with understandings, not objects [Kant] |
| 5628 | Reason hates to be limited in its speculations [Kant] |
| 21054 | Reason enables the unbounded extension of our rules and intentions [Kant] |
| 22081 | Let thought follow its own course, and don't interfere [Hegel] |
| 10804 | Thoughts have a natural order, to which human thinking is drawn [Frege, by Yablo] |
| 8251 | The logical space of reasons is a natural phenomenon, and it is the realm of freedom [McDowell] |
| 3651 | Perceiving necessary connections is the essence of reasoning [Bonjour] |