THE FACT OF REASON AND THE PRACTICAL REALITY IN KANT’S PHILOSOPHY

The transcendental consciousness of freedom, which at the birthtime of Kant's critical philosophy was perceived as a purely problematic consciousness, became in the Critique of Practical Reason the special title of a fact of reason: The consciousness of the ability of self- determined action by virtue of respect for the unconditional principle of practical reason is here the only way for a human being to know his freedom, and thereby the supersensible world. At the same time, for someone who bases everything on empirical principles, this freedom is always something paradoxical. The article examines the prerequisites and the justification method of such a notion of fact of reason (consciousness of rational freedom) in Kant, in a shape in which this consciousness is conceivable in the perspective of transcendental idealism. As a matter of fact, Kant himself perceived what he called a «fact of reason» as a paradoxical statement, - and yet the productivity of this paradox is destroyed if we come to understand the fact not as a sufficientmotive of the will, a matter of moral practice , but merely as a correct consciousness of the law, a moment of ethical theory ...