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Why is Critique of Pure Reason considered difficult to read?

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Immanuel Kant German philosopher Immanuel Kant surrounded by Ouroboros, an emblematic serpent of ancient Egypt and Greece, engraving by John Chapman, published in London, 1812.

The Critique of Pure Reason is widely regarded as overwhelmingly difficult and impenetrably obscure to read. This difficulty stems primarily from the stylistic models Immanuel Kant adopted for his writing.12

As a university professor, Kant was required to base his lectures on standard philosophical handbooks of his time, such as those by Christian Wolff and Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten. These texts were characterized by:12

Technical Jargon: The heavy use of specialized terminology.12
Artificial Scaffolding: A rigid, schematic structure that was not immediately illuminating.12
Complex Divisions: A focus on completeness that resulted in a dense, highly formal presentation.12

Kant applied this same artificial and rigid structure to his own work, which contributes to its challenging nature. Additionally, the subject matter itself—which seeks to analyze the roots of all knowledge and the conditions of experience—is inherently complex, particularly within the Transcendental Analytic, which is considered the most difficult section of the book.12