through the development and self-clarification of modern thought as the mathematical, the claim of pure reason has come to dominate. This means: the most general determinations of the being of beings should be projected on the basis and along the guiding thread of the most universal principles of pure reason. But at the same time, the entire knowledge of the world, the soul, and God should be derived from such principles in a purely rational analysis and deduction.
And so, the pure inner lawfulness of reason decides, on the basis of its principles and basic concepts, on the being of beings, the thingness of things. In this pure rational cognition, the truth about that which is for every human reason is grounded and formed as indubitable and universally binding certainty.
Pure reason in this self-formation, pure reason in this claim, pure reason as the [120] authoritative court of appeal for the determination of the thingness of all things as such—this pure reason is what Kant subjects to “critique.”