KANT AND REASON 39 awareness of the content of the moral law answers to the second (through our awareness of the fundamental principle of pure practical reason). In Groundwork III (1785/2003), Kant maintains that these issues can be adequately addressed only by a wholesale critique of pure practical reason, which he does not undertake in the Groundwork, although he does outline how he thinks such a critique should proceed. That occurs in the second Critique and is alleged by Kant to establish that pure reason can be practical. If my analysis is correct, Kant’s understanding of what it means for “pure reason to be practical” includes (minimally) two things: a) that reason itself can be motivating in providing a sufficient motive for action, one that can oppose and overwhelm inclination-based mo- tives, and b) that reason supplies the content of morality's fundamental principle, which determines what we ought to do. If | am correct, Kant appeals to a distinct “fact of reason” in arguing for each of these claims in the second Critique.° Moreover, given the important role that not only Kant but many commentators have claimed for the fact of reason (for example, that it “reveals our freedom”), it would seem a reasonable first step toward understanding and assessing such claims that one establish just what is being referred to by “the fact of reason.” For now, I leave aside numerous important issues raised by Kant’s ap- peal to the fact of reason, including what kind of “fact” it is (for example, an “act” or a “deed”), the significance of Kant’s referring to it as a “fact, as it were,” whether Kant’s argument is better captured by an analogy with chemistry or a legal deduction, as well as what Kant can claim that the fact of reason “reveals” to us, most importantly about the status of the claim that we have transcendental freedom. While the distinction I am arguing for does have some bearing on those disputes, I will not directly address them here—any further interpretive issues must be, due to space limitations, addressed elsewhere. Nor will I directly address the further question of whether Kant’s arguments are successful; for now, [ am primarily arguing for how best to understand Kant’s appeals to a fact of reason. I will examine the text of the second Critique to substantiate the claim that Kant employs the term “fact of reason” each of these ways. My argument will of necessity focus on the specific passages that, while not exhaustive of Kant’s appeal to the fact of reason, appeal to one of the uses of the term that I am arguing for. I will also point out that the phenomenon referred to by each of these uses of the term is identified by some commentators as the fact of reason (although most include references to both “facts” as being the fact of reason). I will entertain some objections and, in the process of responding to these objections, offer some considerations that favor the two-facts thesis, admittedly at the price of undermining Kant’s claim to have discerned the sole fact