Viewed by scholars of philosophy as one of the landmark texts of the Enlightenment era, The Critique of Pure Reason is often a primary text in higher educational courses concerning philosophy. First published in 1781 and revised in 1787, this book is generally agreed to be the masterwork of Immanuel Kant for its embracing scope, and the gargantuan influence it has wrought upon philosophers.

In composing his most famous critique, Kant consulted the works of contemporary philosophers such as John Locke and David Hume. Their work, which discusses the extent to which human beings can perceive and utilise knowledge, forms the grounding for many of Kant's arguments.

Kant divides knowledge into two broad categories — the analytic judgement and the synthetic judgement. This analytic–synthetic distinction is a cornerstone of his work; an analytic judgement being one which holds truth by virtue of its very meaning; and a synthetic judgement being true owing to how it relates to the world around it.

Kant discusses at length the means through which humans may theoretically acquire knowledge, despite having not personally observed or experienced the phenomena to which such knowledge relates. The processes by which a reliable body of knowledge is formed by human perception and induction is central to much of the Critique.