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German philosopher and significant 18th century late Enlightenment thinker Immanuel Kant wrote "Critique of Judgment" in 1790 to solidify his ideas on aesthetics. Divided into two sections, one on aesthetic judgment and the other on teleological judgment, "Critique" proceeds to analyze the human experience of the beautiful and the sublime. From the effect of art and nature to the role of imagination, from objectivity of taste to the limits of representation, Kant investigates a myriad of factors that determine aesthetics. He continues with the connection of aesthetic with morality, disinterestedness, and originality, and consistently bears in mind the interests of reason in his writing. Kant ultimately had a profound impact on the artists, authors, and other philosophers of both the classical and romantic periods, establishing in "Critique" a milestone in critical theory and philosophy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Kant's argument for finding the universal concept of beauty
I read this book for a graduate seminar on the philosophy of art.Kant is one of the major figures in expression theory.What we understand as aesthetics changed only recently.Kant lays this out well in his "Critique of Judgment," which is one of his easier books to comprehend!Science and math development was momentous in re-interpreting how nature is understood, and all this starts in his time.The modern science narrative that says ancient thought erred; caused a split between science and philosophy.Scientific method and math causes nature to be seen in a "mechanistic" way, there are no "value" judgments anymore so this valueless nature by science caused the split because nature can't explain values anymore.Thus, philosophy finds that "values" are in humans, not in nature, we are the "location" of values now.Beauty, which is a value, is an idea in our minds.This expression theory says something about us it is in our minds.Kant agrees with this notion of how modern science operates especially in "Critique of Pure Reason." However, with questions of art he doesn't rely on science.

Kant begins that there is such a thing as an experience of beauty, and that we normally presuppose that it must be compelling rather than just mere opinion unlike taste in food.Then he asks why would there be such a thing?He is now trying to lay out possible answers to that question.In the experience of beauty, the mind gets a special perspective on its own powers.Thus, this special perspective is free of the normal constraints of the things we do in our lives like knowing and worrying.Kant realizes that the aesthetic experience is subjective; it is in the human mind not in reality.He wants to make artistic judgments.Not just interested in individual subjectivity, he looks for a "universal" character of experience of judgment.It is not real useful to just catalogue people's subjective opinions.Kant says inter-subjective principle is part of the human mind as more of a collective.Thus, humans can make judgment.Kant's idea of taste is not to merely have a subjective opinion; people have a kind of competency they have discernment.The difficulty in this notion is, how does one know when they find a universal.

Kant astutely argues that one can't argue towards an aesthetic judgment like in logic, aesthetics is subjective but he wants humans to be able to say; "this painting is beautiful, and not just to me."Important point: is there such a thing as subjective universality?This is his dilemma, although he thinks there is if you can use the principle of "disinterest."The realm of subjectivity is realm of interests.Once one is divorced of all normal interest, one can view art with a "disinterested" view.This notion of disinterest screens out allot but has to be connected to pleasure but not mere opinion universally.The other important element of disinterest has been the continuing idea and even could be something that could be applicable to any area of art.There is something about art that has some relationship to a "pause" from normal relationships.There is something special about artworks that even though there was no such thing as a museum in Greece, Greek statuary and architecture was all part of the cityscape, part of the actual landscape and livingscape of Greece, and therefore part of the city so no such thing as a museum.However, whenever a statue was put up or a temple, or a play was put on, that would seem to be something different from the normal relationships with objects either in terms of using them for some practical purpose and therefore using them up giving the works some special reserve, special status.Disinterest wouldn't require that it have the subjectivism term because you would simply say that the whole point of art could be disengaged normal ways of engaging things, even if it didn't have a subjective theory of expression.According to this notion of "disinterest," the idea of political art would be a contradiction in terms.Art as applied as nothing more than serving political needs.Like how the Soviet Union used art for nothing else but to serve the workers revolution.Kant is saying, the whole idea of engaging beauty is to be divorced from the normal ways of things, and that would include end purposes, goals, and outcomes.

Distinction between subjective universal validity and objective universal validity.
An important argument Kant makes is that all judgments of "taste" and "beauty" are of a singular judgment.If it is unique, it cannot fit in the universal concept of beauty.There are no formulas, principles, or rules for identifying beauty.There is only the "possibility" of aesthetic judgments, so he can't list items of art that conform to his aesthetic judgment.Kant says something about art is different than everything else it doesn't have interest, axioms, rules, can't list things, but it has some positives, it is pleasurable, it draws us, it satisfies us, it isn't pleasure of practical needs or pleasure of knowledge or any interests.It doesn't excite our personal desires, it just gives us a direct experience of pleasure.Thus, Kant gives an intellectual picture of aesthetic taste and he says it is always a species of pleasure.The category of disinterest provides two notions for Kant, one is freedom, and the other is universality.By freedom, he means, freedom from both desire and knowledge, and that is the interesting part.

Another important concept for Kant is that the free play of imagination is one of the features that make up beauty.Free play of imagination of art gives pleasure because the mind is free from normal cognitive needs, logical rules, or empirical findings, practical needs, and therefore it has an element of openness.Thus, imagination is very important here, imagination is the ability to conjure up something that is not a fact in the real world.The free play in the imagination in art gives pleasure, because here the mind can simply enjoy its own cognitive powers independent of the constraints of the other realms, like science, math, logic, and other practical needs.Free play opens the idea that the artist has allot of leeway.The artist is not bound by facts and realities, nor is the audience someone who has to have that attitude either.Therefore, when you are looking at a painting or you are reading a poem or listening to music in this mode you are not bound by other ways of knowing.You are going to be free of that.What does that mean?First of all, all art is going to have a tangible means of presentation through sound or sight or color, texture, structure, so forth.This excites pleasure because art is a less ordered realm than other areas.Kant wouldn't say you could take pleasure in something that was chaotic.Kant says you can't force aesthetic judgment on others, but beauty has a universal claim, that is the tightrope he is walking.It is complicated, beauty is not chaotic, but not private opinion.

Disinterest and free play of mind is two sides of same coin.Imagination is not bound by normal modes of knowing, or normal needs or desires so it is associated with free play.Normally our desires are compelling to us.Imagination is the faculty, which is not bound to any particular object in the world that has to govern what we say.Then he goes to say that pleasure is the other element that has to be; that beauty has to be experienced as pleasure, and the theory does say something that is culturally specific, that pleasure comes from the experience of the harmony of the faculties.The free play of imagination is pleasurable, when within certain principles of harmony and order.This really is a kind of formalism, because it is not bound by the particular aesthetic object.This is one of the fullest senses of expression theory means, the expression of the mind's capacity rather then the direct reading out of the object itself.

So, what is aesthetic beauty, what is aesthetic judgment?Aesthetic judgment has to do with the sensuous form.So it obviously has to do with some kind of sensuous medium, some kind of visual or auditory stuff, which is probably what art is about, a sensuous form producing a harmony of the faculties that are released from normal judgments like science, and hence free to notice and explore structural relations and patterns as such.Not tied to condition or use or even the abstract universality of mere concepts (that is where singularity comes in).The abstract universality of mere concepts is there is a dog; the abstract concept of "dog" is the universal organization of all particular dogs.Here pleasure is excited which would not occur in logical form.So remember there are sensuous pleasures that are different from cognition; thus, scientific cognition has nothing to do with pleasure, it solely has to do with truth.So art is something that is disinterested, so therefore, it is relieved from the normal kinds of pleasures or normal kinds of things, but it is pleasure and in that respect, it is different from logic or reason.

Art is not something useful and you have to pick out what it isn't and say that yes aesthetic judgments can be made and there is such a thing as beauty.However, it doesn't operate the same way as normal reason does, it doesn't operate the way practical reason does, and it is not mere cognition because it has elements of sensuality and pleasure.The universality part of art has to do with disinterest and Kant is filling out the concept a little bit more.Kant argues that disinterest opens the door for the mind to enjoy its faculties independent of the usual ways in which the faculties are applied.The usual ways the faculties are applied are in science, the scientific accounts of nature, practical reasons like, "how do I get this thing done," these are the faculties that reach out towards something to understand.The artwork is obviously something that is out there, but with the power of aesthetic appreciation with artwork is not simply in the artwork but in the mind, the appreciation of the work by way of the mind's faculties and experience of pleasure.

Thus, Kant argues that everyone has there own taste, but the concept of the beautiful is universal.For Kant, the beautiful is a special characteristic.Thus, people can't deny an aesthetic judgment of taste.This sounds like Kant believes in cultural and foundational forms of beauty, which he observed in his Prussian society.

I recommend this work for anyone interested in philosophy and philosophy of art.
... Read more

Product Description
Immanuel Kant's "transcendental" philosophy transcends the question of "what" we know to ask "how" we know it. Before Kant, philosophers had debated for centuries whether knowledge is derived from experience or reason. Kant says that both views are partly right and partly wrong, that they share the same error; both believe that the mind and the world, reason and nature, are separated from one another. Kant says that our reason organizes our sense perception to produce knowledge. The mind is a creative force for understanding the manifold of new, unconceptualized sense impressions with which the world bombards us. Kant says we cannot know the "thing-in-itself"—the object apart from our conceptualization of it. His influence on subsequent thought has been monumental; all of nineteenth and twentieth century philosophy stands in his debt. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Great intro to Aquinas
This is an excellent way to begin an exploration of the ideas to Thomas Aquinas (Unlike most of the other reviews, I'm actually writing about Aquinas!). The information is mostly biographical, but I believe this should be the first step in studying any great thinker.

If all you want is to know who Aquinas was, then this program is enough. If you want to know about his theology, let this be the starting point.

A great alternative to Strathern
If you are looking for a thoughtful and honest summary of the more important aspects of Aquinas' contribution to the history of philosophy, this is the best audio book I have yet found.Unlike the glib and grossly naive attempts at dealing with Aquinas such as Strathern's cheesy "Aquinas in 90 Minutes", this is actually written by a scholar devoted to understanding Aquinas.The treatment of his "five proofs for the existence of God" is precise and accurate. In fact, if you listen closely to them it will save you from thinking that the flaccid objections of people like Bertrand Russel had anything to do with what Aquinas was communicating in these proofs. Of course, if you are looking for Aquinas' theology, it is not here addressed.But then again, the title of the series is not "Giants of Theology."Overall, this is the best bang for your buck in Aquinas on audio.

what better way is there to learn and drive
The way I look at these tapes as the best way of reading philosophy while you are driving. Please keep your eyes on the road while you are driving. These series are great. I believe they are not intended to be comprehensive and they could not be in two hours but they give you %60 biography %40 philosophy. Some of them even have accent as they though they were immigrants from original contries to US, Kant speakes with German/English accent. It is fun, entertaining, illuminating. Much better than talk shows. Please this is not a substitute for a real book so judge accordingly.

Great introduction to Hume
This brief introduction to Hume is exceptional.I went from this tape to Hume's "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding" and "An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals".I don't think it would have been such an easy transition without learning how Hume fits into Western philosophical history and what problems concerned him.It startled me to discover that Hume's major point is that inductive thinking (thinking about "matters of fact" ) is irrational:forming general laws about the world has its basis in custom and experience and not by the sort of reasoning used in math and logic ("relations of ideas" in Hume's lexicon).

Hume's political, historical, and ethical ideas are also interesting and I was surprised to learn how much Hume's ideas on the separation of powers in government had influenced James Madison.

Pretty bad summary of Augustine.
The material is mostly biographical. It is also boring. Remember the kid in the school play who tries to do an accent and can't? The person doing the voice of Augustine is like that. Heston, as usual, is stiff as aspanker's paddle.

I note the other review is about Kant not Augustine. ... Read more

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Immanuel Kant’s Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, on Emanuel Swedenborg, has mystified readers since its publication in 1766 during Swedenborg’s lifetime. Its unusual style and content have led to two opposing interpretations. Most Kant scholars regard the work as a skeptical attack on Swedenborg’s mysticism. Others, however, believe that Kant regarded Swedenborg as a serious philosopher and visionary, that Swedenborg had a powerful influence on Kant’s mature critical philosophy, and that the book both reveals Kant’s profound debt to Swedenborg and conceals that debt behind the mask of irony.

This unique edition includes translations of Kant’s other writings on Swedenborg, as well as texts by other writers, illustrating the book's genesis and reception.

Dreams of a Spirit-Seer provides all the documents one needs to assess Kant’s most mysterious work. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Kant's flip side
This book is supposed to be the funniest thing that Kant ever wrote, and I really wanted to swim through this book before I tried to figure out what I thought was so funny, but even treading water is a challenge when the current has such a fierce undertow, and the serious "First Part, Which is Dogmatic" demands some consideration, though it ends with the famous prudence which demands "that one make the pattern of one's projects appropriate to one's powers, and if one cannot reasonably attain the great, to restrict oneself to the mediocre."(p. 40).This collection of DREAMS OF A SPIRIT-SEER and other writings from the Swedenborg Foundation Publishers, edited by Gregory R. Johnson, which puts everything that directly related to KANT ON SWEDENBORG into this book, allows a serious consideration of Johnson's view that self-defense was the essence of Kant's approach.Religious controversies had career consequences in those days, and Kant had to show he was laughing "because Swedenborg was a controversial figure.Rumors of interest in Swedenborg would have seriously jeopardized Kant's prospects for academic advancement.This is sufficient motive for him to write a book exculpating himself of the suspicion that he took Swedenborg seriously."(p. xvi).Johnson was writing a doctoral dissertation on Kant the first time he read DREAMS OF A SPIRIT-SEER in 1994, and he cites it in the notes as his COMMENTARY, (Washington, D.C.:The Catholic University of America, 2001).The acknowledgments are dated January 2003 (p. xxvi) and I feel lucky that I received this book as soon as I did.

I have been thinking about this book for a long time before I wrote this review, since this is the work for which Kant wondered if he had gone too far in jest.My first surprise was that Kant himself (like Hegel, he avoids mentioning names) is not entirely clear about whom he meant to be writing until page 49: "I come now to my purpose, namely, to the writings of my hero."He called his preface "A Prospectus That Promises Very Little for the Project" (p. 3) and the final paragraph of his introduction attempted to make his readers share the situation which he found himself in."Furthermore, a large work was purchased, and, what is worse still, was read, and such effort should not be wasted.From this originated the present treatise, which, as one flatters oneself, should leave the reader in a state of complete satisfaction, in which the principal part will not be understood, the other not believed, and the remainder laughed at."(p. 4).In general, I approve of the steps Kant took to show a more enlightened view than the journals of his day.The major contrast in Johnson's Introduction is with Johann August Ernesti, who denounced Swedenborg in 1760 as a heretic in his "New Theological Library."For attempting to find meanings in the early books of the Bible which were not obvious, Swedenborg was accused of "pervert[ing] the Sacred Scriptures by the pretense of an inner sense, is in the highest degree worthy of punishment."(p. xxiv).When someone in Wurttemberg published a book on Swedenborg, "at Ernesti's urging, the Wurttemberg government declared the book heretical, confiscated all copies, and even ordered private citizens to surrender their copies on pain of arrest."(p. xxv).When a professor of Theology at Tubingen "urged a more open-minded attitude toward Swedenborg[,] Ernesti responded with yet another scathing review, asserting that Clemm's defense of Oetinger and Swedenborg was an offense that would have been worthy of the death penalty in earlier times."(p. xxv).Kant shows how modern people could be much more philosophical about these things, and though those people are all dead, there is a nice justice in the number of people who are still reading Kant and Swedenborg, even if they hardly know anyone else who does.

The prime point in the Introduction by Johnson resides deep in personal philosophy, that professional philosophers might understand as, "that Kant's mature critical philosophy is best seen as a synthesis of Rousseauian and Swedenborgian elements (the influence of Leibniz and Hume being primarily upon Kant's elaboration of difficult technical questions once his basic vision was already in place).. . . although Kant's vision of the cosmos is more Swedenborgian than Rousseauian, it is Rousseau who provides the essentially pragmatic arguments that allow Kant to embrace the content of Swedenborg's visions but discard his enthusiasm."(p. xx).

The notes are helpful.Only a translator is likely to notice, "Here Kant embraces the idea of general as opposed to particular providence." (p. 161, n. 26).This is what makes Kant a philosopher, "the notion that God governs the universe by framing general laws.Particular providence is the notion that he governs the universe on a case-by-case basis."Swedenborg is so religious that he argues "general providence is meaningless without particular providence."There is more on this in Johnson's (as yet, unpublished) COMMENTARY.Kant [Part I, Second Chapter, Paragraph 3] was talking about connections in the immaterial world, the former connections, before getting trapped where "nothing hinders even the immaterial beings that affect one another through the mediation of matter from also standing in a special and constant association and as immaterial beings always exercising reciprocal influences on one another, so that their relationship mediated by matter is only contingent and rests upon particular divine provision, whereas the former is natural and indissoluble."(p. 16)

I would like to check another translation to see if this is even close to what anyone else would think.In 1992, David Walford and Ralf Meerbote had their translation published in Kant, THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY, 1755-1770."Walford's translation is highly accurate and very readable.Indeed, it would be hard to justify a new translation of DREAMS at all were the Walford translation available in an inexpensive paperback edition."(p. xxiii).It soon might be, if that is what you would rather have.

Kant accepted that our spirit conjoins two worlds.
This work is often described as Kant's most "mysterious". The mystery lies in the fact that here in this treatise the Great Professor of Metaphysics unreservedly admits in the existance of "immaterial natures in the world", i.e. spirits and a spirit world. There is nothing mysterious about this statement, it is just that modern readers refuse to accept it. I've never understood why this should be so hard for some, since Kant's System of critical idealism is perfectly consistent with this view. Kant claimed that we could never know the true nature of the world around us, the true causes of sensations. He always held that there is a real world that we can never accurately know. This real world corresponds with a "spirit world", or if you prefer, a platonic world of Ideals lieing outside of our human perception of time and space. Kant unmistakably states that "We should ... regard the human soul as being conjoined in its present life with two worlds at the same time...." Nothing could be more unambiguous, especially considering his references to the writings of Swedenborg.

I think that this book has been largely ignored because it is just too divergent from the rational empiracism of the modern scientific mind. The scienitfic materialist conveniently ignores the fundamental questions of material "reality" that Kant couldn't ignore. Furthermore, when the Prussian government banned this work it set into motion the series of events that culminated in the profound physical and spiritual disasters of the 20th cetury- and beyond.

It may yet be proven that the ideas in this forgotten book are far more "real" than the modern materialist concensus of reality.... ... Read more

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This new, revised edition of Kant's Prolegomena, the best introduction to the theoretical side of his philosophy, presents his thought clearly through careful attention to his original language. Also included are selections from the Critique of Pure Reason, which fill out and explicate some of Kant's central arguments (including famous sections of the Schematism and Analogies), and in which Kant himself explains his special terminology. The first reviews of the Critique, to which Kant responded in the Prolegomena, are included in this revised edition.First Edition Hb (1997): 0-521-57345-9First Edition Pb (1997): 0-521-57542-7 ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Kant's Psychology
Kant's Anthropology is what we call today - psychology. The book is a series of lectures that Kant himself edited into a book. Usualy we know Kant as hard to read, yet this book is unique in that. It flows, from subject to subject, examining man's mind and various characteristics of thehuman spirit. It is embodied with examples from life and literature, andgives a very good idea of Kants views regarding everyday life and behaviorof normal people, and also of insane ones. It is a very warm book, filledwith intelligent remarks about the human race, and it gives a very goodnotion of psychology (both cognitive and abnormal) in Kants days. Irecommend it Highly. ... Read more

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This seminal text in the history of moral philosophy elaborates the basic themes of Kant's moral theory, gives the most complete statement of his highly original theory of freedom of the will, and develops his practical metaphysics. This new edition, prepared by an acclaimed translator and scholar of Kant's practical philosophy, presents the first new translation of the work to appear for many years, together with a substantial and lucid introduction. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Fine edition, except for...
Missing the editorial notes from the Practical Philosophy volume of the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, despite the fact that the numbers of the notes are retained in the text! This seems like a silly, wholly unnecessary oversight, since the editorial notes for the Critique of Practical Reason run to all of three pages!

A Formula for Modern Ethics
Kant's insistence on using a general maxim in formulating the categorical imperative is its Achilles heel.A more specific maxim, one that takes into account the universal properties of the matter at hand, enables us to avoid all of the problems associated with never lying (e.g., to save Jews from Nazis) or killing (e.g., just war). (...) ... Read more

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"... one of Heidegger's most important and extraordinary works.... indispensable for anyone interested in Heidegger's thought as well as in current trends in hermeneutics, ethics, and political philosophy." -- Interpretation

"Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics is among the most important readings in this century of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. This authoritative English translation will play an important role in determining Heidegger's reputation in the coming years." -- Choice

"Heidegger's interpretation of Kant remains a challenging way to address the issues that both Kant and Heidegger saw as crucial.... In reading [Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics] we can struggle with some basic issues of human existence in the company of two great minds." -- International Philosophical Quarterly

Since its original publication in 1929, Martin Heidegger's provocative book on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason has attracted much attention both as an important contribution to twentieth-century Kant scholarship and as a pivotal work in Heidegger's own development after Being and Time. The work is significant not only for its illuminating assessment of Kant's thought but also for its elaboration of themes first broached in Being and Time, especially the problem of how Heidegger proposed to enact his destruction of the metaphysical tradition and the role that his reading of Kant would play therein.

Customer Reviews (5)

FALSE DEPTH
This is absolutely the worst book I've ever read about Kant, it has nothing to do with his doctrine, and it falls in deliberated distortions about the essence of critical thought. The main task of Heidegger is embodied in a struggle against german idealism (specifically advanced enlightenment), so the main purpose for this book will be to dissolve heterogeneity (superiority) of understanding (over) and sense, appealing on a famous Kantian passage that more or less says "there exist two logs of knowledge, the ones are coming probably from a common root, but unknown for us" (KrV B 29). In his pretension, Heidegger claims to discover this "common root" (considered in german idealism as the last unity of a dialectical process, then, a rational one) in time, specifically, in the doctrine of the self-affection as it is exposed in the transcendental aesthetics (KrV B 67), so, his main thesis can be found in paragraph n° 34, there, Heidegger says: "Time, and the 'I think', doesn't confront themselves now as incompatibles and heterogeneous, nevertheless, they are the same", and further he adds "pure sensibility (time) and pure reason not only are homogeneous, moreover they own to the unity of the same essence". All the book is ever enclosing to this thesis (as it was offered in Being and Time, not in the KrV), of course on different ways, as for example, in his treating on the concepts of ontology, intuitus originaria, metaphysica generalis, finiteness of human knowledge, schematism, etc... And this thesis was far before offered to us by Erich Adickes and the realistic interpretations.

But the fact is that this has nothing to do with Kantian philosophy, and Heidegger never notice to the reader where Kant stops and Heidegger start. Thus, in front of this thesis Kant already expressed in his time that "understanding and sensibility become brothers, in spite of their heterogeneity, to engender our knowledge, AS IF one faculty had its origin in the other, or AS IF both of 'em had a common origin, THOUGH IT CAN NOT BE, or at least it is not-understandable that the heterogeneous get engendered from a common root" (Kant, Anthropology, par. 31), and he also warned us from this misleading in his transcendental deduction (1787), concerning the same topic treated in relation to this in the aesthetics (inner sense), but now, obviously accurated, in KrV B 152 - B 159. But Heidegger intentionally doesn't consider the second edition deduction.

Why then, an acknowledged philosopher ignores this basic start point? It is there a hidden purpose? Probably in its more surfaced task, yes. But the historical context may clarify us the fact that such a kind of interpretations are engaged to struggle against modernity and its methods, trying to replace `em both by a new dark age through an ad auctoritas interpretandi method. Against this, Kant also said "in philosophy, there is no classic author" (Answer to Eberhard, 1st, secc. Part 3) The book, in relation to Heidegger's rhetoric, can be useful and "clarifying", but in relation to Kant and modern philosophy, it can be reduced to "nothing". The not-understandable that Kant names in the passage above means a type of nothingness (nihil negativum, KrV B 348, like saying "squared circle"), and it was remembered to us how is present in this kind of interpretations by T. W. Adorno, in his Negative Dialectics: "the doctrine of the being hide and exploit dialectics that makes mix up pure particularization and pure universality, both equally undetermined; emptiness becomes a mythic cuirass".

Don't buy this piece of trash, unless you want to impress a fooled girl in the faculty with this "technical nothingness".

Nicolás Guzmán Grez.

systematic and technical Heidegger
It is primarily and for the most part a readable translation of some very difficult to translate, much less understand and appropriate, esoteric thought.An absolute must read for any would-be Heideggerians, and not a bad place to get some insight into Kant at the same time.

Easily among Heidegger's best works
A masterpiece in its own right.

The origin of Deconstruction. Read before `Being and Time'.
Intended to be part of `Being and Time', but published separately and after BT. Heidegger's intention for `Kant and The Problem of Metaphysics' is straight forward; that is, Rational-Cognitive subjectivity (as presentedin Kant's `Critique of Pure Reason') is not a tenable basis formetaphysics. Why? Because `time' alone can provide a foundation formetaphysics; thereby, dispensing with Reason, subjectivity and the rest ofKant's transcendental machinery. Heidegger claims to have `found Kant out';that is, earlier editions of Kant's Critique has time as a much moreimportant notion. Heidegger accuses Kant of recoiling from the primacy oftime, and goes on to demonstrate that time is the basis of any possiblemetaphysics; to be carried out as a fundamental ontology via `Being andTime'.

Watch out for Heidegger's own recoil regarding spatiality and itsrelation to time.

Being and Time, Part II
This is perhaps the second most important text from Heidegger behind the monumental Being and Time.Where Being and Time ends abruptly without venturing into the destruction of the history of western ontology, the"Kant book" appears to be a sketch of the possible direction ofHeidegger's fundamental ontology.

Surprisingly enough, Heidegger offersa rather faithful exegesis of Kant's discussion of the schematism from theCritique of Pure Reason.This is a close and careful reading of Kant whichdemonstrates Heidegger's skill at reconstruction of an existing text.Theshort Part One of this book is a work of art as Heidegger clearly definesKant's project as a groundwork for metaphysics, that is, as ontology, bytracing the initial remarks by Kant to their Greek and scholastic origins. Therefore, Heidegger argues that the Kant of the First Critique does notbring forth a theory of knowledge (and against the Prolegomena that Kant ismaking a foundation for science), but rather, that the real project is acritique of metaphysics by returning to ontology as the groundwork formetaphysics.Thus, this project runs straight into Heidegger's ownconcerns of the possibility of anthropology.

Included in this edition isa transcript of the historical (and highly entertaining) debate betweenHeidegger and Ernst Cassier from the Davos lectures.Along with this, theeditors have included other illuminating notes, drafts, andforwards.

Whether for or against Heidegger, this book clearlydemonstrates the enormous philosophical skills of Martin Heidegger. ... Read more

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IMMANUEL KANTS CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON translated by NORMAN KEMP SMITH. Originally published in 1929. PREFACE: THE present translation was begun in 1913, when I was com pleting my Commentary to Kants Critique of Pure Reason Owing, however, to various causes, I was unable at that time to do more than prepare a rough translation of about a third of the whole and it was not until 1927 that I found leisure to revise and continue it. In this task I have greatly profited by the work of my two predecessors, J. M. D. Meiklejohn and Max Muller. Meiklejohns work, a translation of the second edition of the Critique was published in 1855. Max Miillers translation, which is based on the first edition of the Critique, with the second edition passages in appendices, was published in 1 88 1. Meiklejohn has a happy gift which only those who attempt to follow in his steps can, I think, fully appreciate of making Kant speak in language that reasonably approxi mates to English idiom. Max Miillers main merit, as he has very justly claimed, is his greater accuracy in render ing passages in which a specially exact appreciation of the niceties of German idiom happens to be important for the sense. Both Meiklejohn and Max Miiller laboured, however, under the disadvantage of not having made any very thorough study of the Critical Philosophy and the shortcomings in their translations can usually be traced to this cause. In the past fifty years, also, much has been done in the study and interpretation of the text. In particular, my task has been facilitated by the quite invaluable edition of the Critique edited by Dr. Raymund Schmidt. Indeed, the ap pearance of this edition in 1926 was the immediate occasion of my resuming the work of translation. Dr. Schmidts restoration of the original texts of the first and second editions of the Critique, and especially of Kants own punctuation so very helpful in many difficult and doubtful passages and his cita tion of alternative readings, have largely relieved me of the time-consuming task of collating texts, and of assembling the emendations suggested by Kantian scholars in their editions of the Critique or in their writings upon it. The text which I have followed is that of the second edition i 787 and I have in all cases indicated any departure from it. I have also given a translation of all first edition passages which in the second edition have been either altered or omitted. Wherever possible, this original first edition text is given in the lower part of the page. In the two sections, however, which Kant completely recast in the second edition The Transcendental Deduction of the Categories and The Paralogisms of Pure Reason this cannot conveniently be done and I have therefore given the two versions in immediate succession, in the main text. For this somewhat unusual procedure there is a twofold justification first, that the Critique is already, in itself, a composite work, the different parts of which record the successive stages in the development of Kants views and secondly, that the first edition versions are, as a matter of fact, indispensable for an adequate under standing of the versions which were substituted for them. The pagings of both the first and the second edition are given throughout, on the margins the first edition being referred to as A, the second edition as B. Kants German, even when judged by German standards, makes difficult reading. The difficulties are not due merely to the abstruseness of the doctrines which Kant is endeavouring to expound, or to his frequent alternation between conflicting points of view. Many of the difficulties are due simply to his manner of writing... ... Read more

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A very good translation of a short work
This is a very readable translation of a philosopher whose works are sometimes tedious and difficult to read for the layman.Of course, Kant -- one of the luminaries of the Age of Enlightenment -- has had a tremendous influence on Western thought and it is important to be able to grasp some of his ideas, if only dimly.

Kant's work "On Education" is quite short, but it is important because it outlines not only his thoughts about how education of youth should be pursued, and what is to be avoided, but it gives the reader an idea of how important Kant viewed the emotional and moral growth of children.His chapter on moral culture is interesting.It concerns development in children that is at once understandable to the modern world yet -- for better or worse -- now rather removed from Western culture too.

For readers who have enjoyed the works of Plato and others from antiquity on the subject of education this work will introduce them to the very beginning of the Modern World's approaches to education from a philosopher still educated and grounded in the ideas of the ancients. ... Read more

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The fundamental task of philosophy since the seventeenth century has been to determine whether the essential principles of both knowledge and action can be discovered by human beings unaided by an external agency. No one philosopher contributed more to this enterprise than Kant, whose Critique of Pure Reason (1781) shook the very foundations of the intellectual world. Kant argued that the basic principles of the natural sciences are imposed on reality by human sensibility and understanding, and thus that human beings are also free to impose their own free and rational agency on the world. This volume is the only systematic and comprehensive account of the full range of Kant's writings available, and the first major overview of his work to be published in more than a dozen years. An internationally recognized team of Kant scholars explore Kant's conceptual revolution in epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of science, moral and political philosophy, aesthetics, and the philosophy of religion. The volume also traces the historical origins and consequences of Kant's work. ... Read more

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False advertising
Far from the promised "convenient, accessible guide" to Kant for "new readers and nonspecialists," this is merely a loosecollection of papers by Anglo-American Kant scholars. While a few of the papers might interest those in that circumscribed group, this book is both useless to the unintiated and often susbstandard to those who know Kant well.

Excellent Collection!
If you're studying Kant for a college course, on your own, or as a scholar, this collection is quite excellent.Guyer is a major Kant interpreter, and so this anthology represents some of the best work in the field.I highly recommend this.

Guyer's article here is excellent.And so is Schaper's on the Third Critique.

I also recommend: Allison, Transcendental Idealism (for a sympathetic defense of Kant); Strawson, Bounds of Sense (critical); Bennett, K's Analytic (critical); Forster, Transcendental Deductions (Stanford UP); and Kitcher, K's CPR (Rowman/Littlefield).A current biography of Kant is: M. Kuehn, Kant (Cambridge UP, now in paperback).

A necessary corrective for the Anglo-Saxon Kantian fallacies
Paul Guyer has done a great service to Kantian studies with his judiciousediting of this anthology of essays on Kant's philosophy. By showing thebalance between Kant's rationalistic background and his response to theEnglish empiricists, the essays refute the common Anglo-American fallacy ofviewing Kant as arbitrarily imposing categorical types on the objects ofexperience. The article on Kant's pre-critical development and philosophyis worth the price of the book alone. ... Read more

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This major study of Kant provides a detailed examination of the development and function of the doctrine of transcendental illusion in his theoretical philosophy.The author argues that we cannot understand Kant unless we take seriously his claim that the mind inevitably acts in accordance with ideas and principles that are "illusory."Taking this claim seriously, we can make much better sense of Kant's arguments and reach a deeper understanding of the role he allots human reason in science. ... Read more

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Original And Persuasive Kantian Interpretation
It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of Michelle Grier's book.It could be said that it constitutes the most important insight into Kant's Critique of Pure Reason since it was published.It seems to have been recognized as such by contemporary scholars.One of the most prominent, Henry Allison, in his extensively revised book, Kant's Transcendental Idealism, owes, according to its author, not just new ideas about but an entirely new and different understanding of Kant's philosophy.An Amazon search of citations of Prof. Grier's book shows that prominent Kant scholars have taken note of her work.Her thesis, in its usual description, sounds tame.She argues from the Kantian text that what Kant calls illusion is and was meant by him to provide the fundamental understanding of what human reason is: illusion is not a deplorable mistake or sad limitation, but the enticement toward which reason must strive, giving it direction as well as energy.She shows in detail how this interpretation makes specific sense of the puzzles that have plagued or mislead scholars to date.Kant's work, one should not forget, is titled "The Critique of Pure Reason", and so a clarification, especially one that is on the one hand historically so recent but nevertheless on the other hand absolutely convincing and solidly right, is highly extraordinary.Her telling us what Kant was driving at when no one before her saw it makes her book a wonder glittering brightly among the many good commentaries on Kant's thought. ... Read more

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Anthropology, History, and Education contains all of Kant's major writings on human nature. Some of these works, which were published over a thirty-nine year period between 1764 and 1803, have never before been translated into English. Kant's question 'What is the human being?' is approached indirectly in his famous works on metaphysics, epistemology, moral and legal philosophy, aesthetics and the philosophy of religion, but it is approached directly in his extensive but less well-known writings on physical and cultural anthropology, the philosophy of history, and education which are gathered in the present volume. Kant repeatedly claimed that the question 'What is the human being?' should be philosophy's most fundamental concern, and Anthropology, History, and Education can be seen as effectively presenting his philosophy as a whole in a popular guise. ... Read more

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This book offers a radically new account of the development and structure of the central arguments of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason: the defense of the objective validity of such categories as substance, causation, and independent existence. Paul Guyer makes far more extensive use than any other commentator of historical materials from the years leading up to the publication of the Critique and surrounding its revision, and he shows that the work which has come down to us is the result of some striking and only partially resolved theoretical tensions. Kant had originally intended to demonstrate the validity of the categories by exploiting what he called 'analogies of appearance' between the structure of self-knowledge and our knowledge of objects. The idea of a separate 'transcendental deduction', independent from the analysis of the necessary conditions of empirical judgements, arose only shortly before publication of the Critique in 1781, and distorted much of Kant's original inspiration. Part of what led Kant to present this deduction separately was his invention of a new pattern of argument - very different from the 'transcendental arguments' attributed by recent interpreters to Kant - depending on initial claims to necessary truth. ... Read more

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a great resource
guyer has delved into the intricate arguments that kant has put together and tries to make sense of them through analysis and argument. this is a very helpful text for a student of kant who needs a fresh view into what kant is trying to do in the critique of pure reason.

Kant without tears
Kant is famous for his claim that space and time are forms of intuition imposed by our cognitive constitution on the raw material of sensation, rendering our empirical world of experience a world of appearances. Thus was provided the foundation of Kant's Transcendental Idealism (TI), a doctrine of synthetic a priori truths aimed at refuting Humean skepticism. But the argument carried a cost, in the form of an unbridgeable gap between the world we know and a bizarre reality beyond the possibility of human experience where our notions of space and time do not apply.Kant does not posit that space and time might not apply in the world of "things in themselves," or the agnostic view that we simply can't know whether or not they apply in that world, but rather he insists that they cannot possibly apply.The reality of space and time are explicity rejected.

Guyer argues that this rejection lacks justification, that Kant fails to present any argument that invalidates the realist hypothesis that space and time are, in fact, features of a real world of objects, and that our perceptions of space and time therefore provide a basically accurate representation of reality. In other words, Kant fails to make the case that space and time cannot be both necessary aspects of human sensibility and also characteristic of things in themselves.

The question of why Kant rejected this obvious and seemingly attractive possibility, known as Trendelenburg's missing alternative, is the major subject of Guyer's thoroughly impressive book. The explanation, in schematic form, is that Kant could not see how to support his notion of synthetic a priori knowledge other than in a world of representations that universally and necessarily incorporated space and time as built-in products of human sensibility. His theoretical edifice would be undermined, he thought, if space and time characterized a world of things in themselves existing outside of human perception, because in such a world space and time could only be contingent, and not a matter of necessity.Needless to say, no two-sentence sketch can do justice to the richness of Guyer's sophisticated and extremely well-researched argument.

This is a very skillfully-argued analysis of the logical foundation of Kant's Transcendental Idealism, a foundation that is found to be deeply flawed. It can be seen as a riposte to Henry Allison's book defending Kant's TI; I found it to be overwhelmingly persuasive. Highly recommended.
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Immanuel Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals of 1785 is one of the most profound and important works in the history of practical philosophy. In this introduction to the Groundwork, Sally Sedgwick provides a guide to Kant's text that follows the course of his discussion virtually paragraph by paragraph. Her aim is to convey Kant's ideas and arguments as clearly and simply as possible, without getting lost in scholarly controversies. Her introductory chapter offers a useful overview of Kant's general approach to practical philosophy, and she also explores and clarifies some of the main assumptions which Kant relies on in his Groundwork but defends in his Critique of Pure Reason. The book will be a valuable guide for all who are interested in Kant's practical philosophy. ... Read more

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Understand Kantian ethics, not for the feint of heart
I read this book for a graduate seminar on Ethics.In "The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals," Kant astutely observes how ordinary people speak about morality.He argues, ordinary people's views are presupposed about morality, that there is one supreme moral principle it is the "Categorical Imperative" which is discussed in section two of the book.In section one, he talks about value, and special regard or esteem we have for someone who does the right things.Sometimes, people do the right things for wrong reasons.He is interested in what has to be true for an action to have moral worth.He has a kind of criticism of Utilitarians.Utilitarians say you can talk about what is good, i.e., happiness, before talking about what is right or moral.For Kantians "right" comes prior to the question of what is good.One must bring morality in before talking about the good.Talent and ability is good if put to good use, it can also be bad; for example computer hackers creating "viruses."Only one thing is good in and of itself unconditionally, which is a good "will" which means the will of a person who wants to do the right thing.Even if the plan doesn't work out they still have good will.They desire to do the right thing because it is the right thing.

Kant argues that action has moral worth only if it is done out of respect for duty.For example, if a shopkeeper is honest in an effort to look good to customers he did the right thing, but only in "conformity with duty."He acted out of inclination.If the shopkeeper is honest out of being nice or likes kids then his action is still done out of inclination because he "likes to do it," but his moral worth is less in the action.The shopkeeper who has moral worth is the one who is honest because it was the right thing to do.

Kant's 2nd proposition is that an action gets its moral worth from its "maxim."Maxim is a technical term for Kant; maxim is a kind of principle that explains why someone does something.Kant thinks that whenever we act on an action there always is some maxim that we are acting on.So you can think of a maxim as having the form:I will do A (some kind of action) in C (some set of circumstances) for P. (for some purpose).Now it is not as if normally when you act you formulate to yourself here is my maxim, here is what I am acting on.However, Kant thinks that when you do something there is some maxim that describes your choice.Therefore, Kant thinks there is an underlying maxim there, and it is this maxim Kant thinks that is the real decider about whether your action has moral worth or not.Only actions with the right maxim he thinks have moral worth.

Kant's3rd proposition is that duty is the necessity of acting out of respect for law, (not government law).Kant thinks that actions get there moral worth from being done out of respect for a "universal moral law" that is binding on all rational beings.This is the real clincher for Kant in the first section of his book.That actions have moral worth when the person who did the action did it because he or she thought that there is a moral law that commands them to do the action.For example, "I must obey that law, it is necessary; I have no choice but to obey the law."That notion of following the universal moral law is what gives the action, Kant thinks, its worth that is what makes it worthy of the special esteem he thinks we give actions when people have done them just because they thought they were right.

This is the setup for Kant's all important and famous "categorical imperative which he argues applies to everyone.This is all in Section II.We can deduce many rules from the categorical imperative.The categorical imperative is the only one fundamental principle of morality, but it can be formulated in a variety of different ways.Kant had three formulas of the categorical imperative.All three formulas are a different way of wording the categorical imperative.The categorical imperative is a moral law that has to apply to all rational beings, regardless of what ends they have.

The 1st formula is the "Universal Law Formula," which Kant said that every action has a maxim.Whenever you do anything there is some maxim, some subjective principle you are acting on and that we shouldn't act on any maxim that we couldn't choose to become a universal law.Kant then goes on to say that still for every action, in addition to its maxim, there is also an end, every action has an end.Mill and Aristotle also say this.Kant says if you have a categorical imperative there has to be an end that all rational beings see as a good end, this is mandatory.It can't be some kind of effect of our actions, because the kinds of things we produce in the phenomenal world only have value because we care about them.It has to be an end that all rational beings must care about; it can't be a utilitarian end, or one from consequences.If we value it as an end it has value, if we choose it as an end then there is a claim on others to see it as important as well, thus, this is a real mandatory end that humanity itself sees.Rational nature itself then has value.

The 2nd formula is "The Formula of Humanity" which states, I'm not just special because everyone thinks they are valuable.Can't treat other people as merely a means to an end.This gives one a claim to the help from other people.Slavery is an epitome of this formula as an example.It is wrong to treat people ONLY as a means to an end.(However, you are not using a grocery bagger as such because he gets paid).When you put the Universal Law Formula and Formula of Humanity together, you get another way of formulating the Categorical Imperative.

The 3rd Formula is "The Kingdom of Ends Formula."We ought to be thinking of ourselves as legislators for a kingdom of people who are ends to themselves and for Kant that is what we are doing when we are acting morally.We should only act on maxims that can be laws for a community (Kingdom) of rational beings.Thus, we are both subjects and sovereigns in this community, because we make our own laws and then we must obey them.This is the reason Kant thinks that the categorical imperative is binding on all of us because we impose it on ourselves and make the laws, not binding just because somebody might punish us if we disobey.We already accept the categorical imperative according to Kant without thinking about it.We end up with the ideas of autonomy and motivation.We end up with the idea that reason alone must be capable of motivating us to act a certain way which for Kant means we have autonomy (self rule), (motivated by reason as opposed to desires), which gives us free will.We can only be bound by moral laws if we have this kind of autonomy, if we are motivated by reason, if we have in a sense a free will.Kant thinks it goes in the other direction as well, if we have a free will then we are bound by the categorical imperative.

Thus, philosophers ask do we truly have free will?Also, to what extent are we moved by causation?Kant says laws govern causation.One type of law is Newton's laws of motion, scientific laws.Philosophers debate the question is human actions like these laws?Can we predict human actions?Do our desires cause us to act in certain ways; can our actions be predetermined?Some say yes.Aristotle calls this "efficient causation."Some call them "laws of natural necessity."Given the way the natural world works, things have to happen in a certain way and the world is governed by certain laws.

Kant says if we have a free will, then the laws that govern our choices are not going to be laws of natural necessity.If we have a free will, then our will or our practical reason will choose its own principles, its own laws to act on, and those will be the laws that will cause us to do certain things.If we have a free will, then our will chooses certain principles these must have form of a law for everyone; a universal law, this is the categorical imperative.Thus, for Kant, if we have free will then the categorical imperative is binding on us.

I recommend you read this work slowly and repeat key passages for better comprehension.Kant's work is a must for anyone interested in philosophy, and ethics.
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In Without Criteria, Steven Shaviro proposes and explores a philosophical fantasy: imagine a world in which Alfred North Whitehead takes the place of Martin Heidegger. What if Whitehead, instead of Heidegger, had set the agenda for postmodern thought? Heidegger asks, "Why is there something, rather than nothing?" Whitehead asks, "How is it that there is always something new?" In a world where everything from popular music to DNA is being sampled and recombined, argues Shaviro, Whitehead's question is the truly urgent one. Without Criteria is Shaviro's experiment in rethinking postmodern theory, especially the theory of aesthetics, from a point of view that hearkens back to Whitehead rather than Heidegger.

Shaviro does this largely by reading Whitehead in conjunction with Gilles Deleuze, finding important resonances and affinities between them, suggesting both a Deleuzian reading of Whitehead and a Whiteheadian reading of Deleuze. In working through the ideas of Whitehead and Deleuze, Shaviro also appeals to Kant, arguing that certain aspects of Kant's thought pave the way for the philosophical "constructivism" embraced by both Whitehead and Deleuze.

Kant, Whitehead, and Deleuze are not commonly grouped together, but the juxtaposition of them in Without Criteria helps to shed light on a variety of issues that are of concern to contemporary art and media practices (especially developments in digital film and video), and to controversies in cultural theory (including questions about commodity fetishism and about immanence and transcendence). Moreover, in his rereading of Whitehead (and in deliberate contrast to the "ethical turn" in much recent theoretical discourse), Shaviro opens the possibility of a critical aesthetics of contemporary culture.

Technologies of Lived Abstraction series ... Read more