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Kant's Philosophical Revolution: A Short Guide to the Critique of Pure Reason
A short, clear, and authoritative guide to one of the most important and difficult works of modern philosophy
Perhaps the most influential work of modern philosophy, Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is also one of the hardest to read, since it brims with complex arguments, difficult ideas, and tortuous sentences. A philosophical revolutionary, Kant had to invent a language to express his new ideas, and he wrote quickly. It's little wonder that the Critique was misunderstood from the start, or that Kant was compelled to revise it in a second edition, or that it still presents great challenges to the reader. In this short, accessible book, eminent philosopher and Kant expert Yirmiyahu Yovel helps readers find their way through the web of Kant's classic by providing a clear and authoritative summary of the entire work. The distillation of decades of studying and teaching Kant, Yovel's "systematic explication" untangles the ideas and arguments of the Critique in the order in which Kant presents them. This guide provides helpful explanations of difficult issues such as the difference between general and transcendental logic, the variants of Transcendental Deduction, and the constitutive role of the "I think." Yovel underscores the central importance of Kant's insistence on the finitude of reason and succinctly describes how the Critique 's key ideas are related to Kant's other writings. The result is an invaluable guide for philosophers and students.
Perhaps the most influential work of modern philosophy, Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is also one of the hardest to read, since it brims with complex arguments, difficult ideas, and tortuous sentences. A philosophical revolutionary, Kant had to invent a language to express his new ideas, and he wrote quickly. It's little wonder that the Critique was misunderstood from the start, or that Kant was compelled to revise it in a second edition, or that it still presents great challenges to the reader. In this short, accessible book, eminent philosopher and Kant expert Yirmiyahu Yovel helps readers find their way through the web of Kant's classic by providing a clear and authoritative summary of the entire work. The distillation of decades of studying and teaching Kant, Yovel's "systematic explication" untangles the ideas and arguments of the Critique in the order in which Kant presents them. This guide provides helpful explanations of difficult issues such as the difference between general and transcendental logic, the variants of Transcendental Deduction, and the constitutive role of the "I think." Yovel underscores the central importance of Kant's insistence on the finitude of reason and succinctly describes how the Critique 's key ideas are related to Kant's other writings. The result is an invaluable guide for philosophers and students.
- GenresPhilosophyNonfiction
128 pages, Hardcover
Published April 3, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
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March 1, 2023this is an entirely basic-ass introduction and description of Kants' first critique. just as dry as the text it's summarizing. but I actually find that to be this books virtue, though other introductions I believe do just as fine of a job.
but toward the end, Yovel's synthesis of Kant's work (where he gets slightly more evaluative and prescriptive) helped me with tying together some connections I have seen between Kant and Foucault that I've long felt but have struggled to pin down (long quote incoming:)
“…we cannot know the totality of the world as a single transcendent thing; we can know only specific empirical phenomena within the world—to weave together portions of our scientific experience so as to make larger and more intensely coherent compounds. The regulative idea calls upon reason to never make do with partial, fragmentary results, but always strives to know further areas and aspects of the world: more causes and effects, new natural laws, and more continuous links between the natural laws and natural species we already know. This is a genuinely rational norm, which had strayed into the wrong path pursuing transcendent, supernatural entities, but the regulative idea reverts it to the immanent world and directs it toward the infinitely open horizons of empirical research. Thus the metaphysical interest, expressed as a striving for totality and infinity, is rechanneled into a valid and fruitful course. The regulative idea deals with the products of the scientific understanding, which it seeks to endow with second-order patterns of order, organization, and classification that do not affect the constitution of objects but allow for more unity, continuity, and affinity between the separate domains of science (physics, chemistry, biology, geology, etc.), between the various natural laws, and between the many species and genera discovered in nature.
The regulative idea is a kind of inner imperative in science, which sets itself a dual objective: to extend scientific knowledge into new areas and regions, and to intensify the systematic texture of the already obtained bodies of knowledge, by connecting scientific disciplines and natural species, and by offering “thinker” causal explanations based on new facts and laws.” (Yovel, 101-102)
reason itself can only generate regulative imperatives when it comes to establishing modes of scientific inquiry, which motivates the function of reason to atomize, categorize, and animate specified and norm-generating totalities (plural!) which the conditions of experience (the foundation of which Kant is drawing out in the first critique) make possible.
“…the power of normalization imposes homogeneity; but it individualizes by making it possible to measure gaps, to determine levels, to fix specialities and to render the differences useful by fitting them one to another…It is not simply at the level…of what one thinks one knows, but at the level of what makes possible the knowledge that is transformed into political investment." (Foucault, D&P 184-185)
Foucault's notion of *power* here is striking similar to Kant epistemological foundation of the sciences above. power (knowledge?) homogenizes and *makes possible* scientific inquires of comparison via reduction of the totality of experience to construct ever-more fragmentary totalities.
I think both are the absolute embodiment of the transcendental method, and I think the comparisons might go beyond just methodology, though I rarely see these two put together. Maybe I need to write something more serious and long about the two thinkers who have taken up the most mental space for me over the last several years.
but toward the end, Yovel's synthesis of Kant's work (where he gets slightly more evaluative and prescriptive) helped me with tying together some connections I have seen between Kant and Foucault that I've long felt but have struggled to pin down (long quote incoming:)
“…we cannot know the totality of the world as a single transcendent thing; we can know only specific empirical phenomena within the world—to weave together portions of our scientific experience so as to make larger and more intensely coherent compounds. The regulative idea calls upon reason to never make do with partial, fragmentary results, but always strives to know further areas and aspects of the world: more causes and effects, new natural laws, and more continuous links between the natural laws and natural species we already know. This is a genuinely rational norm, which had strayed into the wrong path pursuing transcendent, supernatural entities, but the regulative idea reverts it to the immanent world and directs it toward the infinitely open horizons of empirical research. Thus the metaphysical interest, expressed as a striving for totality and infinity, is rechanneled into a valid and fruitful course. The regulative idea deals with the products of the scientific understanding, which it seeks to endow with second-order patterns of order, organization, and classification that do not affect the constitution of objects but allow for more unity, continuity, and affinity between the separate domains of science (physics, chemistry, biology, geology, etc.), between the various natural laws, and between the many species and genera discovered in nature.
The regulative idea is a kind of inner imperative in science, which sets itself a dual objective: to extend scientific knowledge into new areas and regions, and to intensify the systematic texture of the already obtained bodies of knowledge, by connecting scientific disciplines and natural species, and by offering “thinker” causal explanations based on new facts and laws.” (Yovel, 101-102)
reason itself can only generate regulative imperatives when it comes to establishing modes of scientific inquiry, which motivates the function of reason to atomize, categorize, and animate specified and norm-generating totalities (plural!) which the conditions of experience (the foundation of which Kant is drawing out in the first critique) make possible.
“…the power of normalization imposes homogeneity; but it individualizes by making it possible to measure gaps, to determine levels, to fix specialities and to render the differences useful by fitting them one to another…It is not simply at the level…of what one thinks one knows, but at the level of what makes possible the knowledge that is transformed into political investment." (Foucault, D&P 184-185)
Foucault's notion of *power* here is striking similar to Kant epistemological foundation of the sciences above. power (knowledge?) homogenizes and *makes possible* scientific inquires of comparison via reduction of the totality of experience to construct ever-more fragmentary totalities.
I think both are the absolute embodiment of the transcendental method, and I think the comparisons might go beyond just methodology, though I rarely see these two put together. Maybe I need to write something more serious and long about the two thinkers who have taken up the most mental space for me over the last several years.
February 28, 2023
Yovel's book is most definitely a "guide to the Critique of Pure Reason." He writes in the preface that it is not meant as a defense or evaluation but as a "descriptive explication." There is no doubt that the book succeeds in doing just that. I have to say that while I found the explication illuminating on some of the finer points of Kant's Critique, I found Yovel's unwillingness to include any sort of evaluation a bit boring.
On some of the finer points: Yovel helpfully explicates the *finite* nature of reason for Kant. On this point it seems fair to say that Kant is often mischaracterized and misrecongized in much popular literature that places him at the pinnacle of Enlightenment rationalism. Instead, Yovel shows that the heart of Kant's critical metaphysics is precisely the recognition that rationality cannot surpass sensible experience and its conceptualization of the forms and patterns that make up experience. To quote Yovel:
"Dogmatic metaphysics (Descartes/Leibniz, as well as the majority or precritical theology) claims to determine the beings of reason *outside experience,* while critical metaphysics abstains from this attempt and determines only the functioning within experience of superempirical factors that shape and constitute experience itself. Thereby the former counts as transcendent metaphysics and the latter as immanent." p. 86
In developing an immanent critical metaphysics of human experience and cognition, Kant remains (according to Yovel) both a transcendental idealist and an empirical realist. This, I thought, was the most interesting claim of the book. So much of what I have read on Kant prioritizes the subject and epistemology but Yovel shows that Kant's critique is just as concerned with ontology and theorizing the being of empirical objects in nature and that the two form a unified single system.
All in all a good, if somewhat dry, explication of Kant's Critique.
On some of the finer points: Yovel helpfully explicates the *finite* nature of reason for Kant. On this point it seems fair to say that Kant is often mischaracterized and misrecongized in much popular literature that places him at the pinnacle of Enlightenment rationalism. Instead, Yovel shows that the heart of Kant's critical metaphysics is precisely the recognition that rationality cannot surpass sensible experience and its conceptualization of the forms and patterns that make up experience. To quote Yovel:
"Dogmatic metaphysics (Descartes/Leibniz, as well as the majority or precritical theology) claims to determine the beings of reason *outside experience,* while critical metaphysics abstains from this attempt and determines only the functioning within experience of superempirical factors that shape and constitute experience itself. Thereby the former counts as transcendent metaphysics and the latter as immanent." p. 86
In developing an immanent critical metaphysics of human experience and cognition, Kant remains (according to Yovel) both a transcendental idealist and an empirical realist. This, I thought, was the most interesting claim of the book. So much of what I have read on Kant prioritizes the subject and epistemology but Yovel shows that Kant's critique is just as concerned with ontology and theorizing the being of empirical objects in nature and that the two form a unified single system.
All in all a good, if somewhat dry, explication of Kant's Critique.
April 20, 2020
An excellent short introduction to Kant's main ideas. Recommended.
March 1, 2023
An insightful guide to accompany one's reading of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Although, it shouldn't be used as a substitute. As a secondary reading it helps to untangle many complex ideas which get convoluted in Kant's inaccessible language and style.
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July 22, 2021Thought this was a great little book at explaining the significance and Supreme importance of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason on the philosophical tradition... The author is always referring back from Kant's own ideas to how they contrast with those of his immediate philosophical predecessors so that you are continually aware of how exactly Kant differs and critiques the 'Dogmatist' rationalists (Descartes, Leibniz) especially but also how his philosophy critiques and contrasts with Hume's Empiricism/Skepticism and Berkley's Idealism.
March 16, 2023
Dr Yovel gives us a guide to one of the most influential (and most difficult) texts in the history of philosophy.
Kant’s Critique of Pure reason sets out to give reason extraordinary power and legitimate domain while emphasizing reason's finite limits. (Page 4).
Kant is looking to dispute the two twin philosophical schools of his time:
The Dogmatism of Leibnitz (which he ascribes an “excess of affirmation”) and the Skepticism of the British empiricists with the chief proponent being David Hume (who have an “excess of negation.”) 11
The starting point for Kant: humans are not endowed by intuitive knowledge 8
Our Intellect thinks but intuition perceives particulars.
Kant is looking for an absolute a priori, avoiding any relative a priori. -- that is knowledge prior to any experience 22
Transcendental: element or concept that not only is independent of experience, but experience depends on it and is made possible by it 22
Page 23: Transcendental element has the following features:
1. Is not derived on experience
2. Possible experience depends on it
3. It has no meaning/valid use except for application in the world of experience
Analytical/Synthetic judgements-- Kant follows in the footsteps of Leibnitz and Hume. Division of Truth into two categories:
tautological--self-referencial logical truths
and contingent, experiential truths 23
Objective use of categories:
Copernican thesis is defined several ways throughout the book: 69-71
Kant: “The conditions of the possibility of experience in general are at the same time the conditions of the possibility of the objects of experience.”
A priori knowledge conditions (which unites the representations in my conscious and create a scientific, objective picture of the world) are the same as the ontological existence by which the objects in the world can be what they are 71
My understanding: my means of experiencing objects are at the same time the ontological grounding for the objects of experience--
my perceiving & means of experience = objects existing
Axioms of intuition: all intuitions are extensive magnitudes; for intuition to be mathematically determined is an a priori condition of nature 71
Summarizes axioms of intuition: empirical nature is impossible unless it is mathematically quantifiable 73
Kant and Objective necessity. 78
Objective Necessity is not logical but transcendental; derived from fulfilling all conditions of experience. Objective necessity concerns only the state of things and not that thing’s existence
Page 86: Transcendental Logic being (critical) Metaphysics
Dogmatic metaphysics claim existence by reason outside experience
Critical metaphysics claim existence by reason within experience
We cannot know the totality of the world as a single transcendent thing; only specific empirical phenomena within the world 101
4/5 Good for future reference
Kant’s Critique of Pure reason sets out to give reason extraordinary power and legitimate domain while emphasizing reason's finite limits. (Page 4).
Kant is looking to dispute the two twin philosophical schools of his time:
The Dogmatism of Leibnitz (which he ascribes an “excess of affirmation”) and the Skepticism of the British empiricists with the chief proponent being David Hume (who have an “excess of negation.”) 11
The starting point for Kant: humans are not endowed by intuitive knowledge 8
Our Intellect thinks but intuition perceives particulars.
Kant is looking for an absolute a priori, avoiding any relative a priori. -- that is knowledge prior to any experience 22
Transcendental: element or concept that not only is independent of experience, but experience depends on it and is made possible by it 22
Page 23: Transcendental element has the following features:
1. Is not derived on experience
2. Possible experience depends on it
3. It has no meaning/valid use except for application in the world of experience
Analytical/Synthetic judgements-- Kant follows in the footsteps of Leibnitz and Hume. Division of Truth into two categories:
tautological--self-referencial logical truths
and contingent, experiential truths 23
Objective use of categories:
Copernican thesis is defined several ways throughout the book: 69-71
Kant: “The conditions of the possibility of experience in general are at the same time the conditions of the possibility of the objects of experience.”
A priori knowledge conditions (which unites the representations in my conscious and create a scientific, objective picture of the world) are the same as the ontological existence by which the objects in the world can be what they are 71
My understanding: my means of experiencing objects are at the same time the ontological grounding for the objects of experience--
my perceiving & means of experience = objects existing
Axioms of intuition: all intuitions are extensive magnitudes; for intuition to be mathematically determined is an a priori condition of nature 71
Summarizes axioms of intuition: empirical nature is impossible unless it is mathematically quantifiable 73
Kant and Objective necessity. 78
Objective Necessity is not logical but transcendental; derived from fulfilling all conditions of experience. Objective necessity concerns only the state of things and not that thing’s existence
Page 86: Transcendental Logic being (critical) Metaphysics
Dogmatic metaphysics claim existence by reason outside experience
Critical metaphysics claim existence by reason within experience
We cannot know the totality of the world as a single transcendent thing; only specific empirical phenomena within the world 101
4/5 Good for future reference
November 4, 2019
Kant'ın özellikle Saf Aklın Eleştirisi kitabı olmak üzere eleştirel felsefesini anlamayı kolaylaştıran ve felsefe yapma biçimini ortaya seren bir çalışma. Memleketimdeki Kant okurları için bu kitabın Türkçe çevirisi büyük bir katkı sağlayabilir.
November 28, 2019
Ugh...tough, hard work
September 23, 2022
A practically perfect introduction to Kant’s first Critique and his line of philosophical thought in general. Highly recommended.
April 6, 2022
This is a poor introduction to CPR. Yovel does a decent job of dealing with the concerns Kant had as he wrote CPR. However, it is also clear that Yovel finds Kant’s solution so enlightening and sublime that he does not bother to defend anything Kant has to say. He does no critique in this book. Critique is not necessary in a book of this sort, but it would perhaps help in understanding it to see at least some of the reactions to it. Was it convincing? Or not? After all, Yovel repeatedly mentions how modern the work is. By what standard? What exactly makes it modern? Was it part of some new tradition? Or is that just Yovel patting the work on the back as it were?
September 11, 2023
".. conócete a ti mismo por medio del discurso y del silencio, afirmando la capacidad y aceptando la finitud" BANG!!
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