Kant

by Immanuel Kant, Robert Maynard Hutchins (Editor in Chief), Thomas Kingsmill Abbott (Translator)

The Critique of Pure Reason
Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals
The Critique of Practical Reason
Excerpts from The Metaphysics of Morals
*Preface and Introduction to the Metaphysical Elements of Ethics with a note on Conscience
*General Introduction to the Metaphysic of Morals
*The Science of Right
The Critique of Judgement

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Reference, History

613 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1952

About the author

Immanuel Kant was an 18th-century philosopher from Königsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). He's regarded as one of the most influential thinkers of modern Europe & of the late Enlightenment. His most important work is The Critique of Pure Reason, an investigation of reason itself. It encompasses an attack on traditional metaphysics & epistemology, & highlights his own contribution to these areas. Other main works of his maturity are The Critique of Practical Reason, which is about ethics, & The Critique of Judgment, about esthetics & teleology.

Pursuing metaphysics involves asking questions about the ultimate nature of reality. Kant suggested that metaphysics can be reformed thru epistemology. He suggested that by understanding the sources & limits of human knowledge we can ask fruitful metaphysical questions. He asked if an object can be known to have certain properties prior to the experience of that object. He concluded that all objects that the mind can think about must conform to its manner of thought. Therefore if the mind can think only in terms of causality–which he concluded that it does–then we can know prior to experiencing them that all objects we experience must either be a cause or an effect. However, it follows from this that it's possible that there are objects of such a nature that the mind cannot think of them, & so the principle of causality, for instance, cannot be applied outside experience: hence we cannot know, for example, whether the world always existed or if it had a cause. So the grand questions of speculative metaphysics are off limits, but the sciences are firmly grounded in laws of the mind. Kant believed himself to be creating a compromise between the empiricists & the rationalists. The empiricists believed that knowledge is acquired thru experience alone, but the rationalists maintained that such knowledge is open to Cartesian doubt and that reason alone provides us with knowledge. Kant argues, however, that using reason without applying it to experience will only lead to illusions, while experience will be purely subjective without first being subsumed under pure reason. Kant’s thought was very influential in Germany during his lifetime, moving philosophy beyond the debate between the rationalists & empiricists. The philosophers Fichte, Schelling, Hegel and Schopenhauer saw themselves as correcting and expanding Kant's system, thus bringing about various forms of German Idealism. Kant continues to be a major influence on philosophy to this day, influencing both Analytic and Continental philosophy.

Reviews

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

one volume of a much larger series of volumes featuring collected works of major philosophers. thin paper like a Bible, antique-looking cover. sturdy and hardback. would probably be a grand set to own for reference and leisure.

note: did not read all the essays in this volume, only some at about 75%. was only after certain works and still after Perpetual Peace. as these are all classic works that comprise chunks of basic college education and are the topic of numerous dissertations, research, academic articles etc etc, I don't see any point in making any commentary aside from the above.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finished The Critique of Pure Reason recently. Its comprehensibility is not aided by translation from German. I can't (haha) say that I fully "got" it - there were moments where Kant's insight shone like a beacon, but others where it was a fog of swirling words. It would have been interesting to see what Kant would have done had he lived after Godel, who put an end to the idea of a complete, consistent formal system once and for all.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals" (pp. 253-287)

By this point in time the influence of Kant's philosophy of morals and ethics has reached the point where I can no longer clearly identify where my own received beliefs about morality were influenced by Kant, or in reaction to Kant, or pre-existing and coextensive with Kant's views. One reads here about Kant's categorical imperative, the idea that true moral laws are not given by an authority outside oneself but are a priori , and subject to discovery by the use of reason by each autonomous individual. A moral law is and is only one that you can imagine that would not only justify your own behavior but would be a law you would choose to be universal, to apply equally to all, both when it suits your interests and when it opposes your interests. If you would no wish it to be universal, a categorical imperative, then one cannot rely on it as a moral law to justify one's actions. Without that moral justification, one's actions are just products of one's power or privilege. This approach takes morality out of the realm of religion and sovereigns because the law is subject to each individual's own determination. To oversimplify, this is the idea that we should do onto others as we would have others do onto us. This is my overall take on the 85 page essay on the Metaphysic of Morals written by Kant (1785).

[Ron Banister · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tough to read but worth the digestive process.