Critique of Pure Reason (1781)

12/7/21

12/7/21

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3348755.html

I gave up on this about a quarter of the way in. Basically, Kant is not asking questions that I am interested in, nor answering them in a way that inclines me to take an interest. Wikipedia tells me that "Kant's goal was to find some way to derive cause and effect without relying on empirical knowledge." I can't see why anyone would want to do such a thing, and the almost complete separation of the subject matter from practical reality frustrated me (even though I do realise that this was largely the point). It was mildly interesting to see in his discussion of time and space some precursor to Einstein's conceptions of the same, but not interesting enough to keep me going. ( )

Made my head hurt, but in a good way. ( )

The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant is a book that I have heard of for a pretty long time but never got around to reading. As the title states, Kant intends to examine the properties of reason itself. He splits the process of thinking into different spheres and attempts to demonstrate that there is a quality contained within all objects that make them intrinsically themselves. Kant’s line of reasoning is similar to that of Plato with his ideal shapes and ideas beyond physical reality. That table in your kitchen has an inherent “table-ness” to it. A quality that makes it a table without being the perfect table.

The version I have is a translation by J. M. D. Meiklejohn. Now in doing more research into this book, it seems that the translation is from 1855, but this book was printed in 1990. Since the translation is so dated, perhaps that explains why I could not get into this book at all. On the other hand, this book is rated pretty well, so there must be something there that I am missing. Therefore, I went and found a ton of summaries and lecture notes for the book. From these resources, it was easier to glean the meaning of what Kant was attempting to say.

I don’t know if this was a good introduction to Kantian Philosophy or to anything in general, but it was enjoyable to finally get this one under my belt and done with. Maybe if I find a better translation I will revisit this book and read it again. ( )