Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics / Selections from the Critique of Pure Reason
by Immanuel Kant (Author), Gary Hatfield (Editor)
On This Page
Description
Kant is the central figure of modern philosophy. He sought to rebuild philosophy from the ground up, and he succeeded in permanently changing its problems and methods. This new translation of the Prolegomena, which is the best introduction to his philosophy, presents his thought clearly by paying 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, and in which Kant himself show more explains his special terminology. The volume is completed by a historical and philosophical introduction, explanatory notes, a chronology and a guide to further reading. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Recommendations
Roberto1122 Historical context from this work.
Member Reviews
Never will the 'I love it/ I like it/ It's okay...' rating system be less helpful than with this book. But it is okay as a helping hand for Kant's first Critique. Where the ideas are most compelling, this book is clearest; where the ideas are the least compelling, this book is dense and nonsensical (hello, tables of judgment/concepts/principles). Anyway, it's silly to rate this book. This edition, on the other hand, is great: it has a fantastic introduction, useful selections from the first critique, and the early reviews of the CPR that Kant responds to in the appendix to the Prolegomena. The translation could be smoother, but then, Kant could have been smoother too.
It sucks, but I think the best track is to read the CPR first, and show more then this, or maybe this, then CPR, then this again. I can't really see that you'd get much out of the Prolegomena alone. show less
"If [metaphysicians] want to put forth their occupation not as science, but as an art of beneficial persuasions accommodated to general common sense, then they cannot justly be barred from this trade. They will then use the modest language of reasonable belief, they will acknowledge that it is not allowed them even once to guess, let alone to know, something about that which lies beyond the boundaries of all possible experience, but only to assume something about it (not for speculative use, for they must renounce that, but solely for practical use), as is possible and even indispensable for the guidance of the understanding and will in life."
sure, manny.... i hear you loud and clear...
sure, manny.... i hear you loud and clear...
Ratings
Members
- Recently Added By
Lists
Filosofía - Clásicos
217 works; 1 member
Great Books Favorites
71 works; 6 members
Author Information
The greatest of all modern philosophers was born in the Baltic seaport of Konigsberg, East Prussia, the son of a saddler and never left the vicinity of his remote birthplace. Through his family pastor, Immanuel Kant received the opportunity to study at the newly founded Collegium Fredericianum, proceeding to the University of Konigsberg, where he show more was introduced to Wolffian philosophy and modern natural science by the philosopher Martin Knutzen. From 1746 to 1755, he served as tutor in various households near Konigsberg. Between 1755 and 1770, Kant published treatises on a number of scientific and philosophical subjects, including one in which he originated the nebular hypothesis of the origin of the solar system. Some of Kant's writings in the early 1760s attracted the favorable notice of respected philosophers such as J. H. Lambert and Moses Mendelssohn, but a professorship eluded Kant until he was over 45. In 1781 Kant finally published his great work, the Critique of Pure Reason. The early reviews were hostile and uncomprehending, and Kant's attempt to make his theories more accessible in his Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783) was largely unsuccessful. Then, partly through the influence of former student J. G. Herder, whose writings on anthropology and history challenged his Enlightenment convictions, Kant turned his attention to issues in the philosophy of morality and history, writing several short essays on the philosophy of history and sketching his ethical theory in the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785). Kant's new philosophical approach began to receive attention in 1786 through a series of articles in a widely circulated Gottingen journal by the Jena philosopher K. L. Reinhold. The following year Kant published a new, extensively revised edition of the Critique, following it up with the Critique of Practical Reason (1788), treating the foundations of moral philosophy, and the Critique of Judgment (1790), an examination of aesthetics rounding out his system through a strikingly original treatment of two topics that were widely perceived as high on the philosophical agenda at the time - the philosophical meaning of the taste for beauty and the use of teleology in natural science. From the early 1790s onward, Kant was regarded by the coming generation of philosophers as having overthrown all previous systems and as having opened up a whole new philosophical vista. During the last decade of his philosophical activity, Kant devoted most of his attention to applications of moral philosophy. His two chief works in the 1790s were Religion Within the Bounds of Plain Reason (1793--94) and Metaphysics of Morals (1798), the first part of which contained Kant's theory of right, law, and the political state. At the age of 74, most philosophers who are still active are engaged in consolidating and defending views they have already worked out. Kant, however, had perceived an important gap in his system and had begun rethinking its foundations. These attempts went on for four more years until the ravages of old age finally destroyed Kant's capacity for further intellectual work. The result was a lengthy but disorganized manuscript that was first published in 1920 under the title Opus Postumum. It displays the impact of some of the more radical young thinkers Kant's philosophy itself had inspired. Kant's philosophy focuses attention on the active role of human reason in the process of knowing the world and on its autonomy in giving moral law. Kant saw the development of reason as a collective possession of the human species, a product of nature working through human history. For him the process of free communication between independent minds is the very life of reason, the vocation of which is to remake politics, religion, science, art, and morality as the completion of a destiny whose shape it is our collective task to frame for ourselves. (Bowker Author Biography) Philosopher Immanuel Kant was born in 1724 in Konigsberg, East Prussia. He studied at the University of Konigsberg, where he would act as a lecturer and professor after a brief career as a private tutor. Kant was an incredibly influential philosopher, his theories having impact on the likes of Schopenhauer and Hegel. Kant's most prominent works include Critique of Pure Reason (1781), Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) and Critique of Practical Reason (1788). He died in 1804. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Gary Hatfield is Adam Seybert Professor in Moral and Intellectual Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania.
Some Editions
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Philosophical classics (Open Court Publishing Company)
Economica [Laterza] (90)
Work Relationships
Is abridged in
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics / Selections from the Critique of Pure Reason
- Original title
- Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik, die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können
- Alternate titles*
- Prolegomena (rugtitel) (rugtitel)
- Original publication date
- 1783
- First words
- If it becomes desirable to present any cognition as science, it will be necessary first to determine exactly its differentia, which no other science has in common with it and which constitutes its peculiarity; otherwise the b... (show all)oundaries of all sciences become confused, and none of them can be treated thoroughly according to its nature.
- Blurbers
- Genova, A. C.; Humphrey, Ted
- Original language
- German
- Disambiguation notice
- This work has Prolegomena with Selections from Critique of Pure Reason and should not be combined with other editions.
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 361
- Popularity
- 86,845
- Reviews
- 4
- Rating
- (3.91)
- Languages
- 6 — Danish, Dutch, English, German, Italian, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 14
- ASINs
- 2
