RetroAdventurer

My 50 book challenge, books #11-15 & 18. I'm grouping these together because they're all by Kant or about Kant, and if that doesn't interest you, you can easily skip this thread! Let's start with #12, "The Critique of Pure Reason" by Immanuel Kant (1781/1787). 1/10

If I had to choose the best philosophy book ever written, I would choose Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. It is a work of staggering genius, extremely rich, deeply original, and it took philosophy to places where it had never been before. 2/10

It is one of the main sources of inspiration for my own work, and indeed I think that contemporary philosophy would be substantially improved by a deeper engagement with Kant's first Critique. However, the book is also extremely difficult! Don't try this at home, ... 3/10

... at least not without some expert guidance. Which brings me to book #13, "Kant's Transcendental Idealism" by Henry Allison (2004), and book #14, "Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason" by Sebastian Gardner (1999). Both are excellent, but written for different audiences. 4/10

Gardner is a fantastic companion for anyone studying the Critique, and I had my students read it next to Kant when I was teaching a Kant course. Allison is one of the major works of contemporary Kant scholarship; very good, but almost as difficult as the original. 5/10

Book #15 and book #18 are further works by Kant, the main texts developing his theoretical philosophy after the Critique: the "Prolegomena" (1783) and the "Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science" (1786). The Prolegomena is Kant's attempt to 'popularise' the Critique. 6/10

Mixed results, I'd say, but it helps understand the main work. The Metaphysical Foundations are a wholly different beast: here Kant attempts to derive a priori truths about physics, based on his critical insights and some minimal definitions of matter. 7/10

Very dense! Also very technical and full of references to late 18th century science that I don't fully grasp. But it's a fascinating text. I'm looking forward (no, really!) to reading Michael Friedman's gigantic tome on this work, "Kant's Construction of Nature." 8/10