Synopses & Reviews
The masterpiece of the father of modern philosophy A seminal text of modern philosophy, Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (1781) made history by bringing together two opposing schools of thought: rationalism, which grounds all our knowledge in reason, and empiricism, which traces all our knowledge to experience. Published here in a lucid reworking of Max Müller's classic translation, the Critique is a profound investigation into the nature of human reason, establishing its truth, falsities, illusions, and reality.
Synopsis
Kant's profound and challenging investigation into the nature of human reason is the central text of modern philosophy
In his landmark work Kant argues that reason is the seat of certain concepts that precede experience and make it possible, but we are not therefore entitled to draw conclusions about the natural world from these concepts. The Critique of Pure Reason brings together two opposing schools of philosophy: rationalism, which grounds all our knowledge in reason, and empiricism, which traces all our knowledge to experience. Kant's transcendental idealism indicates a third way that goes far beyond these alternatives.
Translated, Edited and with an Introduction by Marcus Weigelt
Based on the Translation by Max Muller
Synopsis
Human reason, in one sphere of its cognition, is called upon to consider questions, which it cannot decline, as they are presented by its own nature, but which it cannot answer, as they transcend every faculty of the mind. It begins with principles, which cannot be dispensed with in the field of experience, and the truth and sufficiency of which are, at the same time, insured by experience. It thus falls into confusion and contradictions, from which it conjectures the presence of latent errors, which, however, it is unable to discover, because the principles it employs, transcending the limits of experience, cannot be tested by that criterion.
About the Author
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was one of the most influential philosophers of all time. His comprehensive and profound thinking on aesthetics, ethics, and knowledge has had an immense impact on all subsequent philosophy.
Max Muller (1823-1900) was born in Dessau, Germany, and was an orientalist, a scholar of ancient languages, and a follower of Kant's philosophy. He was the first to translate Sanskrit texts into a modern European language. He taught at Oxford and became a British citizen in 1855.
Marcus Weigelt studied at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and at Freie Universität, Berlin.