Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason': An Introduction

by Jill Vance Buroker

• ISBN13: 9780521618250
• ISBN10: 0521618258
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-10-06
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

In this new introductory textbook to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Jill Vance Buroker explains the role of this first Critique in Kant's Critical project and offers a line-by-line reading of the major arguments in the text. She situates Kant's views in relation both to his predecessors and to contemporary debates, explaining his Critical philosophy as a response to the failure of rationalism and the challenge of skepticism. Paying special attention to Kant's notoriously difficult vocabulary, she explains the strengths and weaknesses of his arguments, while leaving the final assessment up to the reader. Intended to be read alongside the Critique (also published by Cambridge University Press as part of The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant in Translation), this guide is accessible to readers with little background in the history of philosophy, but should also be a valuable resource for more advanced students.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction to the critical project

2. The prefaces and the introduction

3. The transcendental aesthetic

4. The metaphysical deduction

5. The transcendental deduction

6. The schematism and the analytic of principles I

7. The analytic of principles II

8. Transcendental illusion I: rational psychology

9. Transcendental illusion II: rational cosmology

10. Transcendental illusion III: rational theology

11. Reason and the critical philosophy

Conclusion: Kant's transcendental idealism.