Metaphysics A Critical Translation with Kant's Elucidations, Selected Notes, and Related Materials

by Baumgarten, Alexander; Fugate, Courtney D.; Hymers, John

• ISBN13: 9781472570130
• ISBN10: 1472570138
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2014-05-09
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

Now available for the first time in English, this critical translation of Metaphysica draws from the original seven Latin editions, the Academy edition of Kant, and Georg Friedrich Meier's 18th-century German translation. To assist and support the reading of this crucial text, the translation features:

* historical and philosophical introductions and sketches
* extensive glossaries and notes
* clear reproductions of Kant's elucidations and handwritten notes
* Eberhard's insertions in the 1783 German edition

Used as a philosophical instruction for thinkers such as Kant, Mendelssohn, Abbt, Herder, and Maimon, Metaphysica is arguably one of philosophy's most influential texts. Equipped with supportive and illuminating introductory material, this clear and lucid translation presents scholars of Kant, German philosophy and the history of philosophy with an indispensable resource.

Author Biography

Alexander Baumgarten (1714 - 1762) was among the first to teach the controversial philosophy of Christian Wolff (1769-1764). By order of the king, he moved to Frankfurt on the Order in 1739, where he remained until his death in 1762. His most influential philosophical works are Metaphysics (1739), Philosophical Ethics (1740), and Aesthetics (2 Vols, 1750 & 1757). It is as formulated in these works that the Leibniz-Wolff tradition was chiefly communicated to later German philosophers, including Immanuel Kant. Today Baumgarten is also regarded as a central founder of modern aesthetics.
John Hymers is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at La Salle University, USA.
Courtney D. Fugate is Assistant Professor at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon.

Table of Contents

Part I: Introduction to the Translation
Introduction
1. Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714-1762) and Georg Friedrich Meier (1718-1777): A historical sketch
2. The philosophical context of the Metaphysics
3. Kant’s Handwritten Notes to the Metaphysics
4. Notes on this translation

Part II: The Translation
Alexander Baumgarten’s Metaphysics
Johann August Eberhard’s Preface to the Second German Edition (1783)
Georg Friedrich Meier’s Preface to the First German Translation (1766)
Preface of the third edition (1750)
Preface of the second edition (1743)
To the listener of good will [preface to the first edition](1739)
Synopsis
Prolegomena to Metaphysics
Part I: Ontology
Prologomena
Chapter I. The universal internal predicates of a being
Chapter II. The internal disjunctive predicates of a being
Chapter III. The relative predicates of a being
Part II: Cosmology
Prologomena
Chapter I. The concept of the world
Chapter II. The parts of the universe
Chapter III. The perfection of the universe
Part III: Psychology
Prolegomena
Chapter I. Empirical psychology
Chapter II. Rational psychology
Part IIII: Natural theology
Prolegomena
Chapter I. The concept of God
Chapter II. The operations of God

Part III: Ancillary Materials
Glossary
Latin-English
English-Latin
Notes and Textual variants
Selected Bibliography
Index to the paragraphs of the Metaphysics
General Index