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Title: Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Kant and The Critique of Pure Reason (Routledge Philosophy Guidebooks)
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| Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Kant and The Critique of Pure Reason (Routledge Philosophy Guidebooks) by Routledge Not a good guidebook | | Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is difficult. Most people will need a guidebook to achieve an adequate understanding of this profound work. In my attempts to read it I took the approach of reading until I felt my understanding was becoming less than adequate, and then started reading the secondary literature. I started reading the secondary literaure after reading the first sentence! Gardner's was one of the first I started to read, but quickly gave up because this book is as difficult to read as Kant. Fortunately, I did not give up but eventually found the one piece of secondary literature I needed -- "A Kant Dictionary" by Howard Caygill. Even more importantly, I found a forgiving translation (Pluhar's) which is blessed with a superb introduction. Even with these aids, Kant is very difficult, and the reader or student is not helped by convoluted, over-complicated texts like Gardner's. So although I found a couple of paragraphs in Gardner useful, I cannot give it more than one star because it fails in the main aim of a guidebook. A guidebook should help the inexperienced reader, not make the severest demands on his or her philosophical understanding. So reader beware, and use the "look inside" feature to its full extent before thinking of buying. | | Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Kant and The Critique of Pure Reason (Routledge Philosophy Guidebooks) by Routledge Excellent study guide for Kant students. | | Kant is difficult, even with a good teacher. This book makes studying him much easier. Gardner is a clear and readable guide to the terrain, and I found myself returning to him often to make sure that I wasn't going in circles. Or, perhaps an aquatic metaphor: Kant is a stormy sea and Gardner's book is both sturdy vessel and well-marked chart of the ocean currents. I used this book so often that it began to fall apart. | | Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Kant and The Critique of Pure Reason (Routledge Philosophy Guidebooks) by Routledge First Rate | The person who develops an interest in philosophy is likely to discover that, much as you might prefer it weren't so, you can't get very far without a decent knowledge of Kant. Everywhere you turn, he keeps showing up. You can finesse Hegel, you can finesse Heidegger, but you can't finesse Kant. You have to bite that bullet, the only question is where to start. This is where to start.
Gardner has written a superb guidebook to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, and by far the best available introduction to Kant, period. This book has been reprinted four times since it was published in 2000, and I think that's because there is nothing else like it. A few reviewers have complained about a lack of clarity here and there. Well, maybe, (an early section on the problem of reality struck me that way on first reading), but we are talking about Kant here, after all. If you hit a patch like that, just plow ahead and come back and try that section again later on. If it's a discussion of some specialized topic that doesn't interest you, skip it. There is so much in Kant, that if you get most of it, you get a lot.
Besides describing and explaining Kant's ideas themselves, Gardner also does a terrific job of discussing the major issues and controversies connected with the interpretation and implications of those ideas. Some of those, like questions about the ontological and epistemological status of ultimate reality ("things in themselves"), have never receded from philosophical debate and probably never will. Near the back is an excellent chapter that locates the CPR within the larger body of Kant's work; the final chapter describes the kind of reception the CPR got when it was originally published, and the sort of influence it has had subsequently. The bibliography is outstanding, and if you want more, the philosophy department at University College London (Gardner is a faculty member there) has outstanding bibliographic resources available on-line.
| | Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Kant and The Critique of Pure Reason (Routledge Philosophy Guidebooks) by Routledge Good but sometimes seemed deliberately obscure! | I read the whole of Sebastian Gardner's 'Guidebook' to Kant and understood most of it. On the whole I would recommend this as making Kant more accessible. But I think he could have made the subject easier by avoiding the use of some words and phrases to seemingly impress the reader and the frequent use of parenthesis (the latter like Kant himself)
For example...(page 311)
"There must therefore be - if morality is not to be a chimera - some principle of action which is a priori and constrains all rational agents irrespective of their contingent empirical constitution" (page 311)
Avoing the use of the split infinitive and "therefore" both of which are unnecessary and do not improve the meaning I think the above could have been better expressed as follows...
"If morality is not to be a chimera there must be some a priori principle of action which constrains all rational agents irrespective of their circumstances (or character perhaps)"
| | Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Kant and The Critique of Pure Reason (Routledge Philosophy Guidebooks) by Routledge An excellent study guide | Gardner's excellent book is one of the best secondary texts on Kant's first critique I've been able to find. Gardner has done a remarkable job of summarizing the leading interpretations for each section of Kant's intricate arguments in the critique, weighing the options and recommending the most plausible view. Gardner's book takes the reader step by step through the text, while keeping the "big picture" firmly in mind.
The book is very highly recommended as a study guide to Kant's first critique for either graduate or advanced undergraduate students. For non-academic or beginning undergraduate students looking for a more rudimentary introduction to Kant's philosophy, I recommend "Kant: A Very Short Introduction" by Roger Scruton. More than anything, I advise anyone seriously interested in Kant's philosophy to help himself to an academic course on Kant; the complexity and profundity of Kant's philosophy make it very difficult if not impossible to fully appreciateand understand without expert assistance. | | Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Kant and The Critique of Pure Reason (Routledge Philosophy Guidebooks) by Routledge Product Description | | Kant's The Critique of Pure Reason is arguably the single most important philosophical work in Western philosophy. It is also one of the most difficult philosophical texts to study. This clear, straightforward guide to the Critique recasts Kant's thought in more familiar language, avoiding the technicalities that plague other secondary sources on Kant. Sebastian Gardner examines Kant's thought by contrasting two interpretive traditions--those of Strawson and Allison--while setting the Critique in the context of both pre-Kantian and post-Kantian philosophy. Ideal for anyone coming to Kant's thought for the first time, this accessible guide will be vital reading for all students of Kant in philosophy. |
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