Kant's Critique of Pure Reason A Critical Guide Cambridge Critical Guides Series

Kant's monumental book the Critique of Pure Reason was arguably the most conceptually revolutionary work in the history of philosophy and its impact continues to be felt throughout philosophical debates today. However, it is a notoriously difficult work whose basic meaning and lasting philosophical significance are both subject to ongoing controversy. In this Critical Guide, an international team of leading Kant scholars addresses the challenges, clarifying Kant's basic terms and arguments, and engaging with the debates that surround this central text. Providing compact explanations along with cutting-edge interpretations of nearly all of the main themes and arguments in Kant's Critique, this volume provides well-balanced arguments on such controversial topics as the interpretation of Kant's transcendental idealism, conceptualism and non-conceptual content in perception, and the soundness of his transcendental arguments. This volume will engage readers of Kant at all levels.

Introduction James R. O'Shea; 1. Kant on the distinction between sensibility and understanding Eric Watkins; 2. Knowledge and its object Stephen Engstrom; 3. Transcendental idealism and the transcendental aesthetic: reading the critique of pure reason forwards Lucy Allais; 4. Kant on the ideality of space and the argument from Spinozism Michela Massimi; 5. How precise is Kant's table of judgments? Michael Wolff (translated by Kenneth R. Westphal); 6. Kant's 'Transcendental Deduction' Barry Stroud; 7. Kant's critique of the layer-cake conception of human mindedness in the B deduction James Conant; 8. The critical and 'empty' representation 'I think' Patricia Kitcher; 9. Kant's mathematical principles of pure understanding Lisa Shabel; 10. Kant's dynamical principles: the analogies of experience Kenneth R. Westphal; 11. The refutation of idealism Ralf M. Bader; 12. The antinomies: an entirely natural antithetic of human reason Graham Bird; 13. The ideal of reason John J. Callanan; 14. Knowledge, discipline, system, hope: the fate of metaphysics in the doctrine of method Andrew Chignell.

James R. O'Shea is Professor of Philosophy at University College Dublin. He is the author of Wilfrid Sellars: Naturalism with a Normative Turn (2007) and Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason': An Introduction and Interpretation (2012), and the editor of Sellars and his Legacy (2016).