Critique of Pure Reason (Penguin Classics) [Paperback]

Immanuel Kant (Author), Marcus Weigelt (Editor, Translator, Introduction), Max Muller (Translator)

Book Description

Release date: January 29, 2008 | Series: Penguin Classics

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.

Editorial Reviews

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. Marcus Weigelt's lucid reworking of Max Muller's classic translation makes the critique accessible to a new generation of readers, while his informative introduction places the work in context and elucidates Kant's main arguments.

Product Details

• Paperback: 784 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics; Revised edition (January 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140447474
• ISBN-13: 978-0140447477
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 1.3 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #96,560 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #46 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Epistemology
  • #90 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Logic & Language

More 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.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

102 of 107 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars the Über-translation of the Kritik... March 20, 2009

By Sébastien Melmoth

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Über-translation of the Kritik...
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The Critique of Pure Reason is the sine qua non of modern thought, as it incorporates the most significant earlier critiques of Plato, Aristotle, Hume, and Descartes, in turn becoming the point of departure (on one hand) for Schopenhauer, and (on the other) for Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, and Deleuze--besides its further influence on social and literary criticism (e.g., Marx, Mill, Arnold, Eliot, Adorno, et al.).

Of course the Kritik is a very complex and dry text--(more readable than Hegel and Heidegger; less readable than Schopenhauer and Nietzsche)--which requires much moisture of psychic perspiration.

Question: which English translation should one get?

Modern English readers have five choices:

1) Kemp Smith (1929) based on Müller (1881) [based on Meiklejohn (1855) and Haywood (1838)];
2) Politis (1993) based on Meiklejohn (1855);
3) Pluhar (1996);
4) Guyer/Wood (1998);
5) Weigelt (2007) based on Müller (1881).

(F. Max Müller was the son of Wilhelm Müller who supplied Schubert with the texts for his immortal song-cycles The Lovely Mill-Maid, and the Winter's Journey.)

Bottom line: Guyer/Wood (Cambridge UP) though touted to be "definitive," in fact contains numerous errors.

Conclusion: scholars and thinkers of all walks would be doing themselves a favour in utilising Weigelt's fine translation featured here.
For Weigelt is a perspicacious scholar of great intellectual integrity and technical accuracy who writes a nice English with a sense of humour.
Weigelt's 60 page introduction is invaluable.
Moreover, the design of the text and the physical dimensions book itself are of the most propitious and gratifying qualities.

As with any great text--however many superb commentaries, criticisms, and explications one may read--there is absolutely NO SUBSTITUTE for personal interaction with the primary text itself.

Therefore, this English version of the Kritik is recommended.
.

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An erudite and extremely readable translation! November 7, 2008

By Lawrie Cherniack

Format:Paperback

I studied the Critique back in the '60s using the Kemp Smith translation, and have reread it every number of years since to see if my mind is aging. When I read this translation, I was amazed at how much I understood. Then I compared it to the Kemp Smith and realized that the real reason was that the translation was eminently more readable and understandable than even the Kemp Smith, which itself was an improvement over Meiklejohn and Muller.

There are scholarly endnotes which explain the translation issues and changes between the first and second editions, and an incredibly helpful lengthy introduction which provides a great overview of the Critique. This is THE translation for me. I am extremely grateful to the translator for his efforts! If you're going to read the Critique -- and it is hard and you probably will need a teacher to help you through it, as I did -- you will not find one that is better and more carefully translated.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent English rendering of Kant by Weigelt January 7, 2009

By Thomas A. Mcdonald

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Reviewer A. Lowry raises a very good question, whether the idea of an edition of this book for the 'casual reader' even makes sense.

Kant himself, after all, in his own preface, acknowledges that the work is too technical for popularization, being intended mainly as a grounding for internal critique of theoretical sciences (although the effect of such critique would and should eventually have effects in popular thought, which it has).

And yet, despite a questionable rationale for this new Penguin Classics translation, I really like it personally. While I am using it to study along with a reading group, I find I don't quite need the excessively labored style often found in more academic-specialized translations. Weigelt has done an excellent job rendering a contemporary English translation that reads more smoothly than others, yet doesn't lack in technical adequacy. And I say this as a veteran reader of continental philosophy, including Hegel and Deleuze.

Weigelt's introduction is also excellent, one of the best 'short guides' to the Critique of Pure Reason I've read. If one only made it through Weigelt's introduction, there's a gain of insight to what makes Kant's project so important.