Customer Reviews

Kant in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Immanuel Kant has a well deserved reputation as one of the most difficult philosophers to read and to study. His writing style is, to be generous, rather convoluted. One could only imagine Kant's laundry lists: they must be pages and pages in length.

So it comes as no surprise that a Get-Kant-Quick book would be desired by many intelligent readers who do not have the time to translate the English translation of Kant's writings into English. And there are such books out there that will enable one to do just that. Unfortunately, this isn't one of them.

Don't be taken in by the inexpensive price - all you really get for your shekels is a cursory summary of Kant's life and thought, with more emphasis on the biography than the thought. A dialogue on Kant's metaphysics follows. Add to that short passages from Kant's writings, and timeline chronologies of Kant's life and the history of philosophy. All this for about $6.00.

For a few dollars more, you can buy Karl Jaspers's excellent short book on Kant taken from his "Great Philosophers" books. The difference between Paul Strathern and Karl Jaspers is that between a backyard barbeque cook and the Iron Chef.

To illustrate my point in this regard, consider Strathern's discussion of Kant's Categorical Imperative. While he takes the first part into account, "Act as if what you do should be a universal law," he forgets the second part, "Treat others as ends and not as means." Strathern gives us an example of Kant being asked by the Nazis as to the whereabout of a Jewish friend. Strathern noted that, according to Kant's own dictum, to tell a lie even to a murderer is wrong. But he then notes that perhaps "his highly active mind would quickly discovered a duty which forbade him to hand over his friend. If Strathern had taken the time to digest the complete Categorical Imperative, he would have the answer. (A Kantian would replay that, although he knows where his friend is, he could not turn the friend over, for the person is an end and not a means to an end.)

Jaspers knew this, and so does Scruton: the difference between spending you money and getting your money's worth.

Great book if you're interested in Kant's severe bouts of constipation in his later life..

At the very worst, Strathern actually tries to discourage you from reading Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, exclaiming that it's over 800 pages then proceeding to quote a small portion to demonstrate how impenetrable the text is.

He explains very little of Kant's thought but is very successful in telling more than I ever needed to know about Kant's non-eventful personal life.

The philosophical equivalent of an E! True Hollywood Story.

After reading this, I came away with a definite feeling for Kant's life, homeplace, and mission. I also had a feel for Kant's rather unusual personality and interests in life. However, in regards to Kant's actual ideas and philosophy, I was still quite unclear as to the real "meat" behind what thousands of other philosophy books have been written about. The only really clear concept was the "categorical imperative", and as alluded to by other reviewers, even this was not entirely correct. Hence I can't say this book delivers essentially on what Kant was about.

This book presents, in a superficial, but on balance, entertaining fashion, a biographical sketch of Kant, with a focus on some of his "central" philosophical points. In this regard, he discusses the concept of "synthetic a priori", the "categories" and the "categorical imperative".

The quotes from Kant's work are not out of place, and I did not find the author's "point of view" (adopted presumably to assist in entertaining) to be offensive. The book is unpretentious, and seems to be effective in its limited goals. Prof. Strathern is a perceptive and clever author.

Kant provided an anchor at a particular time for the philosophical possibility of metaphysics. His thoughts matured over many years of dedication to his writing, and he wrote his seminal books over a relatively short period of time. The result is that they are difficult to penetrate.

His work was a response to Hume's work, and to a certain extent, an elaboration of Newtonian ideas. He set a benchmark for attack by philosophers of the future. His influence on philosophy has been profound. This makes his work of great historical interest. Prof. Strathern communicates this, and more.

I gave the book two stars instead of three in that I thought that, for the price, the book was a little too superficial. For example, Prof. Warburton in "A Little History of Philosophy", covers nearly the same intellectual content, but in this case, one is dealing with a book that discusses numerous interesting philosophical topics, not just a few about Kant's work. Another point, not in the book's favor, is that the index is somewhat useless for locating the important philosophical ideas.

Well, Strathern is certainly entertaining, if not informative. He gives us the dirt on each philosopher, tells us who was overweight, ... pushed people around, etc. This would be great if we were reading about movie stars or politicians but I bought these books in order to understand something about what these philosophers thought. He does reserve a few pages at the end of each volume to tells us one or two of their ideas and gives us a handful of quotes. A total waste of money unless you hate your philosophy classes so much that you want to hear how awful the personal lives of the philosophers were. A new low in publishing.

Give me a break! You will not understand Kant by merely reading this book. A better starting point would be the book Kant by Roger Scruton (another short book, but much better than this one), then read Kant's Prolegomena for his epistemology and Foundations of a Metaphysics of Morals for his ethics. After that, sink your teeth into the Critiques (I am, as of yet, not that knowledgable concerning Kant's aesthetics, so I can't make a reccomendation in that area).

I should have been smarter that one can not understand Kant in 90 minutes but even than the name of the book is very misleading. It is a short biography than Philosophy. There are better ways to spend money. Read this book as biography but you do not get bang for your buck. There are much better biography books.

I didn't buy this book thinking that I'd get a complete summary of all of the most important works of one of the greatest thinkers of all time. I got just what I expected; a summary of some of the master's greatest works, and a lot of interesting information on his life. Expect to be entertained by this book. Kant was certainly an interesting fellow. A hypochondriac? Who'd have guessed? Use this book as a primer. Then go on to some of the "meatier" Kantian works and the biographies. In brief, at least in 90 minutes or less, ENJOY!

Do not expect to learn Kant's philosohy from a fifty page book. As the author will tell you, Kant's first work was over 800 pages long.

What you can expect from this book is a short biographical look at the works and life of Kant.

I like these little 90 minute books. I have been using them as the openers to expanded study. For example before diving into Kant's writing I decided to get an overview.

The "In 90 minutes" series has helped me to begin my studies of each philosoher, and in many ways has given me some idea of what to expect.

I like these books, but remember, it is an opener to the study of each philosopher, You may not be able to use them as cheat sheets for your homework.

I was hoping to find a concise summary of Kant's challenging philosophy in Strathern's book. Instead I was treated to an amature psycological interpretation of Kant. Unfortunately, I had no desire to hear the author's rambling conjecture concerning the effect of Kant's celibate lifestyle on his philosophy. This is a book to be avoided by anyone interested in philosophy!