Customer Reviews

Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason (Routledge Philosophy GuideBooks)

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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.

For those who are looking for a clear account of Kant's work, Gardner's introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason is an excellent choice. Due to the ambiguity in Kant's prose, the Critique of Pure Reason is virtually impossible for Kant beginners to fully comprehend on their own. This book provides an excellent foundation for further inquiry. I highly recommend it.

Correctly assessing the argument in Kant's first Critique is one of the most difficult exercises in philosophy and often overly stylized summaries induce illusions of clarity, when the real argument is in the background, almost too arcane to be grasped, and leaving one in the distressing condition of realizing one hasn't understood a thing. This account has to be the best of the lot, attempting without compromises to survey the whole majestic range. Good job.

Hilary Putnam is reported to have said that "any philosophy that can be put in a nutshell belongs in one."

Is Kant more than a materialist or an idealist? Does he resolve the conflict between rationalists and empiricists? If so, how? What was the "Copernican turn" that Kant is responsible for in Western thought? How did he force us to take the turn? Is it true that are we still thinking in his conceptual vocabulary? Is it accurate to speak of every thinker after Kant as, to some degree, operating within Kantian premises, often without realising it? How have thinkers like Hegel and Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Husserl, even Freud, Jung, Einstein (despite their great differences from one another) all been influenced by Kant?

Clear answers to, or at least a start on, all of these questions can be found in this book.

Get it, read it, study Kant.

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 literature 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.

I bought this book from amazon.com a few years ago while enrolled in German Critical Philosophy--all Kant. Six books. I found Gardner's book--as well as the Routledge Guidebook (RG) on Wittgenstein--to be not as comprehensive as I wanted or needed. For example, the RG series will take some themes and break them down for the reader. While this is good, they weren't linked back up to the overarching themes. Basically, the RG series aren't deep enough or broad enough.

I would not recommend buying this book if you're hoping for a quick fix to understanding CPR. Look for articles on specific topics in _Kant Studien_, a Kant journal your library should have. Beck and also Kemp Smith have good basic intro books on Kant and CPR. Also check with your professor about who is a prominent Kant scholar and check out books by them. (Henry?) Allison has a really great book on Kant's aesthetics, which is ultimately tied up with the epistemology in CPR.

recent edit: obviously I'm biased to my own review, but this book is not the best general commentary on Kant and CPR, though it may be the easiest to find or come across here on the internet. Dig deeper and you'll be rewarded. Trust me.

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.

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.

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)"

If this is a guidebook for the virgin entering the murky waters of Kantian lingo, at least have the decency to be clear and unassuming. What greatly irked me is that the author attempted to describe Kant's use of the term 'intuition' (which for the American reader is being used as a misnomer) as "phenomenological." Now, the school of phenomenology was founded by Husserl, in the 20th century, and developed from his readings of Kant. How the hell is the reader supposed to know what phenomenology is, and how is that word supposed to clarify a Kantian neologism, if its very existence dates AFTER the book the reader is a virgin to?

Unfortunately like many philosophy text, this one is pedantic, and ostentatious. Once gets the impression that many philosopher can't write simple layman text, because they know more scholarly folks will be reading their work, and would rather not come across as less than ingenious.