Guyer Paul - Kant

Kant

In this fully revised and updated edition of his outstanding introduction to Kant, Paul Guyer uses Kants central conception of autonomy as the key to all the major aspects and issues in Kants thought.

Beginning with a helpful overview of Kants life and times, Guyer introduces Kants metaphysics and epistemology, carefully explaining his arguments about the nature of space, time and experience in his most influential but difficult work, The Critique of Pure Reason. He offers an explanation and critique of Kants famous theory of transcendental idealism and shows how much of Kants philosophy is independent of this controversial doctrine.

He then examines Kants moral philosophy, his celebrated categorical imperative and his theories of duty, freedom of will and political rights. Finally, he covers Kants aesthetics, in particular his arguments about the nature of beauty and the sublime, and their relation to human freedom and happiness. He also considers Kants view that the development of human autonomy is the only goal that we can conceive for both natural and human history.

Including a chronology, glossary, chapter summaries and up-to-date further reading, Kant, second edition is an ideal introduction to this demanding yet pivotal figure in the history of philosophy, and essential reading for all students of philosophy.

Paul Guyer is Jonathan Nelson Professor of Humanities and Philosophy at Brown University, USA. He is the author of nine books on Kant, including Kant and the Claims of Taste (1979), Kant and the Claims of Knowledge (1987), Kants Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (2007), and Knowledge, Reason, and Taste: Kants Response to Hume (2008). He is the editor of six anthologies of work on Kant, and is the co-translator of the Critique of Pure Reason, the Critique of the Power of Judgment, and Kants Notes and Fragments, all in the Cambridge Edition of Immanuel Kant, of which he is General Co-Editor.

Routledge Philosophers

Edited by Brian Leiter

University of Chicago

Routledge Philosophers is a major series of introductions to the great Western philosophers. Each book places a major philosopher or thinker in historical context, explains and assesses their key arguments, and considers their legacy. Additional features include a chronology of major dates and events, chapter summaries, annotated suggestions for further reading and a glossary of technical terms.

An ideal starting point for those new to philosophy, they are also essential reading for those interested in the subject at any level.

Hobbes

A P Martinich

Leibniz

Nicholas Jolley

Locke

E J Lowe

Hegel

Frederick Beiser

Rousseau

Nicholas Dent

Schopenhauer

Julian Young

Freud

Jonathan Lear

Kant

Paul Guyer

Darwin

Tim Lewens

Rawls

Samuel Freeman

Spinoza

Michael Della Rocca

Merleau-Ponty

Taylor Carman

Russell

Gregory Landini

Wittgenstein

William Child

Heidegger

John Richardson

Adorno

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Husserl, second edition

David Woodruff Smith

Aristotle, second edition

Christopher Shields

Forthcoming

Hume

Don Garrett

Smith

Eric Schliesser

Peirce

Albert Atkin

Freud, second edition

Jonathan Lear

Einstein

Thomas Ryckman and Arthur Fine

Habermas

Kenneth Baynes

Mill

Daniel Jacobson

Plato

Constance Meinwald

Dewey

Steven Fesmire

Nietzsche

Maudemarie Clark

Berkeley

Lisa Downing and David Hilbert

Paul Guyer

Kant

Second edition

This second edition published 2014

by Routledge

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and by Routledge

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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2006, 2014 Paul Guyer

The right of Paul Guyer to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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First published by Routledge 2006

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Guyer, Paul, 1948

Kant / by Paul Guyer. Second edition.

pages cm. (Routledge philosophers)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Kant, Immanuel, 17241804. I. Title.

B2798.G89 2014

193dc23

2013033653

ISBN: 978-0-415-84344-7 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-415-84345-4 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-0-203-75620-1 (ebk)

Typeset in Joanna MT and Din

by Keystroke, Station Road, Codsall, Wolverhampton

Contents

One
A life in work

Part One
Nature

Two
Kants Copernican revolution

Three
The critique of metaphysics

Four
Building upon the foundations of knowledge

Part Two
Freedom

Five
Laws of freedom: the foundations of Kants moral philosophy

Six
Freedom, immortality, and God: the presuppositions of morality

Seven
Kants system of duties I: the duties of virtue

Eight
Kants system of duties II: duties of right

Part Three
Nature and freedom

Nine
The beautiful, the sublime, and the morally good

Ten
Freedom and nature: Kants revision of traditional teleology

Eleven
The natural history of freedom

Acknowledgements

This book is the distillation of a lifetimes study of Kant, and it would be impossible to thank every teacher and colleague from whom I have gained insight into Kant over four decades. I would like to thank Stanley Cavell, who not only supervised my early work on Kant but also urged me to write a book like the present one for many years. I would like to thank the members of my family my wife, Pamela Foa, my daughter, Nora, my late father, Irving, and my siblings Mark, Daniel, and Lonie who likewise urged me to write a book like this for some time. I would especially like to thank Frederick Rauscher, who read the entire manuscript carefully and made innumerable helpful suggestions, for which the final product is much better than it would otherwise have been. Michael Rohlf and Steven Jauss also read much of the manuscript and made useful suggestions. My colleague Gary Hatfield suggested several important improvements in my treatment of Kants philosophy of science in . And several of the anonymous readers of the manuscript for Routledge made helpful suggestions. I thank Brian Leiter for the invitation to write the book, and my editor at Routledge, Tony Bruce, for his enthusiasm and helpful suggestions. I am especially grateful to Julian Wuerth, who took valuable time away from his own work to help me with proofreading the first edition of this book and suggesting further corrections for the second.