Critique of Pure Reason (Penguin Classics)

First of all, yes, this is a difficult read. If you're fairly new to philosophy, then Kant is not the place to start. What makes the Critique such a dense read is the simple fact that it assumes prior knowledge (no pun intended) of particular epistemological issues that had been hotly debated in the West up to that point (a period of roughly 2000 years). So, to jump into philosophy with Kant would be like walking into a room in the middle of a conversation that's already been going on for hours on end; you're going to be fairly lost. A basic familiarity with Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes and at least one Empiricist (either Locke or Hume) is greatly helpful in establishing the context of the Critique and helps the reader follow the general line of Kant's thought. Also helpful is a reading of Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics before the much larger Critique.Just as it's nearly impossible to understand Kant without some general knowledge of philosophy up to his time, it's even more so to understand philosophy up to our time without reading Kant. His work was that influential. And while, as Bertrand Russell pointed out, the advent of non-Euclidean geometry and non-Aristotelian logic have rendered Kant's application of his theory to human knowledge and experience obsolete, Kant's general agenda is still very much the agenda of modern philosophy. We are still concerned with what constitutes consciousness, the structure of our faculties of knowledge and understanding (both practical and theoretical), and the nature of objective experience. In short, there's no avoiding Kant if you want to move on to any of the later philosophical movements.Which is where a good translation of the Critique comes in for the English-speaking reader. The translation in this edition is up-to-date and in line with the most recent scholarship, and it has the added benefit of being eminently affordable. Extensive endnotes help clear up certain obscurities in the text owing to difficulties of rendering Kant's German into English; they also explain the frequent references to Scholastic concepts for the non-Latinate. I also like the manner in which this edition presents comparative passages of Kant's own different redactions of the work. It allows the reader to look at passages from both the earlier and later redactions or simply ignore the earlier redaction, which is often admittedly incomprehensible in spots. The introduction provides a decent enough biographical sketch of the man himself. No doubt there are more scholarly editions out there, but if you want a decent edition of the Critique for very little money, then this is your best bet.

One could argue that the Critique of Pure Reason is the first modern Theory of Everything (ToE). This term, coined in the twentieth century, describes a so far undiscovered body of equations that would describe the behavior of everything in the universe, from the birth of stars to the peculiarly strong sense of consciousness in Homo Sapiens.While there is reason to read Kant beyond the validity of his ToE, he was arguably the first modern who thought he had come up with such a theory. In essence, he held that the human mind has a common way of experiencing the world that results in universally valid laws of matter. The world, as it is in itself, is for ever unknown. In this sense, one could say it is a theory of nothing. But we now can account for the fact that mathematics and science yield laws that are universally agreed upon. Subjects, however, like metaphysics, not subject to human experience, remain forever mired in controversy.The corresponding architecture of this mind and the reformed sciences is then fully detailed in the Critique. And while it’s easy to poke holes in the theory It can still be argued as the way the human mind naturally groks the world. For example, Kant held that space and time are imposed on the world by the mind distinctly. We now know that space and time have to be considered together to account for the effects of special relativity.But, how many physicists, fully conscious of the unity of space and time, make use of this union in their day to day life? As a former physics major I can assure one it is not many.Beyond the Uber-theory of how the mind must be constructed for math and science to be held in common, Kant can also be credited with forever shaping the terms of the idealist/realist debate in philosophy. The highly creative construct of such ideas as analytic/synthetic and a posteriori/a priori, while not wholly due to Kant, led to a permanent modification in their meaning.Moreover, Kant can be acclaimed for getting the mind/world duality partially right. While little is still known about precisely how the brain works, we do know that it evolved for survival purposes and that its intuitions are accordingly sometimes incorrect.We intuit that a cat some type of essential catness. But a cat does not possess an essence that determines its kind. Its kind is determined by the DNA it inherits.Similarly, a table is not completely solid but consists mostly of an electron cloud filled space around a small nucleus. It is our eyes and sense of touch that make the table appear solid, not its underlying reality.So even now we have to admit that our mind imposes certain ways of perceiving upon the world and does not merely take in reality, raw and unfiltered. As the first transcendental philosopher, Kant can be accredited for his early perception of this. For better or worse, he has come up with a proto Theory of Everything.Difficult, boring at times, but absolutely essential reading in the history of modern civilization. In brief, highly recommended.

As a philosophy undergrad, I found the text well translated and the translator's introduction instructive. Obviously, if you are looking for a heavily annotated version, this is not it. This version, rather, contains a modest amount of necessary endnotes and clarifications that are necessary for a proper reading of the text. Various terms ("appearance", "knowledge", and "representation" being among the most notorious) are translated consistently. I found this relative lack of clutter on the page at least psychologically reassuring as I read the Critique, an otherwise un-reassuring text. If you want to read the Critique, then purchase this addition. If you require more depth, then purchase an additional compendium and commentary. I am myself familiar with the Meiklejohn translation; I would recommend this text over that text or any reworking of that text (the Muller translation came after Meiklejohn's and was unanimously considered an improvement).If you are wondering whether or not you should read this book at all, then my advice is to read the first hundred pages for your own edification. If you are a philosophy student, then read the Transcendental Logic. In any case, this is a classic, so a complete reading is optimal. As someone who studies philosophy of mind, I find many parallels between what Kant claims and what present day philosophers claim.It is reasonable to say that if one takes a well-reasoned stance on Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason and Critique of Judgment, then one has taken a stance on modern western philosophy.