Basic Writings of Kant (Modern Library Classics) Paperback – July 10, 2001

I received this book in great condition! I haven’t read it yet but will very soon! Thank you!!

Kant is extremely famous in fact most famous philosophizers today would go as far to say "you're not a man till you've understood Kant." I have never gotten such powerful knowledge without contradictions and a POWERFUL foundation of thought and reason in matters of everyday life. Kant really did the impossible and some may take a life time to understand his works I have to be honest and have yet to fully understand Kant to say I'm a Kantian. HIGHLY recommended.

worth a second (and third) reading

Package arrived as described. Thanks.

Good...needed to read for college class

great book!

As usual with my reviews of classics, I will not presume to review Kant, I will only review this edition. This book is an excellent way to get an overview of Kant's writings, with a very good not, excessively brief introduction about his life, times and thought. I knew relatively little about Kant's work before I bought this, which is why I bought it in the first place. I skipped around in this book. There are gaps in the major works, which is as designed, so this material would all fit into one volume of a certain size. But the presence of the gaps is of course not desirable if you really want to read the major works as written. Ultimately (I have had the book in my possession for nine years) I decided that after reading a good chunk of this book, in bits and pieces, I want to read the full Critique of Pure Reason, but do not feel a need to dig any more deeply in Kant's moral philosophy. Some of the short works which are present in complete form are just interesting reads from the general viewpoint of the history of philosophy and as an expression of Kant's thoughts and feelings about society in general.

This is an excellent survey of Kant's groundbreaking constributions to epistemology and moral philosophy. I would, however, support Karl Popper's observation that the best way to understand the transcendental idealism of Kant is to first study Schopenhauer. An ideal introduction to Schopenhauer (and Kant) is Bryan Magee's 'The Philosophy of Schopenhauer'. Then read Schopenhauer's 'On the Fourfold Root of Principle of Sufficient Reason', and then his 'The World as Will and Representation'. Schopenhauer is a peerless prose stylist and conceptual architect and he explains the philosophy of Kant (and it's limitations) better than Kant does himself. Once you have familiarised yourself with Schopenhauer, Kant's comparatively opaque and desultory prose (with occasional flashes of brilliance) is readily accessible. Kant's staggering intellectual achievement in moving beyond the apparent epistemological dead end of Hume is sufficient motivation for making the effort to read the Critique of Pure Reason. In the other works in this volume Kant developed his (in my view)flawed moral philosophy, based as it is on the supposed sovereignty of reason over the will - with its famous 'catagorical imperative'. While this is less impressive than his epistemology, it is still interesting and well worth reading. The translations offered here are clear and the selections from Kant's works are judicious. Altogether a great book at a great price, which will richly reward the serious reader.