Description
Book SynopsisThis book is both a careful study of Immanuel Kant's work and the context of that work in the movement known as early modern philosophy. The chief interest of the author concerns the philosophy of perception that is manifest in Kant's doctrines of the transcendental aesthetic and the concept of phenomena. Philosophy bears a crucial relationship to the public in terms of the evidence that it identifies as original and binding. In the early modern period, philosophy repudiated its dependence on ordinary perception, and on language as ordinarily used, in the setting forth of its own authority. This historiographical fact is presently of immense interest, as public discourse finds itself rudderless and without agreed upon common facts for deliberation to settle on. It was not the view of the ancient Greeks that philosophy could so emancipate itself from the perception of common facts as the original evidence for higher investigations. The Early Modern era, beginning with Bacon but now more
Trade ReviewRobert Roecklein’s Kant’s Philosophy and the Momentum of Modernity takes up the quarrel of the ancients and moderns in novel ways, exposing the Epicurean roots of modern thinking. He does so principally through a vigorous critique of Kant’s distinction between phenonena and noumena and then elaborating its pernicious implications for ethics and politics. The case is fiercely argued. While the reader may not agree with all of Roecklein’s arguments, the book should provoke new assessments of Kant's relationship to the early Enlightenment and postmodernity. -- Marc Sable, Bethany College
Table of ContentsChapter 1. Kant in Context Chapter 2. Kant’s Philosophy of Mind Chapter 3. Kant’s Logic Chapter 4. Kant Scholarship Chapter 5. Rousseau Chapter 6. Kant’s Anthropology Chapter 7. The Foundations of Kant’s Moral Philosophy Chapter 8. Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason Chapter 9. Conclusion. Kant’s Political Philosophy
