Reading and Understanding Kant's Critique of Pure Reason - A No-Nonsense Guide
Alberto Palazzi
Publisher: GogLiB
Summary
There is no greater satisfaction than breaking the veil of age-old naivety with which we consider the things around us, and looking at the world again with the experience of having read the Critique of Pure Reason. But it is difficult: other people’s reports are not satisfying, and the meaning of Kant’s intense text cannot be grasped, because the philosopher, seeing things so differently from the usual, could not find a way to express himself that was adequate to the presuppositions of readers of the time to come. This guide, designed to be read not before, but together with Kant’s text, leads today’s readers to experience the immense pleasure of mastering the meaning of the great Enlightenment scholar’s most important work. A guide that can be read together with Kant’s text because it consists of short comments specifically referring to the paragraphs of the Critique of Pure Reason which need explanation, comments that translate Kant’s words into clear and familiar language for today’s readers. The instructions in this book first of all warn readers about Kant’s implicit presuppositions, which are the first source of difficulty, and then acknowledge those presuppositions of Kant that a twenty-first century reader cannot accept: so that we will be able to understand Kant standing humbly on his shoulders. The little we know from experience, what we would like to know, the things we conceive as ideal, after reading the Critique of Pure Reason appear in a completely different light: no longer as things that overwhelm us, but as ideas that we produce through elementary states of consciousness that are within us, and that determine the way in which we interpret the universe of perceptions that affect us. The explanatory texts of this guide accompany the reader in appropriating Kant’s book while the meaning of the great philosopher’s vision appears increasingly clear, and ultimately also simple, as profound thoughts are once the path that leads to understanding them has been walked with the due commitment.
Available since: 04/24/2024.
Print length: 275 pages.
