Reddit reviews Kant: A Very Short Introduction
We found 7 Reddit comments about Kant: A Very Short Introduction. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Oxford University Press USA
Reddit reviews Kant: A Very Short IntroductionWe found 7 Reddit comments about Kant: A Very Short Introduction. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Kant is rather difficult, and some background knowledge of him is going to be required. Scruton's book is probably going to be the easiest secondary source, and will likely point you to other helpful sources as well. I took a course that focused on the Critique of Pure Reason and we used this to help us with both establishing the context and for breaking apart the text. As for primary sources, the Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals is fairly accessible by Kant's standards, and pretty short, so it's maybe not a bad place to start. Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics is also apparently a must-read for a full understanding of the critiques.
Al that said, Kant is pretty difficult. I'm not sure what your native language is, but I've heard German students read him in English because those translations can be clearer than the originals, but he's incredibly dense however you read him. The SEP will be great too not just as a source, but for pointing you to other writings on Kant.
Yes. Trust me when I say that you'll need second literature if you are willing to understand one line of, for instance, the Critique of Pure Reason. There are good introductory books on Kant out there that can help you.
If you know almost nothing about his philosophy, I recommend Scruton's or Wood's books that approach his whole philosophy without any details, making it accessible. A good start. At the same time you could give the Prefaces A and B, and the Introduction of the first Critique a try.
For what I call "intermediary literature", there is Gardner's "GuideBook", and having "A Kant Dictionary" by your side would help a lot.
Some might recommend Allison's defense of Kant's Transcendental Idealism, I think it is great, started to read it some weeks ago, but as well as Strawson's The Bounds of Sense or Heidegger's Kant and the Problems of Metaphysics, it is way advanced.
The most important thing is that you (or any other who is reading this and is also interested in Kant) are motivated, that you don't quit when read at the first time and understand barely nothing. With effort and persistence it gets better.
p.s.: I do not intend to advertise for Amazon, you can read the synopses and reviews and buy somewhere else.
Reading Kant on your own would be difficult, especially without a concrete understanding of the philosophers who preceded him. My advice would be to start with shorter texts of his - such as his essays "An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?" and "Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View" - in order to get a feel for his style, and also to read and listen to introductions from experts:
With that being said, I would start with "Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals" if you're interested in Ethics and "Prolegomena" if you're interested in Epistemology.
If you do want to know about Kant, first try: 'Kant: A Very Short Introduction' - Scruton -- 150 pages, $10, good summary.
Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (CPR) gets taught very rarely in this department. The department recognizes the need to have a course on Kant's CPR (or, alternatively, on Kant's shorter version of the CPR, his "Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics"), but the Maryland philosophy department (a) doesn't have many faculty who work on the history of philosophy, and (b) those faculty who do work in the history of philosophy either do work on ancient philosophy (Rachel Singpurwalla, Quinn Harr, Kelsey Gipe) or on Spinoza and other historical Jewish philosophers (Charles Manekin).
Sam Kerstein of course does work on historical Kant, but Sam's focus and interests in Kant is fairly exclusively directed towards Kant's moral philosophy. This is why Sam teaches a 400-level class on Kant's Groundwork every other year or so.
The upshot is that I am the first person to teach a course on Kant's CPR at this department in many years (6+). I'll probably teach the course again either next school year or, if not next year, then the following year. Unfortunately, that sounds like it might be too late for you (from what you've said, it sounds like you graduate this year).
Fortunately, I would argue that it is better for you to have taken a class on Kant's Groundwork before you graduate than Kant's CPR. Kant's ethics is more important to contemporary philosophy than his epistemology and metaphysics. That being said, I do hope you decide to give the CPR a read on your own time someday or at least read a secondary source on Kant that covers the important content from the CPR in detail.
If you decide to read Kant's CPR on your own, let me recommend some resources. First, I'd suggest you watch the following two videos about Hume and the following three videos on Kant as background (although, unfortunately there isn't a video connecting Kant to Hume through how Kant's CPR is in large part a response to Hume's skepticism):
You might want to also read one general secondary source on Kant's whole philosophical system before the CPR. Here are a few suggestions to pick one from - all accessible to a upper-level undergraduate student or graduate student. I am not sure which one would be best to recommend:
There are also several specific secondary sources aimed at upper-level undergraduates and graduate students that specifically cover Kant's CPR. One of these might be useful to have besides you as you read the CPR for those times you get lost:
Maybe some excerpts from Roger Scruton's "Kant: A Very Short Introduction".
this helped me out when I was in a similar position regarding Kant's work. You can find these nifty little introductory books at Barnes and Noble; the topics vary, but they are all good reads when you've got an hour or so to sit down with one.