Kant's Reform of Metaphysics
The Critique of Pure Reason Reconsidered

This book reinterprets key parts of the Critique of Pure Reason in view of Kant's sustained engagement with Wolffian metaphysics.

Karin de Boer (Author)

9781108842174, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 3 September 2020

292 pages
15.5 x 23.5 x 2 cm, 0.57 kg

'[The] book offers a rich discussion of how Kant's conception of metaphysics can be clarified by situating his thought in relation to the thought of his contemporaries and predecessors. Readers interested in any of the above topics will find much to engage with and each chapter serves as a useful starting point if one wants to better appreciate the historical context of Kant's thinking on these specific issues.' Michael Walschots, Kant Studien

Scholarly debates on the Critique of Pure Reason have largely been shaped by epistemological questions. Challenging this prevailing trend, Kant's Reform of Metaphysics is the first book-length study to interpret Kant's Critique in view of his efforts to turn Christian Wolff's highly influential metaphysics into a science. Karin de Boer situates Kant's pivotal work in the context of eighteenth-century German philosophy, traces the development of Kant's conception of critique, and offers fresh and in-depth analyses of key parts of the Critique of Pure Reason, including the Transcendental Deduction, the Schematism Chapter, the Appendix to the Transcendental Analytic, and the Architectonic. The book not only brings out the coherence of Kant's project, but also reconstructs the outline of the 'system of pure reason' for which the Critique was to pave the way, but that never saw the light.

1. Wolff, Crusius, and Kant
2. The “Thorny Paths of Critique”
3. Ontology, Metaphysics, and Transcendental Philosophy
4. Things in Themselves, Transcendental Objects, and Monads
5. The 1781 Transcendental Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding
6. The Schematism of the Pure Understanding
7. Transcendental Reflection
8. Kant's Projected System of Pure Reason
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Philosophy [HP], Humanities [H]