Kant and the Early Moderns (ebook)

Argumento de Kant and the Early Moderns (ebook)

For the past 200 years, Kant has acted as a lens--sometimes a distorting lens--between historians of philosophy and early modern intellectual history. Kant's writings about Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume have been so influential that it has often been difficult to see these predecessors on any terms but Kant's own. In Kant and the Early Moderns, Daniel Garber and Béatrice Longuenesse bring together some of the world's leading historians of philosophy to consider Kant in relation to these earlier thinkers.

These original essays are grouped in pairs. A first essay discusses Kant's direct engagement with the philosophical thought of Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, or Hume, while a second essay focuses more on the original ideas of these earlier philosophers, with reflections on Kant's reading from the point of view of a more direct interest in the earlier thinker in question. What emerges is a rich and complex picture of the debates that shaped the "transcendental turn" from early modern epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind to Kant's critical philosophy.

The contributors, in addition to the editors, are Jean-Marie Beyssade, Lisa Downing, Dina Emundts, Don Garrett, Paul Guyer, Anja Jauernig, Wayne Waxman, and Kenneth P. Winkler.

"This volume is an inspired project. . . . The objections-and-replies format of this collection is very graceful and effective in allowing the authors to explore Kant's interpretation of his predecessors, and to defend these predecessors against his criticisms."--Claudia M. Schmidt, Philosophy in Review

"This book is a very important contribution to the study of the history of modern philosophy. In highlighting the importance of paying close attention to Kant's criticisms of his immediate predecessors, the contributors to Kant and the Early Moderns provide new perspectives on Kant, as well as Descartes, Locke, Leibniz, Berkeley, and Hume."--Edwin McCann, University of Southern California

"Kant and the Early Moderns covers a great deal of territory in an informative, illuminating, and original way. It will be of interest to any student of modern philosophy."--Richard E. Aquila, University of Tennessee

"This small collection of essays is distinguished by the caliber of its contributors and by the exceptional promise of the discussion that it only begins . . . This is an exceptionally productive exercise that allows readers not only to see these early modern figures in their own light, but also to appreciate what is truly novel about Kant's interpretation of them."--Choice0Preface: Daniel Garber and Béatrice Longuenesse ix
Abbreviations and References for Primary Sources xi
Introduction: by Daniel Garber and Béatrice Longuenesse 1
Chapter 1: Kant's "I Think" versus Descartes' "I Am a Thing That Thinks" by Béatrice Longuenesse 9
Chapter 2: Descartes' "I Am a Thing That Thinks" versus Kant's "I Think" by Jean-Marie Beyssade 32
Chapter 3: Kant's Critique of the Leibnizian Philosophy: Contra the Leibnizians, but Pro Leibniz by Anja Jauernig 41
Chapter 4: What Leibniz Really Said? by Daniel Garber 64
Chapter 5: Kant's Transcendental Idealism and the Limits of Knowledge: Kant's Alternative to Locke's Physiology by Paul Guyer 79
Chapter 6: The "Sensible Object" and the "Uncertain Philosophical Cause" by Lisa Downing 100
Chapter 7: Kant's Critique of Berkeley's Concept of Objectivity by Dina Emundts 117
Chapter 8: Berkeley and Kant by Kenneth P. Winkler 142
Chapter 9: Kant's Humean Solution to Hume's Problem by Wayne Waxman 172
Chapter 10. Should Hume Have Been a Transcendental Idealist? by Don Garrett 193
Notes 209
Bibliography 241
List of Contributors 249
Index 251