Rating: 
Summary: The most important book ever written.
Review: Although the Norman Kemp-Smith version is a far superior one, the genius of Kant still comes through. This is literally the most important book ever written, wildly misunderstood and extremely difficult. I would recommend a good analytical philosophy course in order to make sense of it.
Rating: 
Summary: important and unreadable
Review: Despite the earth-shaking importance of Kant for the world of thought, I am in complete disagreement with the idea that a style of writing is obscure because it deals with deep or complex subjects. Einstein once said that he could explain relativity to an uneducated barmaid-- and was famous for the clarity with which he educated nonscientists. One could cite many examples in the philosophical world as well (Camus, William James, etc.)...writing this bad isn't so for technical reasons, but for stylistic and egotistic ones. You're better off reading someone else's commentary on Kant.
Rating:
Summary: Monumental
Review: Dry, yes. Boring, to many readers, yes. Worthwhile, definitely. Accept no substitutes. If you're interested in modern
philosophy, this will be required reading. For the
beginner I do recommend that one first look over
the works of Locke, Hume, Berkely, Descartes,
and Leibniz to obtain an understanding of
what specifically Kant is attempting to
accomplish; which is the doctrine that we
bring more to experience than empiricism
admits while not beyond the realm of
experience as the rationalists maintain. This is the famous Copernican switch
from external objects as the source of
all knowledge to human beings as containing
the forms of knowledge that we bring to
objects. I recommend a careful reading
of the Critique so as to discourage false
impressions of it. Kant was not arguing
for subjectivism or that human beings
make up the world entirely with their
thoughts. There is a world that is
an organized nature in so far as
we know it, but "in itself" independant
of our minds, it isn't anything for us.
Because we all share the same reason,
we all share the same universe, and
so Kant's system is just as objective
and amicable to common sense as
any other.
Rating:
Summary: KANT IS THE MAN
Review: First of all, it is important to remember that this review refers to the Cambridge Edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, so it is unfair to go into any in-depth discussion regarding Kemp Smith's translation. The Cambridge Edition was translated by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood, two Kantian scholars that translate the material from a grammatical rather than literal perspective. This fact alone means that the buyer of this edition must work harder to reach the meaning of Kant's ideas. I have read Kemp Smith's translation, it is much easier to read than this Cambridge Edition, but my favorite translation is by F. Max Muiller. Considering all this, I recommend the Cambridge Edition only to hard core Kant scholars, but for the first time reader of Kant try the Kemp Smith or F. Max Muller translations for an easier read. All this aside, Kant's ideas regarding human experience and understanding are quite unique and must be taken with a grain of salt. Any true student of philosophy should attempt the reading and understanding of THE CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON but should not consider it the say-all and end-all of metaphysics. It is important to remember what Kant states in his much shorter and much more accesable book, PROLEGOMENA TO ANY FUTURE METAPHYSICS, metaphysics is not an exact science like mathematics, rather metaphysics is more or less an art of reasoning regarding the nature of reality. Thus each individual, by the nature of their unique perspective of reality, will approach metaphysics from a different angle and get their own meaning from the abstract concepts that make-up this very interesting branch of philosophy. Because of this I recommend the truelly interested student of philosophy to also read Hume, Husserl and Locke. The crux of this book is the Coperincan shifting of reality from the outside world, as an absolute phenomenon to be experienced, to the inside world, as a mental feature that influences experince. Thus, reality becomes, when treated by Kant, not an object of experience, but rather a factor of experience. This shift of reality is the foundation of all of modern psychology and allows the person that truelly comprehends this concept to treat reality as a personal feature of life rather than as a absolute feature of the physical world. With this shift of reality from the outside world to the inside world comes an increased resposibilty regarding one's actions, and this is the bottom line of Kant's whole life's work and achivement. The reader of this monumental book must not get hung up on the transcedetalism of the ideas, but like Kant, must use these ideas regarding the nature of reality as a stepping stone to their own morality and ethics. After all, Kant was not a dirty hippie but was a great scholar and moralist.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad for Western philosophy; but atrocious writing style
Review: For someone whose only philosophical exposure has been to Western thinkers, this book is good. But for those familiar with non-western traditions, the contents of this massive treatise simply belabor what has been intuitively known more than a thousand years earlier in, say, Indian or Chinese philosophy: pure reason has serious limitations, we run into contradictions when we overstep its bounds, etc. Even Kant's answer to Hume's extreme skepticism, the "synthetic unity of apperception" (his words, not mine!), is essentially subsumed in the Hindu notion of "Atman". (Indeed, the latter notion goes farther in recognizing the universality of the fundamental substratum of all being). Kant's writing style is poor and often sounds pompous. The book could probably have been reduced to a twentieth of its size without loss of content, but then I doubt if so many people would have been awed by him in that case. While it is true than one cannot always use simple language in philosophy, Kant's obfuscating prose is extreme and unnecessary. But to be fair, he was using many terms already rife in Scholastic philosophy. Kant was just the most obscure yet in a long line of obscure word-splitting philosophers before him. The "Critique" is undoubtedly a very important work in Western philosophy, but then it is just a little drop in the whole ocean of world thought.
Rating: 
Summary: B-b-b-b-b-borinnnnnnnnnnnng!!!
Review: Having read a lot of philosophy books, I can honestly say this is the worst by far. In fact, I only read thirty pages of this before I realized that Kant was downright rude by being so verbose. Did he think everyone had time to waste trying to get his point. Every once in a while, his writing becomes clear and cogent, but then it's back to Sartreville. Sartre, by the way, is a good read providing you avoid that monstrosity of his, "Being and Nothingness." Stick with Nietzsche (excepting, of course, "Thus Spake Tharathustra," which, in my humble opinion, is no "Twilight of the Idols.")
Rating: 
Summary: Profound philosophy or foolish pedantry?
Review: I am surprised that so many reviewers have responded favorably to Kant's famous "Critique"; for there is nothing easier than to dislike it. The book is, as Kant himself admitted, "dry, obscure, opposed to all ordinary notions, and moreover long-winded." It advances a number of doctrines which would seem to belong to different schools of thought. Indeed, Kant seems to be trying to be all things to all people; and in doing so, he risks alienating all points of view. He presents himself as a "transcendental idealist." But when this caused an uproar among the partisans of common sense, he quickly added several proofs of realism to the second edition. Kant also argues against metaphysical speculation; and yet the Critique itself appears extremely speculative, and his later work indulges in some metaphysical speculations about immortality, freedom, and God that seem to contradict one of the basic theses of the Critique. The purpose of Kant's Critique is to determine how synthetic judgments a priori are possible. His answer, briefly (unfortunately, it is not so brief in the book), is that they are possible by virtue of certain "pure concepts of the understanding." Nietzsche savagely ridiculed Kant's argument in "Beyond Good and Evil." Kant's solution, according to Nietzsche, amounted to claiming that synthetic judgments a priori are possible "by virtue of a faculty." "But is that an answer?" Nietzsche questioned. "Or is it not rather merely a repetition of the question? How does opium induce sleep? 'By virtue of a faculty,' namely the virtus dormitiva, replies the doctor in Moliere." Nietzsche's criticisms seem to me unanswerable. Kant's famous categories (i.e., the "faculty" in question) are dreadfully pedantic and recondite. Although his basic notion that presuppositions are involved in all empirical judgments is basically sound, I seriously doubt that these presuppositions are in any way as rigid as Kant makes them out to be. I suspect they are much more flexible and change as our conceptions of reality deepen. Nor is there any justification in regarding them as necessarily true. They may in fact contain errors--which is precisely why they need to be flexible. (Karl Popper has made much the same point.) Another criticism that could be leveled at Kant involves his extraordinary doctrine of the ideality of time and space. This "most terrible negation," as the philosopher George Santayana called it, would, if followed consistently, render all multiple and successive experiences as purely mental and imaginary. But as Santayana pointed out, if this were the case, "Everything conceivable would have collapsed into the act of conceiving it, and this act itself would have lost its terms and its purpose, and evaporated into nothing." Fortunately for Kant, he was only an idealist north-north west. When the wind blew southerly, he could distinguish real time from our experience of time, as his comforting postulate of immorality demonstrates quite clearly.
Rating:
Summary: Not nepotism, I assure you
Review: I had this book in my hands, Critique of Pure Reason. I tried reading it, but I didn't try very hard. One day I looked at the cover and noticed that my philosophy professor at Yale was one of the translators. I thought, damn, he didn't do too good (somehow it didn't occur to me that maybe Kant was the problem). Philosophy class, to me, had been a rather desperate situation - I didn't hope for excitement anymore; that was too much to ask. All I could ask for, hope for, was to understand. My professor (Allen Wood) is a brilliant, brilliant, kind man, funny sometimes, irreverent other times. Kantian? So I read a paragraph, again and again; I tried really really hard. Suddenly: Second Analogy of Experience? The Third Antinomy? Yes! Yes! It was not only clear but EXCITING stuff - I was so happy, so excited. I could understand Kant, and what's more, I liked it. When that happens, everything is suddenly so beautiful and good. I even wrote an A paper on Kant, in varying degrees of drunkenness. The Critique of Pure Reason is amazing. Of course I had help. Lectures, seminar, Allen Wood, who did his best and did it well. But I believe if you try hard enough, or if you're just brilliant by nature, CPR will delight you. When understanding descends, it's like a great, great gift. CPR is one of the reasons why I'm now able to admit that I rather LIKE philosophy.
Rating: 
Summary: Kant's place in Western thought
Review: I have found many of the reviews of this book disconcerting. The adulations which some reviewers have poured on Kant are excessive to the point of inanity. To posit, like one reviewer, that, while he cedes Nietzsche's 'brilliance', he continues that Nietzsche 'never really got it.' That must be one of the most preposterous evaluations of Nietzsche I have ever heard - and I have heard several. In order to truly appreciate Kant, Schopenhauer's and Nietzsche's criticisms of his philosophical system must be appended to the reading of this book. Yet, I also do not agree with another reviewer's description of Kant as 'obsolete.' That is almost as preposterous as the statement made by the aforementioned reviewer. Kant's philosophy is a fulcrum on which all later philosophy must turn. This does not mean that the Kantian philosophy is flawless, for Kant tends toward obscurity in his explanations and his philosophy is much too dependent on abstractions. Yet, these flaws are outweighed by the immensity of Kant's contributions to modern philosophy. You cannot call Kant obsolete anymore than you can likewise describe Aristotle, Locke, Berkeley, etc. In short, Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason' is essential reading to any student of Western philosophy, but it should also be read in tandem with some critics of the Kantian philosophy, especially Shopenhauer's Appendix to the first volume of 'The World as Will and Representation.'
Rating:
Summary: A very lucid mind I disagree with
Review: I notice some readers complain because they find the book hard to read, and fault Kant for that. Would the same readers fault the mathematician Kurt Gödel if they found his works hard to read? This book is very well written in the same sense that an advanced mathematics text may be well written. Kant displays a very clear head dealing with difficult subject matters, and makes a systematic study out of it. One may agree or one may disagree with Kant. One may find holes in his arguments or one may not. But regardless of this, a reader who takes the time required for the study of this book will find that Kant's arguments are very clear. I disagree with Kant on many points - as you would expect of a man who claims Max Stirner as his closest philosophical kin - but I would never find that disagreement a reason to disparage Kant's intelligence or his ability to write. Kant's book is nothing less than a monumental achievement philosophically, and in the time after him we can not philosophize without relating to his brilliant insights. The core of Kant's insight is - in my eyes - that though all our knowledge arises WITH experience, it does not thereby follow that it all arises FROM experience. Read him, and you will get a Copernican shift of perspective which may lead you to some new thoughts - and though those new thoughts may arise as you read Kant, I can in no way guarantee that they will be implied by what you have read.
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