Rating: 
Summary: Someone doesn't know what they are talking about.
Review: I read this book many years ago as an assignment for a college philosophy class. I have to admit that at 19 years old,not having any interest in philosophy, Eastern history, or biblical studies, I found it a tough go. Now, years later, after finding an interest in those subjects the ideas of the philosphers become clearer to me with each passing year. I wish I could say the same for "A reader (Schaumburg, IL USA)" His review is just a bunch of esoteric bovine scatology. Nothing is harder to grasp than Eastern philosopy, even for Orientals, in most cases. It is often said that the Hindus don't understand Hinduism themselves. It's not a religion, maybe not a philosophy, and probably just a guide to good living, along the lines of Confucious. Without belaboring religious studies, it has to be mentioned that Judaism is probably the oldest of the philosophies/religions/traditions, and before that Zoroastrianism. However, Plato also dealt with many of the issues in these studies, especially the ideas of creation, which he may have gotten from Judasim, and is very similar to Mormon theology on this point. Of course, Israel and Greece are supposedly Asian, but that's stretching the term Asian to cover pretty wide territory. Point being, that from the Bible to Hinduism Eastern philosophy is no easier to read and understand than Kant, unless you take into account that Kant comes along a lot later and has a lot more to base his writings on. Bottom line: Kant is no harder to read than the Upanishads. I believe it is must reading for anyone interested in following the development of "Western" philosophy,which,in many cases is just modern Eastern philosophy. Depending on how you look at it, of course.
Rating:
Summary: Rock Reviews?
Review: I thought this was a indepth review of a band called Pure Reason, but I was mistaken. When is Kant going to go back to his punk rock roots? Has he moved to the Scandenavian Death Metal scene exclusively? Or is he planning on doing something with acid house? A bit too dark for my tastes. I miss the old "Manny" of our CBGB days. Analytic philosophy will never be the same.
Rating:
Summary: Generally regarded as "the greatest of philosophy books"
Review: I'd like to reiterate two famous quotations regarding Kant and this book. "God said that if Kant had not existed, someone would have had to invent him," and Critique of Pure Reason is considered to make Kant "the greatest of modern philosophers." This book is notorious for impenetrable obscurity. There are two reasons for a book to be obscure. One is the obscurity of expression and the other is the expression of obscurity. The latter is hardly to blame, and it's almost unavoidable, as is the case with this book. Unlike most philosophy books, the difficulty in reading this book actually underestimates the profundity of the content. One of the philosophy professors said it takes 5 years of strenuous reading for an average person to understand the whole content in his/her own way. So read this book only if you have lots of time and are not annoyed to read a passage over and over again.
Rating:
Summary: A Critique of Pure Idiocy
Review: I'm simply bewildered by two of the reviews of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Giving the Critique two or three stars shows an absolute lack of understanding for its role in the history of modern philosophy. Every philosopher before Kant assumed that objects of the external world exist in themselves (i.e. that a chair is an object that can be studied in and of itself). Regardless of the philosopher, the belief in the independent existence of the external world went unquestioned from Plato onward.In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant argues that things don't exist separate from the conditions that make experiencing them possible. The Critique therefore takes a step back, and actually studies the conditions under which *any* experience is possible. This marks a transition in philosophy from a theocentric perspective to an anthropocentric perspective; a transition that carries through 19th and 20th century philosophy to the present day. Virtually all post-Kantian philosophers focus on studying human beings from an anthropocentric perspective, and avoid starting out with a God's eye view. Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, and countless other philosophers work within this anthropocentric perspective to greater and lesser degrees. It isn't important whether they agree with Kant on all the details, or even any of the details, but rather that the Copernican turn offers the framework for virtually all of subsequent philosophy. The two reviews to which I refer are the equivalent of giving Einstein two stars for his contribution to physics. What is significant is not that Einstein's vision was exactly correct, but rather, that his contribution is indispensible to all subsequent physics. The same argument clearly applies to the work of Immanuel Kant.
Rating:
Summary: Complex thoughts for comprehensive minds...
Review: in response to the reviewer who stated that Kant is an "affront to everything good about philosophy" and that his works are less than worthy because of the majority's overwhelming lack of an ability to comprehend him, well who says everything has to be written in layman's terms in order to be valuable? it's unfortunate, yes, that many, such as yourself, will never experience that moment of sheer awe as it all dawns on you; that moment when every aspect of each sentance (granted that a single sentance may indeed be 4 pages long) suddenly come together in your mind at which point the whole concept which Kant is trying to impart hits you like a skillet to the head. for those of us who do have the patience and the intellect to reach beyond the idiosynchracies and nuances of his writings enough to understand them, whether in agreement with him or not, there simply is nothing else out there that can provide that level of depth to one's grasp on any concepts regarding the structure of thought and being. you want to turn mature material into something that's 'fun for the whole family' and i'm sorry but some things should be left to the adult-only crowd. if for nothing else then simply so they may remain intact and as intended. you can not simplify what Kant and others like him divulge. by trying to do so you remove what it is that makes them worth considering in the first place.
great that Plato's philosophies are easy for anyone to understand, i'm happy for you that he is... but that just means he's got a lot more people quoting him here and there and frankly, that's where words are too oft spoken but their meanings lost. quotes become clichès and no one ever bothers to philosphize the point being made and the meaning behind a clichè.
and say that it were easy to read for all... say that his works were stripped of their complexity and bastardized to all levels of literacy for the limited mind - what, then, would you have us read? what would you have the "elite few" who do have the capacity to understand his original works read in order to find the same challenge to our psyche and our mental make-up that we get from reading works such as these.? so it may be for the elite few but don't those elite few deserve material written at their own level of thinking to read? if your own logistics are not up to par with those of men like Kant then it is no fault of his and no reason for you to knock him.
leave the criticism of such great minds to those who have the capacity to conceive them and keep your reviews to that which you know rather than that which you have absolutely no idea.
Rating:
Summary: Complex thoughts for comprehensive minds...
Review: in response to the reviewer who stated that Kant is an "affront to everything good about philosophy" and that his works are less than worthy because of the majority's overwhelming lack of an ability to comprehend him, well who says everything has to be written in layman's terms in order to be valuable? it's unfortunate, yes, that many, such as yourself, will never experience that moment of sheer awe as it all dawns on you; that moment when every aspect of each sentance (granted that a single sentance may indeed be 4 pages long) suddenly come together in your mind at which point the whole concept which Kant is trying to impart hits you like a skillet to the head. for those of us who do have the patience and the intellect to reach beyond the idiosynchracies and nuances of his writings enough to understand them, whether in agreement with him or not, there simply is nothing else out there that can provide that level of depth to one's grasp on any concepts regarding the structure of thought and being. you want to turn mature material into something that's 'fun for the whole family' and i'm sorry but some things should be left to the adult-only crowd. if for nothing else then simply so they may remain intact and as intended. you can not simplify what Kant and others like him divulge. by trying to do so you remove what it is that makes them worth considering in the first place.
great that Plato's philosophies are easy for anyone to understand, i'm happy for you that he is... but that just means he's got a lot more people quoting him here and there and frankly, that's where words are too oft spoken but their meanings lost. quotes become clichès and no one ever bothers to philosphize the point being made and the meaning behind a clichè.
and say that it were easy to read for all... say that his works were stripped of their complexity and bastardized to all levels of literacy for the limited mind - what, then, would you have us read? what would you have the "elite few" who do have the capacity to understand his original works read in order to find the same challenge to our psyche and our mental make-up that we get from reading works such as these.? so it may be for the elite few but don't those elite few deserve material written at their own level of thinking to read? if your own logistics are not up to par with those of men like Kant then it is no fault of his and no reason for you to knock him.
leave the criticism of such great minds to those who have the capacity to conceive them and keep your reviews to that which you know rather than that which you have absolutely no idea.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: It has been said that upon reading the first page of the Critique, that it could be likened to walking into a well lit room. Though the reading is rather laborious, it is well worth the time since there are few other in-depth accounts of the process of human reason which delve into the subject with such insight and contemplation.
Rating:
Summary: Complex thoughts for comprehensive minds...
Review: Kant begins with the simple statement that all knowledge is based upon experience. It is the last easily understood sentence in the book. Philosophy had established two types of knowledge: analytical and synthetic. A valid analytical statement is always absolutely true, thus is "known". The statement "The sum of two right angles in the Euclidian system is equal to a straight line" is an analytical statement. It is "true" in that the statement is derived from Euclidian propositions and agrees with the propositions from which it is derived. It says nothing about the actual nature of the world. The statement "The cat is on the table" is a synthetic statement. The word synthetic used means a synthesis of known and knower. The synthetic statement is open to dispute. It may be the product of deception, imagination or any number of other factors which make it beyond absolute knowledge. Kant's book is an attempt to establish that there is or is not some connection in some manner in which any synthetic knowledge can be known with the certainty that an analytical statement can be "known". Synthetic statements include all scientific knowledge, such as the second law of thermodynamics. The second law necessitates existencce of physical material which obeys it. In order to be "knowable" the knowledge must be a priori as a necessary condition. The closest that Kant comes to establishing this connection is via the type of knowledge called synthetic a priori, which is to say a joining of the known and knower without experience of the known by the knower. The closest he comes to establishing that this type of knowledge is real is the knowledge of TIME, which he asserts is not itself experienced but whose reality can be asserted via the experience of events which have sequence. A.N. Whitehead uses the example of space as synthetic a priori, in that space known within a given distance can be known a prior that it extends far beyond possible experience. A priori is necessary for certainty, but not sufficient. Neither TIME nor SPACE establishes that anything synthetic can be known with the total certainty that an analytical statement can be "known". As he puts it, "Existence is not a true predicate." It should be obvious that Kant considers any knowledge which is not absolutely certain to be something less than knowledge. It is interesting that the later German philosopher Schopenhauer would consider no-one a man who had not read and understood the "Critique of Pure Reason". It was on my high school reading list, and I tried to read it then, but interested people who are not advanced students of logic and philosophy would doubtless be better off reading an abridged version.
"The Critique" is a continuation of the tradition of attempts to prove the existence of God, which was seen by some as being "necessary" and therefore true in a sense that the existence of the natural world is not "necessary". That view was followed up by Descartes' famous assertion "I think, therefore I am." Kant rejected both these views with his famous assertion "Existance is not a true predicate." Later, the British philosopher Bertrand Russell modified Descartes' statement to "There is thought, therefore there is existance."
Russell lived after Kant, so Kant's reaction is unknown. Kant uses logic to come to oppposite conclusions, contradictions. In "A Brief History of Time" Steven Hawking shows that some of these contrary statements are in fact identical statements because Kant was using the classical view that time is constant, while the contradictions can be explained by Einstein's thory that time is actually a dependent function, passing at different rates from different viewpoints depending upon velocity. Perhaps some of the theory of relativity could have been extrapolated from the "Critique of Pure Reason", but Kant did not make the connection. Perhaps it influenced some scientists around the turn of the 20th century before the Michaelson-Morley experiment or even before Maxwell. Who knows. Today Kant's influence is principally through his ethical thought, which shows up in some Jewish commentaries on the Bible as well as in the larger community.
His conclusions that synthetic propositions cannot be known with the certainty that analytical propositions can be "known" is simply taken as an everyday part of life today.
Rating: 
Summary: A Basis For Thought
Review: Kant begins with the simple statement that all knowledge is based upon experience. It is the last easily understood sentence in the book. Philosophy had established two types of knowledge: analytical and synthetic. A valid analytical statement is always absolutely true, thus is "known". The statement "The sum of two right angles in the Euclidian system is equal to a straight line" is an analytical statement. It is "true" in that the statement is derived from Euclidian propositions and agrees with the propositions from which it is derived. It says nothing about the actual nature of the world. The statement "The cat is on the table" is a synthetic statement. The word synthetic used means a synthesis of known and knower. The synthetic statement is open to dispute. It may be the product of deception, imagination or any number of other factors which make it beyond absolute knowledge. Kant's book is an attempt to establish that there is or is not some connection in some manner in which any synthetic knowledge can be known with the certainty that an analytical statement can be "known". Synthetic statements include all scientific knowledge, such as the second law of thermodynamics. The second law necessitates existencce of physical material which obeys it. The closest that Kant comes to establishing this connection is via the type of knowledge called synthetic a priori, which is to say a joining of the known and knower without experience of the known by the knower. The closest he comes to establishing that this type of knowledge is real is the knowledge of TIME, which he asserts is not itself experienced but whose reality can be asserted via the experience of events which have sequence. This, however, does not establish that anything synthetic can be known with the total certainty that an analytical statement can be "known". As he puts it, "Existence is not a true predicate." It should be obvious that Kant considers any knowledge which is not absolutely certain to be something less than knowledge. It is interesting that the later German philosopher Schopenhauer would consider no-one a man who had not read and understood the "Critique of Pure Reason". It was on my high school reading list, and I tried to read it then, but interested people who are not advanced students of logic and philosophy would doubtless be better off reading an abridged version. "The Critique" is a continuation of the tradition of attempts to prove the existence of God, which was seen by some as being "necessary" and therefore true in a sense that the existence of the natural world is not "necessary". That view was followed up by Descartes' famous assertion "I think, therefore I am." Kant rejected both these views with his famous assertion "Existance is not a true predicate." Later, the British philosopher Bertrand Russell modified Descartes' statement to "There is thought, therefore there is existance."
Russell lived after Kant, so Kant's reaction is unknown. Kant uses logic to come to oppposite conclusions, contradictions. In "A Brief History of Time" Steven Hawking shows that some of these contrary statements are in fact identical statements because Kant was using the classical view that time is constant, while the contradictions can be explained by Einstein's thory that time is actually a dependent function, passing at different rates from different viewpoints depending upon velocity. Perhaps some of the theory of relativity could have been extrapolated from the "Critique of Pure Reason", but Kant did not make the connection. Perhaps it influenced some scientists around the turn of the 20th century before the Michaelson-Morley experiment or even before Maxwell. Who knows. Today Kant's influence is principally through his ethical thought, which shows up in some Jewish commentaries on the Bible as well as in the larger community.
His conclusions that synthetic propositions cannot be known with the certainty that analytical propositions can be "known" is simply taken as an everyday part of life today.
Rating: 
Summary: Kant is obsolete, and should be treated as such
Review: Kant once stated his discovery of Hume awoke him from a dogmatic slumber; reading Kant, one wonders if it truly had. Although given credit for discovering the limits of reason in providing metaphysical truths, subsequently making metaphysics a joke among European intellectuals, he nevertheless refused to admit the absurdity of many metapysical concepts -- most importantly God and the existence and immortality of the soul. Kant's genius was in convincing others that he had filtered out metaphysics from reason, and thereby reached an unprecedented objectivity. The truth is that his philosophy is no less metaphysical, and therefore no less without foundation, than that of the rationalists he succeeded. It would take the appearance of Nietzsche almost a century later for Europe and the world to see Kant for what he really is.
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