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Rating: 
Summary: Oddly terrific- who got Scruton to do this?
Review: I don't know who foisted off the job of introducing Kant to the intellectual masses, but the could not have chosen better. My teeth hurt when I think about introducing Kant to neophytes. I still don't know how he did it, because I can't explain Kant to anyone without having them instantly MEGO (my eyes glaze over) and run crying to thre corner of the room. There is a lot that could be called contentious in this book (too much to go into) but that isn't a bad point about any book on Kant- there are no uncontentious books on Kant except biographies. All told, what I disagree with Scruton on is overshadowed by the mass of things he got right or even better than I have (no mean feat). It is assured Scruton's interpretations of Kant will become mainstream simply because he is the only man alive to make immediately intelligable sense of the man. Remember, Kant was the man HL Mencken attributed the incredibly funny comment "Kant was the worst writer on earth before Marx. He had many ideas, and some of them quite simple, but he always managed to make them seem unintelligable. I hope he is in hell"
Rating:
Summary: What I understood of it seemed excellent
Review: I once had a physics teacher the late Dave Levinstein of blessed memory who when asked by a student about relativity theory said the following; "I read some of that Einstein stuff, but the truth is , I didn't get it." That's very much the way I feel about a lot of this book. I did read with interest Scruton's account of Kant's life in which it turns out that the man his neighbors set their clocks by was also a quite sociable human being, and very much appreciated by his local townspeople. Kant who came from a poor family and who worked very hard all his life worked himself up in the system from private teacher to professor. He was an enormously popular lecturer, who drew standing room crowds. His heart was above all in metaphysics, but he also lectured at many other subjects including astronomy . Scruton says that he is the most important philosopher of modernity, and in purely philosophical ( philosophers between philosophers) terms this may be correct. He is not however a very congenial writer, and reading him trying to paraphrase his abstractions into your own. I have tried 'The Critique of Pure Reason' a few times and never really felt I was getting it. How liberating it is after reading Kant to read a great literary stylist like Nietzsche. In any case in this short work Scruton does outline and summarize the three great critiques. He shows how Kant's religious position in a certain way grows out of his Aesthetics and his sense of something sublime and transcendent. He underlines the Kantian position that it is the categories of our mind which shape our experience, and it is our experience which we know. And this means 'Reality- in - Itself' is transcendent and beyond our own apprehension.
This work seems to me a good introduction and summary. But again I do not feel I really understand Kant, at least not in any depth. The happy philosophical reader however might gain in understanding through reading and rereading this small work.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent introduction
Review: I recently read Scruton's "Kant" after being away from philosophy for many years, and was fascinated by Scruton's presentation of Kant's philosophy. Scruton is obviously a master teacher, and I wish I had this book when I was an undergraduate attempting to read The Critique of Pure Reason. This book is an excellent introduction to Kant.
Rating:
Summary: Succinct Treatment
Review: Scruton is able to pull off a brief but highly enlightening introduction of Kant. For those who find the perusal of the unabridged "Critique" a folly lacking in pure reason, this pocket sized gem seems the perfect answer. The size is rather deceptive when it comes to the density of matter it contains... It will definitely take focussed reading and a good deal of time to do justice to this book. Personally, I feel I myself haven't done enough of justice to this compact, loaded book.
Rating:
Summary: Succinct Treatment
Review: Scruton is able to pull off a brief but highly enlightening introduction of Kant. For those who find the perusal of the unabridged "Critique" a folly lacking in pure reason, this pocket sized gem seems the perfect answer. The size is rather deceptive when it comes to the density of matter it contains... It will definitely take focussed reading and a good deal of time to do justice to this book. Personally, I feel I myself haven't done enough of justice to this compact, loaded book.
Rating:
Summary: David Wang
Review: Scruton's book on Kant is, in my view, the best book available on Kant if the goal is to get a quick overview of the philosopher's "Critical System." This is a short and concise book and it does the impossible: summarize Kant's three critiques (of Pure Reason, of Practical Reason and of Judgment) in a pocket-sized book. And it is very readable. I generally really enjoy Scruton's writings; he is one of the few commentators who can write about philosophical matters in an understandable fashion for the common reader. This is doubly amazing since Scruton himself is a first rate philosopher...
Rating:
Summary: David Wang
Review: Scruton's book on Kant is, in my view, the best book available on Kant if the goal is to get a quick overview of the philosopher's "Critical System." This is a short and concise book and it does the impossible: summarize Kant's three critiques (of Pure Reason, of Practical Reason and of Judgment) in a pocket-sized book. And it is very readable. I generally really enjoy Scruton's writings; he is one of the few commentators who can write about philosophical matters in an understandable fashion for the common reader. This is doubly amazing since Scruton himself is a first rate philosopher...
Rating:
Summary: Phenomenal Book. Worth the money and then some.
Review: These books are kinda hit or miss. This one hits. Bullseye. Along with the chapter on Kant in Will Durant's "The Story of Philosophy," this is most thorough-but-brief examination of Kant's Philosophy. I can't even fathom how he did it. Scruton takes care to be as clear as possible when deciphering Kant's original but highly technical idiolect. If you read this book carefully, and then approach Kant's highly involved philosophy: you will see the difference. But. You have to be in for the haul. You may need to reread passages. Kant's works, even when condensed like this, are still foreboding and require much focus and concentration. But he is worth it. Modern thought springs much from Kant's ideas: his influence, not only on 19th Century Philosophy, German Romanticism, and Religious philosophy is ineluctable. I was hooked from the second chapter, wherein Scruton places Kant in his context and illustrates the evolution of his thought. Leibniz's and Hume's influence is dealt with in a fantastic way- a consideration of both thinkers is necessary for a greater understanding.
I can't say enough good things. If anyone ever told me that a book of 135 pages of small print with good illustrations could deal effectively with a thinker of this magnitude and verbosity I'd laugh. And I'd have to eat that laughter. I'll say this, it makes Kant pleasurable. A pleasure to read and a greater pleasure to understand. I'd recommend this to anyone with any degree of interest in kant. As Scruton says in his preface, "Kant hope to draw the limits of human understanding; he found himself compelled to transcend them." Scruton's V.S.I. is an excellent testament to that vision.
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