The Critique of Practical Reason

by Immanuel Kant

Overview

The late Dr. Heinrich (Heinz) W. Cassirer was the elder son of the famous German philosopher and polymath, Ernst Cassirer. The family took refuge in Britain following the Nazi accession to power in 1933, being Jewish and therefore in obvious, ultimate danger. Professor Cassirer came to Oxford, but not long afterwards he moved to Sweden and then to the U.S.A. His son, Heinz, remained in Britain, becoming a protege of the distinguished British Kantian scholar, Professor H. J. Paton, then professor of logic and metaphysics in the University of Glasgow. At Paton's suggestion, Heinz Cassirer wrote a commentary on Kant's third Critique, the Critique of Judgment, which Methuen published in the late thirties; he also assisted Professor Paton with the last stages of the preparation of the latter's commentary on the first half of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, which he brought out in the autumn of 1936 under the title of Kant's Metaphysic of Experience. In 1937 Paton moved to Oxford as White's Professor of Moral Philosophy, and Cassirer followed him there to teach as a refugee scholar, concentrating on Kant's philosophy. In 1946 he secured a permanent appointment in the Department of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow under the late Professor W. G. Maclagan, remaining there until his retirement. In 1954 he published, in the Muirhead Library of Philosophy series, a study on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason under the title: Kant's First Critique. But he was already working on the relation of Kant's theory of knowledge to his ethics, and the first draft of the translation of the Critique of Practical Reason, which now appears posthumously, was completed in 1945.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781618951793
Publisher:	Bibliotech Press
Publication date:	02/24/2014
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Werner S. Pluhar is Affiliate Professor of Philosophy, Pennsylvania State University, Fayette.

Table of Contents

Dedication.
Translator's Preface.

Introduction by Stephen Engstrom:
1. The Place of the Critique of Practical Reason within Kant's Critical Philosophy.
2. The Relation of the Critique of Practical Reason to Kant's Ethics.
3. The Practical Purpose of the Critique of Practical Reason.
4. Showing the Practicality of Pure Reason:
A. The Idea of a Principle of Practical Reason.
B. Theorems about Practical Principles.
C. Practical Laws and Freedom.
D. The Basic Law of Pure Practical Reason.
E. Autonomy and Freedom.
5. Can the Highest Principle of Practical Reason Be Justified?
6. The Effects of Pure Practical Reason:
A. Defining the Concept of an Object of Practical Reason.
B. The Subjective Effects of Pure Practical Reason.
7. The Highest Good and the Antimony of Practical Reason.
8. Conclusion.

Critique of Practical Reason

Part I: Doctrine of the Elements of Pure Practical Reason

Book I: Analytic of Pure Practical Reason

Chapter I: On the Principles of Pure Practical Reason.
Chapter II: On the Concept of an Object of Pure Practical Reason.
Chapter III: On the Incentives of Pure Practical Reason.

Book II: Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason

Chapter I: On a Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason as Such.
Chapter II: On a Dialectic of Pure Reason in Determining the Concept of the Highest God.

Part II: Doctrine of the Method of Pure Practical Reason

Conclusion.

Selected Bibliography.
Glossary.
Index.

Editorial Reviews

A translation of Kant's Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, completed by H. W. Cassirer in 1976 (his first draft was written 30 years earlier), and lightly prepared for publication posthumously by editors G. Heath King and Ronald Weitzman. Cassirer aimed to provide a technically accurate rendering of Kant's text which is attentive to the spirit as well as the letter of Kant's original, while showing the movement of his thinking as it unfolds. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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