This section includes both the required and additional readings for this course. Readings by session are available below.
Main Readings
Text
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason (1781/1787). Edited by Paul Guyer and Allen Wood. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1999. ISBN: 0521657296.
You may alternatively use the older edition, translated and edited by Norman Kemp Smith.
Commentaries
Allison, Henry. Kant's Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense. Revised ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004. ISBN: 0300102666.
Bennett, Jonathan. Kant's Analytic. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1966. ISBN: 0521093899.
Gardner, Sebastian. Guidebook to Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason. New York, NY: Routledge, 1999. ISBN: 041511909X.
Guyer, Paul. Kant and the Claims of Knowledge. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1987. ISBN: 0521337720.
Langton, Rae. Kantian Humility: Our Ignorance of Things in Themselves. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2001. ISBN: 0199243174.
Strawson, P. F. The Bounds of Sense: an Essay on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. New York, NY: Methuen, 1975. ISBN: 0416291007.
van Cleve, James. Problems from Kant. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN: 0195083229.
Readings by Session
The A/B pagination featured below for Kant's Critique of Pure Reason signifies the page numbers in the first (A) and second (B) editions of the text.
| SES # | TOPICS | READINGS |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction to the Course | |
| 2 | Introduction to the Critique | Kant. Critique. A1/B1-A16/B30. Gardner. Guidebook. Chapter 3. van Cleve. Problems. Chapter 2. |
| 3 | Space (Transcendental Aesthetic) | Kant. Critique. A19/B34-B73. Gardner. Guidebook. Chapter 4. van Cleve. Problems. Chapter 3 |
| 4 | Space (Transcendental Aesthetic) (cont.) | Kant. Critique. A19/B34-B73. van Cleve. Problems. Chapter 4. |
| 5 | The Transcendental Deduction of the Categories | Kant. Critique. A96-A130/B130-B179. Gardner. Guidebook. pp. 135-165. |
| 6 | Space, and the Transcendental Deductions | |
| 7 | Substance and the First Analogy | Kant. Critique. A182/B224-A189/B232. |
| 8 | Substance and the First Analogy (cont.) | |
| 9 | Causality and the Second Analogy | Kant. Critique. B233-A211/B256. Strawson. The Bounds of Sense (excerpt). |
| 10 | Causality (cont.)and Community (The Third Analogy) | Kant. Critique. A211/B257-A218-B265. |
| 11 | Causality and Community, the Second and Third Analogies | |
| 12 | Phenomena and Noumena | Kant. Critique. A236/B295-A260/B315. |
| 13 | Phenomena and Noumena (cont.) | |
| 14 | Kant's "Refutations" of Idealism | Kant. Critique. A366/B274-A380/B279. Gardner. Guidebook. Chapter 8. |
| 15 | Idealism, Realism, and Ignorance of Things in Themselves | |
| 16 | The "Problem of Affection," and Three Kantian Theses | Kant. Critique. The Amphiboly of Concepts of Reflection, A265/B321-A268/B324 and A277/B233-A278-B334. Langton. Kantian Humility. Chapters 1 and 2. Allison, Henry. Transcendental Idealism. Chapter 1. |
| 17 | The "Problem of Affection," and Three Kantian Theses (cont.) | |
| 18 | The Development of Kantian Humility | Kant. Critique. The Amphiboly of Concepts of Reflection, A265/B321-A268/B324 and A277/B233-A278-B334. First Analogy, A182/B224-A189/B232. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. The Monadology (excerpts). Kant. New Exposition on the First Principles of Metaphysical Knowledge (excerpt). Langton. Kantian Humility . Chapters 3-6. |
| 19 | The Development of Kantian Humility (cont.) | |
| 20 | Substance Revisited | Langton. Kantian Humility. Chapter 2. |
| 21 | Substance Revisited (cont.) | |
| 22 | Primary and Secondary Qualities in Kant | Kant. Prolegomena (excerpt). Kant. Critique. Postulates of Empirical Thought, A225/B273-A266-B218. Axioms of Intuition and Anticipations of Perception, A162/B202-A176/B218. Locke, John. Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) (excerpt). Edited by P. Nidditch. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1975. ISBN: 1406790273. Bennett, Jonathan. Locke, Berkeley, Hume: Central Themes (excerpt). New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1971. ISBN: 0198243529. Evans, Gareth. "Things Without the Mind." In Philosophical Subjects: Essays Presented to P. F. Strawson. Edited by Zak van Straaten. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1980, pp. 76-116. ISBN: 019824603X.Langton. Kantian Humility. Chapters 7 and 8. |
| 23 | Primary and Secondary Qualities in Kant | |
| 24 | Primary Qualities and Scientific Realism |
Kant. The Kant-Eberhard Controversy (excerpt). Translated with a commentary by Henry E. Allison. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973. ISBN: 0801814561. Langton. Kantian Humility. Chapters 8 and 9. |
| 25 | Idealism and Realism Revisited | Kant. Critique . Transcendental Aesthetic, A19/B34-B73. Refutation of Idealism, A366-A380. Langton. Kantian Humility. Chapter 10. |
| 26 | Idealism and Realism Revisited (cont.) |
Additional Readings
Beck, Lewis White. Essays on Kant and Hume. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1978.
Bencivenga, Ermanno. Kant's Copernican Revolution. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1981.
Bennett, Jonathan. Kant's Dialectic. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1974.
———. Locke, Berkeley, Hume: Central Themes. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1971. ISBN: 0198243529.
Berkson, W. Fields of Force. New York, NY: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974.
Blackburn, Simon. "Filling In Space." Analysis 50 (1990): 62-5. Reprinted in Essays in Quasi-realism. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Boscovich, R. J. A Theory of Natural Philosophy (1763). Translated by J. M. Child. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1966. ISBN: 0262520036.
Brittan, Gordon. Kant's Theory of Science. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978.
Buroker, Jill Vance. Space and Incongruence. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Reidel, 1981.
Costabel, Pierre. "Newton's and Leibniz' Dynamics." In The Annus Mirabilis of Sir Isaac Newton. Edited by R. Palter. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1970. ISBN: 0262160358.
Dryer, D. P. Kant's Solution for Verification in Metaphysics. London, UK: George Allen and Unwin, 1966.
Evans, Gareth. "Things Without the Mind." In Philosophical Subjects: Essays Presented to P. F. Strawson. Edited by Zak van Straaten. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1980, pp. 76-116. ISBN: 019824603X.
Faraday, Michael. "A Speculation touching Electric Conduction and the Nature of Matter." In Experimental Researches in Electricity. Vol. II. London, UK: Richard and John Edward Taylor, 1844.
Foster, John. The Case for Idealism. New York, NY: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982.
Friedman, Michael. Kant and the Exact Sciences. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992.
Furth, Montgomery. "Monadology." In Leibniz: A Collection of Critical Essays. Edited by Harry Frankfurt. New York, NY: Doubleday, 1972, pp. 99-136. ISBN: 0385033087.
Harré, R., and E. H. Madden. Causal Powers. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1975.
Heimann, P. M., and J. E. McGuire. "Newtonian Forces and Lockean Powers: Concepts of Matter in Eighteenth Century Thought." Chapter 3 in Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971, pp. 233-306.
Heimsoeth, Heinz. "Metaphysical Motives in the Development of Critical Idealism." In Kant: Disputed Questions. Edited by Moltke Gram. Chicago, IL: Quadrangle Books, 1967, pp. 158-99.
Hesse, Mary. Forces and Fields. London, UK: Thomas Nelson, 1961.
Humberstone, I. L. "Intrinsic/Extrinsic." Synthese 108 (1996): 205-267. (Accepted in 1992.)
Jackson, Frank, Robert Pargetter, and Elizabeth Prior. "Three Theses about Dispositions." American Philosophical Quarterly 19 (1982): 251-7.
Jammer, Max. Concepts of Force. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957.
Kant, Immanuel. Collected Works. Gesammelte Schriften. Edited by Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Berlin and Leipzig, Germany: de Gruyter, 1922. (Hereafter Ak.)
———. Principiorum primorum cognitionis metaphysicae nova dilucidatio (1755). Ak. Vol. 1. English Translation: "A New Exposition of the First Principles of Metaphysical Knowledge." In Kant's Latin Writings: Translations, Commentaries and Notes. Edited by L. W. Beck et al. New York, NY: P. Lang, 1986.
———. Monadologia physica (1756). Ak. Vol. 1. English Translation: "Physical Monadology." In Kant's Latin Writings: Translations, Commentaries and Notes. Edited by L. W. Beck et al. New York, NY: P. Lang, 1986.
———. Von dem ersten Grunde des Unterschiedes der Gegenden in Raume (1768). Ak. Vol. 2. English Translation: Kant's Inaugural Dissertation and Early Writings on Space. Edited by J. Handyside. Chicago, IL: Open Court, 1928.
———. De mundi sensibilis atque intelligibilis forma et principiis (1770). Ak. Vol. 2. English Translation: "On the Form and Principles of the Sensible and Intelligible World (The Inaugural Dissertation)." In Kant: Selected Pre-Critical Writings. Edited by G.B. Kerferd and D.E. Walford. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1968.
———. Reflexionen zur Metaphysik. Ak. Vols. 17 and 18.
———. Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik (1783). Ak. Vol. 4. English Translation: Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics. Translated and edited by Gary Hatfield. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
———. Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft (1786). Ak. Vol. 4. English Translation: Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. Translated by J. Ellington. Indianapolis, IN: Library of Liberal Arts, 1970.
———. "Über eine Entdeckung nach der alle neue Kritik der reinen Vernunft durch eine ältere entbehrlich gemacht werden soll" (1790). Ak. Vol. 4. English Translation: "On a Discovery According to which Any New Critique of Pure Reason Has Been Made Superfluous by an Earlier One." In The Kant-Eberhard Controversy. Translated with a commentary by Henry Allison. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973. ISBN: 0801814561.
Kemp Smith, Norman. Commentary to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Macmillan, 1923.
Langsam, Harold. "Kant, Hume, and Our Ordinary Concept of Causation." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 54 (1994): 625-647.
Langton, Rae, and David Lewis. "Defining 'Intrinsic'." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (1998): 333-45. Reprinted in Lewis. Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Laywine, Alison. Kant's Early Metaphysics and the Origins of the Critical Philosophy. Vol. 3. North American Kant Society Studies in Philosophy. Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview. 1993.
Leibniz, G. W. Die philosophischen Schriften. 7 vols. Edited by C. I. Gerhardt. Berlin, Germany: 1875-90. Reprinted: Hildesheim, Germany: G. Olms, 1960-1.
———. Philosophical Papers and Letters. Translated and edited by L. Loemker. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Reidel, 1969.
———. New Essays on Human Understanding (1765). Translated and edited by P. Remnant and J. Bennett. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
———. Philosophical Essays. Translated and edited by R. Ariew and D. Garber. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1989.
Lewis, David. "Ramseyan Humility." Forthcoming in Naturalism and Conceptual Analysis. Edited by David Braddon-Mitchell and Robert Nola. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006.
Locke, John. Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689). Edited by P. Nidditch. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1975. ISBN: 1406790273.
Mackie, J. L. Problems from Locke. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1976.
Mates, Benson. The Philosophy of Leibniz: Metaphysics and Language. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1986.
Melnick, Arthur. Space, Time, and Thought in Kant. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer, 1989.
Mondadori, Fabrizio. "Solipsistic Perception in a World of Monads." In Leibniz: Critical and Interpretive Essays. Edited by Michael Hooker. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1982, pp. 21-44. ISBN: 0816610207.
Paton, H. J. Kant's Metaphysic of Experience. London, UK: Allen and Unwin, 1936.
Polonoff, Irving. Force, Cosmos, Monads and Other Themes of Kant's Early Thought. Bonn, Germany: Kant-Studien Ergänzungsheft Nr. 107, 1973.
Smith, A. D. "Of Primary and Secondary Qualities." The Philosophical Review 99 (1990): 221-54.
Shoemaker, Sydney. "Causality and Properties." In Time and Cause. Edited by Peter van Inwagen. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Reidel, 1980.
Strawson, P. F. Individuals. London, UK: Methuen, 1959.
———. "Reply to Evans." In Philosophical Subjects: Essays Presented to P. F. Strawson. Edited by Zak van Straaten. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1980, pp. 273-82. ISBN: 019824603X.
Van Cleve, James. "Putnam, Kant, and Secondary Qualities." Philosophical Papers 24 (1995): 83-109.
Watkins, Eric. Kant and the Metaphysics of Causality. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Williams, L. P. Michael Faraday: A Biography. New York, NY: Chapman and Hall, 1965.
———. The Origins of Field Theory. New York, NY: Random House, 1966.
Wilson, Margaret. "The 'Phenomenalisms' of Berkeley and Kant." In Self and Nature in Kant's Philosophy. Edited by Allen Wood. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984, pp. 157-73. ISBN: 0801416108.