Notes and Fragments

by Immanuel Kant, Paul Guyer (Translator), Curtis Bowman (Translator)

This volume provides an extensive translation of the notes and fragments that survived Kant's death in 1804. These include marginalia, lecture notes, and sketches and drafts for his published works. They are important as an indispensable resource for understanding Kant's intellectual development and published works, casting fresh light on Kant's conception of his own philosophical methods and his relations to his predecessors, as well as on central doctrines of his work such as the theory of space, time and categories, the refutations of scepticism and metaphysical dogmatism, the theory of the value of freedom and the possibility of free will, the conception of God, the theory of beauty, and much more.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

694 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Immanuel Kant was an 18th-century philosopher from Königsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). He's regarded as one of the most influential thinkers of modern Europe & of the late Enlightenment. His most important work is The Critique of Pure Reason, an investigation of reason itself. It encompasses an attack on traditional metaphysics & epistemology, & highlights his own contribution to these areas. Other main works of his maturity are The Critique of Practical Reason, which is about ethics, & The Critique of Judgment, about esthetics & teleology.

Pursuing metaphysics involves asking questions about the ultimate nature of reality. Kant suggested that metaphysics can be reformed thru epistemology. He suggested that by understanding the sources & limits of human knowledge we can ask fruitful metaphysical questions. He asked if an object can be known to have certain properties prior to the experience of that object. He concluded that all objects that the mind can think about must conform to its manner of thought. Therefore if the mind can think only in terms of causality–which he concluded that it does–then we can know prior to experiencing them that all objects we experience must either be a cause or an effect. However, it follows from this that it's possible that there are objects of such a nature that the mind cannot think of them, & so the principle of causality, for instance, cannot be applied outside experience: hence we cannot know, for example, whether the world always existed or if it had a cause. So the grand questions of speculative metaphysics are off limits, but the sciences are firmly grounded in laws of the mind. Kant believed himself to be creating a compromise between the empiricists & the rationalists. The empiricists believed that knowledge is acquired thru experience alone, but the rationalists maintained that such knowledge is open to Cartesian doubt and that reason alone provides us with knowledge. Kant argues, however, that using reason without applying it to experience will only lead to illusions, while experience will be purely subjective without first being subsumed under pure reason. Kant’s thought was very influential in Germany during his lifetime, moving philosophy beyond the debate between the rationalists & empiricists. The philosophers Fichte, Schelling, Hegel and Schopenhauer saw themselves as correcting and expanding Kant's system, thus bringing about various forms of German Idealism. Kant continues to be a major influence on philosophy to this day, influencing both Analytic and Continental philosophy.

Reviews

[Burak Candan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kant'ın yekpare bir felsefi esere dönüştüremeden hayatını kaybettiği Fragmanlar, Oruç Aruoba'nın tabiriyle onun felsefi 'kırıntı'larıdan meydana geliyor. İçerisinde kimi tamamlanmamış altmış kadar fragman, çevirmenin Kant felsefesine dair açıklayıcı notlarıyla birlikte derleniyor. Bu dipnotlara rağmen birçok cümlesini kavrayamadığım ve detaylı bir ön araştırma eksikliğini hissettiğim eser, Kant'ın düşünce sistemine kısa bir bakış atma fırsatı sunuyor.

"Bir şeyi yapmalıysam, yapabilecek durumdayım demektir; üzerime kaçınılmazca düşen, kurma olanaklarımın da içinde olmalıdır."

"Düşünceler düşünenden önce midir? Işık görenden önce midir?"

"İnsan bilgeliğe sahip değildir. Sadece ona ulaşmaya çalışır ve onu ancak sevebilir ve bu da yeterli başarıdır."

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A selection of, as the title suggests, notes and fragments written by Kant. These are organised and annotated by the editors well, and you can flick through them by topic and decade. There are some fascinating writings on various subjects, and always worth consulting when the published work ceases to provide answers!

[Ayça · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Bütün felsefe 1. Autognosie (kendini bilme) 2. Autonomie (kendine yasa koyma)dir. Bilim ve bilgelik

[HANDE GUNDUZ · Rating 5 out of 5]

“İçimde öyle bir varlık etkinliğin nedensel ilişkileri (nexus effectivus) içinde benden ayrı olarak benim üstümde durur (agit, facit, operatur), kendi kendine özgür olarak, yani, uzam ve zaman içindeki doğa yasasına bağımlı olmadan, beni içimden yargılar (haklandırır ya da lanetler) ve ben insan, kendim, bu varlığım; bu, öyle, benim dışımda bir töz değildir; ve asıl garip olan şu: nedensellik, gene de eyleme, özgürlük içinde belirlenmişliktir(doğa zorunluluğu olarak değil).

[Mehmet]

Kant'tan çeşitli alıntılardan oluşan bir kitap. Doğrudan Kant'ın kendisinin okunması daha faydalı.

[Stijn · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is an excellent edition and a wonderful source for Kant scholars, but it is as the title says: notes and fragments.