PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY THE JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR PHILOSOPHY IN PRACTICE www.practical-philosophy.org.uk      www.society-for-philosophy-in-practice.org

 The Critique of Pure Reason

Immanuel Kant

Practical Philosophy  (Book Reviews) November 2000 Volume 3.3

Reviewed by: Trevor Curnow

My secondary school's library book plate read: ‘A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit.’ Other than my noting that it came from Milton, it seemed to make little impression on me at the time. Years later, however, it came back to me; when I read Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. I cannot say it was an easy experience. Being unable to read German, I cannot say how much of this was due to Kant and how much to his translator. Nevertheless, I can say that it was immensely worthwhile, and that rarely have I found effort so richly rewarded.

There is much about the book I have forgotten. There is also much, doubtless, I never understood. Certain things remain with me, like the joke about the bull and the sieve. (Not a great joke, but it was a surprise to find it there at all.) I have certainly never forgotten Kant's claim that space and time are structures which we impose upon experience rather than discover in it. And this was only one of his Copernican manoeuvres.

However, what remains with me most of my experience of reading the book was the impression I received of the sheer power of Kant's intellect. As a reader, I felt I was constantly struggling to reach the point Kant was starting from. One of his particularly humiliating skills was his ability to answer questions which only he could see had to be asked. Even with the benefit of some 200 years of subsequent philosophical development, the modern reader does well even to even begin to keep pace with him. A master spirit of philosophy indeed.

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