Author Description

Arthur Collins's succinct, revisionist exposition of Kant's <i>Critique of Pure Reason</i> brings a new clarity to this notoriously difficult text. Until recently most readers, ascribing broadly Cartesian assumptions to Kant, have concluded that the <i>Critique</i> advances an idealist philosophy, because Kant calls it "transcendental idealism" and because the work abounds in apparent confirmations of that interpretation.<br>Collins maintains not only that this reading of Kant is false but also that it conceals Kant's real achievements. To counter it, he addresses the themes and passages in the <i>Critique</i> that seem to require an idealist thesis and shows how they may be better understood without ascribing any idealist philosophy to Kant. His account coheres with Kant's explicit "refutations" of idealism, it fits Kant's rejection of the imputation of idealism to him by early critics and readers, and it validates Kant's contention that the second edition of the <i>Critique</i> changes the expression but not the doctrine of the first. Arthur Collins's succinct, revisionist exposition of Kant's <i>Critique of Pure Reason</i> brings a new clarity to this notoriously difficult text. Until recently most readers, ascribing broadly Cartesian assumptions to Kant, have concluded that the <i>Critique</i> advances an idealist philosophy, because Kant calls it "transcendental idealism" and because the work abounds in apparent confirmations of that interpretation.<br>Collins maintains not only that this reading of Kant is false but also that it conceals Kant's real achievements. To counter it, he addresses the themes and passages in the <i>Critique</i> that seem to require an idealist thesis and shows how they may be better understood without ascribing any idealist philosophy to Kant. His account coheres with Kant's explicit "refutations" of idealism, it fits Kant's rejection of the imputation of idealism to him by early critics and readers, and it validates Kant's contention