Scan barcode
A review by hberg95
Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics by Immanuel Kant
4.0
As a philosophy student, I read sections of Kant's Prolegomena as well as some other essays, but I'd never read it in its entirety until now.
First of all, I think Kant gets too much flack for his writing style. I think he does tend to be overly wordy, but he isn't boring and he's often very clear and even funny on occasion. The Prolegomena clearly outlined many concepts from Kant's metaphysics that I knew (e.g. space/time, transcendental idealism, etc.) but didn't fully grasp before. There were a few sections, like his argument about a supreme being, where I felt a bit lost, but I typically found my way back to the argument quickly.
Second, Kant is a much more careful critic than he's often made out to be. He takes Hume's criticism of classical metaphysics, agrees with it, and carries it to its logical endpoint wherein Hume and the classical metaphysicians are set up as two extremes (dogmatists & skeptics) on a continuum and Kant maintains that the golden mean is the real truth. He isn't reactionary or trying to 'destroy' Hume's argument, he actually takes the criticism in stride and builds a more comprehensive theory of metaphysics out of it.
Lastly, while I feel like this readthrough of the Prolegomena gave me a better understanding of Kantian metaphysics and a better historical sense of how these ideas are situated, there's still a lot that confuses me. The big thing, and I know it's in there, I just had a hard time with it, is that I don't quite understand how he goes from the perspecitive that all we truly know is in our own experience to the argument that we can know, in some sense, abiding, universal truths.
I'm glad I read this and I'm sure more reading (in addition to some supplementary texts) will clarify my confusions.
First of all, I think Kant gets too much flack for his writing style. I think he does tend to be overly wordy, but he isn't boring and he's often very clear and even funny on occasion. The Prolegomena clearly outlined many concepts from Kant's metaphysics that I knew (e.g. space/time, transcendental idealism, etc.) but didn't fully grasp before. There were a few sections, like his argument about a supreme being, where I felt a bit lost, but I typically found my way back to the argument quickly.
Second, Kant is a much more careful critic than he's often made out to be. He takes Hume's criticism of classical metaphysics, agrees with it, and carries it to its logical endpoint wherein Hume and the classical metaphysicians are set up as two extremes (dogmatists & skeptics) on a continuum and Kant maintains that the golden mean is the real truth. He isn't reactionary or trying to 'destroy' Hume's argument, he actually takes the criticism in stride and builds a more comprehensive theory of metaphysics out of it.
Lastly, while I feel like this readthrough of the Prolegomena gave me a better understanding of Kantian metaphysics and a better historical sense of how these ideas are situated, there's still a lot that confuses me. The big thing, and I know it's in there, I just had a hard time with it, is that I don't quite understand how he goes from the perspecitive that all we truly know is in our own experience to the argument that we can know, in some sense, abiding, universal truths.
I'm glad I read this and I'm sure more reading (in addition to some supplementary texts) will clarify my confusions.