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I was given a reference to a book with a title as in the title of this question one time several years ago (in the early 1990s), but I forget the name of the author. The book was published in the 1880s, and it is a criticism of Kant's philosophy. The title did not show up in a title search in the online Library of Congress catalog.

Edit: Let me clarify that the book was by an American philosopher who I regret to say I forget the name of; he was not one of the well known ones. (Deleuze's book is from 1985, so about 100 years later than the one I search. :) )

Joseph Weissman
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Frode Alfson Bjørdal
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  • I couldn't find anything on google.com or .ru. I'm guessing that the book is in some non-English language. I'd also try French, German, and Spanish for a start. This is a difficult one. Best of luck. – Hunan Rostomyan Aug 04 '14 at 07:26
  • (I did consider Deleuze's 1885 Kant's Critical Philosophy as a possibility, but that one isn't exactly a 'critical examination' of Kant's philosophy; it's more of an overview.) – Hunan Rostomyan Aug 04 '14 at 07:37
  • I did a cursory search in German, but there's quite a few similar plays on word that are possible... Best guess I've got based on the dates is here: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Immanuel_Kant_Reflexionen_Kants_zur_kritischen_Phi?id=CJ44AQAAMAAJ&hl=en – virmaior Aug 04 '14 at 09:07
  • But a hint or two would be nice. Can you say who gave you the reference ... the title makes me think the work is Hegelian. – virmaior Aug 04 '14 at 09:08
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    This link lists a few American PhD students in the 1880's that wrote theses on Kant, could one of them gone on to write that book (or publish his thesis as a book under a different title)? – James Kingsbery Aug 04 '14 at 15:59
  • Widening the scope: Kritische Untersuchungen über kritische Philosophie (1795) by Andreas Schönberger? – DBK Aug 04 '14 at 19:46
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    Not a book: Kant's Philosophy Critically Examined (1902) by Paul Carus – DBK Aug 04 '14 at 19:51
  • Thank you for the answers and references!

    Regrettably I do not recall the name of the American philosophy professor who gave me the reference at the LOGICA 1998 conference.

    I see that Andreas Schönberg's book is available at http://www.amazon.com/Kritische-Untersuchungen-Uber-Philosophie-German/dp/1166161684/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1407320918&sr=1-2.

    It occurs to me that the reference I got may have been to a translation of Schönberg's book, with the name of the translator given as that of the author.

    The Carus article may be quite interesting, but was not my target.

     – Frode Alfson Bjørdal Aug 06 '14 at 10:38
  • As the book this question is searching for is quite surely included in it, if it really was american: Myerson, Joel. The Transcendentalists: A Review of Research and Criticism. NY: MLA, 1984. might be worth a try, it is a quite good bibliography including the criticism. – Philip Klöcking Jun 14 '16 at 11:32

2 Answers2

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The Critical Philosophy of Immanuel Kant by Edward Caird

Swami Vishwananda
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  • It seemed at first as if this this could be the answer. However, the book is not a negative critique of Kant's work as the book I had referenced should be. – Frode Alfson Bjørdal Feb 05 '15 at 02:05
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It could be the article by Henry Sidgwick, "A Criticism of the Critical Philosophy," Mind, Vol. 8, No. 29 (Jan., 1883), 69-91.

That is on-line at http://www.ditext.com/sidgwick/critical.html

While it is not a book and not by an American, the title and dates are right and it is eminently recommendable.

It is a scholarly and beautifully written essay, from the British empiricist viewpoint of the time and specifically the utilitarian viewpoint. As such it naturally finds Kant excusable on purely historical grounds, and it finds the English kantians a mess. Footnote 7 seems to me to show Sidgwick has not understood Kant's distinction between the quid facti and the quid juris (though the kantian Watson has). And that distinction is crucial to the critical philosophy. But others today would still side with Sidgwick on this and anyway anyone who wants to see Anglo-American criticism of Kant should read it.

Colin McLarty
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