Summary
Kuehn's biography of Immanuel Kant, one of philosophy's most important thinkers, brings together the complexity of Kant's philosophical system and the simplicity of his life, explaining how Kant's seeming contrary natures cohere.
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Media Reviews
"[I]n this exhaustive and fascinating biography, the distinguished German scholar Manfred Keuhn struggles to convince us that the bloodless, legalistic Kant is mainly a myth." -- Simon Blackburn
-- New Republic
"[KANT] is...welcome not only for placing Kant illuminatingly in his eighteenth-century intellectual context (particularly with regard to the provincial East Prussian milieu of Konigsberg, then racked with controversies between Pietists and Lutherans) but also, and especially, for giving lucid and accurate sketches of Kant's philosophical theories. In this last respect Kuehn's book is a tour de force, because Kant is not an easy thinker to summarize." -- A. C. Grayling
-- Literary Review
"Philosophers in general have never been very attractive subjects for biographers, and Kant has always been among the more uninviting. There have been no more than half a dozen comprehensive studies of his life, and even the best of these-such as Ernst Cassirer's, first published in 1918-have concentrated on summarizing his thoughts rather than on setting the record straight about his character and conduct. Manfred Kuehn's new book, with its scrupulous combination of archival accuracy and philosophical sensitivity, therefore sets an entirely new standard, opening up fresh approaches not only to Kant's life but also to the meaning of his work….Kuehn's fine and rather touching biography reveals a philosophical life lived with pathos, courage, and good humor, as well as a terrible and merciless intelligence." -- Jonathan Ree
-- Lingua Franca
Bibliographic Details
Publisher: Cambridge Univ Pr Published date: 2001 Size: 6.75 x 9.5 inches Weight: 2 pounds Pages: 544
Publisher's Notes
This is the first full-length biography in more than fifty years of Immanuel Kant, one of the giants amongst the pantheon of Western philosophers as well as the one with the most powerful and broad influence on contemporary philosophy. It is well known that Kant spent his entire life in an isolated part of Prussia living the life of a typical university professor. This has given rise to the view that Kant was a pure thinker with no life of his own, or at least none worth considering seriously. In this biography, Manfred Kuehn debunks that myth once and for all. Taking account of the most recent scholarship, Professor Kuehn allows the reader (whether interested in philosophy, history, politics, German culture, or religion) to follow the same journey that Kant himself took in emerging as a central figure in modern philosophy.
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