The Critique of Pure Reason
Immanuel Kant
Read by LibriVox Volunteers
The Critique of Pure Reason, first published in 1781 with a second edition in 1787, has been called the most influential and important philosophical text of the modern age.
Kant saw the Critique of Pure Reason as an attempt to bridge the gap between rationalism (there are significant ways in which our concepts and knowledge are gained independently of sense experience) and empiricism (sense experience is the ultimate source of all our concepts and knowledge) and, in particular, to counter the radical empiricism of David Hume (our beliefs are purely the result of accumulated habits, developed in response to accumulated sense experiences). Using the methods of science, Kant demonstrates that though each mind may, indeed, create its own universe, those universes are guided by certain common laws, which are rationally discernible. (Summary by Ticktockman) (26 hr 9 min)
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Purifier
Kant is difficult. For some reason I remember this audio book being the worst one I ever listened to. I almost abandoned it because a lot of the time I felt like I wasn't getting anything out of it, like someone was reading something REALLY boring and annoying. I seem to remember there being a lot of problems with the naming of these sections where there would be a reader, then another reader, then another reader, listing off Kant's extremely long chapter titles. In listening to a few of the tracks again that problem seems to have been corrected. This is NOT Baby's First Philosophy Book. I would NEVER have read Kant in book form. I would have just bought this book and it would have sat on my shelf and collected dust. I did finish it in audio book form thanks to librivox. I'm not sure if I remember it though.
Davep
Dave
Kant is incredibly interesting however he is hard to follow. Especially when the recordings stop halfway through the chapter or jump to a previous chapter which has happened to me a few times throughout this reading. That said I still enjoyed the book I only recommend you take note of your place within the reading every once in a while so if it jumps to a different spot you know where you are. The free knowledge is worth the technical difficulties.
WP
While some of the readings were difficult to follow, given how dry the text is to begin with, I really have to commend the volunteers that worked on this. Barring the rampant mispronunciation of a priori, apagogic, and at times apodeictic, it was probably the most accessible version of this text I’ve seen/read.
thank you readers. difficult book, but worth the listen.
A LibriVox Listener
A tough but interesting listen
Merle Arrowsmith
I can't say I enjoyed this book but I didn't expect to. I'd always wanted to hear what Kant has to say about Pure Reason. I was not disappointed by his thought process but he sure knows how to make things sound more complicated than they are and repeats himself endlessly in his effort to be extremely precise, leaving absolutely nothing to the reader's interpretation. I started enjoying this when he finally arrived at his critique of theological proof but even those feel drawn out to infinity. The best chapter is "Of opinion, knowledge and belief", where we finally get to hear, if only briefly, what Kant's actual philosophy is, rather than what he criticises in other philosophies and uses of reason. Unfortunately, some chapters are badly read or recorded and some are not in the correct order. But overall I'm glad I've finally been able to listen to this milestone of reason, which I would probably never have read otherwise.
One of the best critiques of pure reason
mavaddat
Within the pages of this text, Immanuel investigates the limits of reasoned thinking (what is also called "reason" and spoken of anthropomorphically as though it were itself a subject) in seeking a general scientific grounding to both philosophy and natural science itself. What Immanuel discovers is that reason is not omnipotent or indeed capable of investigating a terrific number of questions (much less their answers) to which philosophers since antiquity had tried to speculate upon. These verboten topics include the existence or characteristics of a god. the existence or characteristics of an immaterial soul, and the metaphysical possibility of freedom of the will. If the text itself is confusing for you, try starting with Kant's "Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics." It is one of the best prefatory texts to the possibility of metaphysics that I have read. Highly recommended.
Kant Review
The text is difficult, and the translation likely adds to the difficulty. Kant himself expresses the need to use every day terminologies if they exists, and many of the concepts that he speaks about do now have common terms. Many of the readers are very good, but the reader of the section transcendental logic delivers an almost unintelligible monotone reading that makes one of the most important preliminary sections of this book impenetrable.
Do your homework
Papo1981NYY
Identifying the unfamiliar words is a must! And.... one must remember that this is a direct, at times indirect response to David Hume's empirical POV. Possibly one of the toughest philosophical reads all time.