Books

First edition of Kant's first major critical treatise, arguably his single most important work, and one of the most influential books ever published. Kant himself regarded the work as comparable with Copernicus's realization that the earth moves around the sun. The Critik addresses a key concern of the Enlightenment - that mechanistic scientific reason threatened to undermine the possibility of human freedom, and so, traditional approaches to morality and religion. To resolve that problem, Kant develops the thesis of transcendental idealism - the argument that the structures of human thought shape our comprehension of the world around us. This allows him to demonstrate that scientific knowledge, morality, and religion, are all founded on the same basis of human autonomy. The 1770s, when Kant was writing the Critique, are known as the silent decade: the work took up so much of his thought, time, and energy, that he published little beyond lecture advertisements. "No other thinker has been able to hold with such firmness the balance between speculative and empirical ideas. His penetrating analysis of the elements involved in synthesis, and the subjective process by which these elements are realized in the individual consciousness, demonstrated the operation of 'pure reason'; and the simplicity and cogency of his arguments achieved immediate fame" (PMM). Octavo (195 x 119 mm). Recased in contemporary half calf, orange morocco label, sprinkled paper sides, marbled endpapers (early inscription to front free endpaper), red edges; binding lightly refurbished with new initial binder's blanks to style. Woodcut title vignette, decorative woodcut head- and tailpieces, initials. Contemporary signature to title page effaced with resulting thinning neatly reinforced to blank verso, small patch of worming to initial and last few leaves (neatly repaired for first two leaves), early pencil pagination to preliminary leaves, a couple of tiny holes affecting a couple letters to O5, T3, & 2D5. A very good copy. Adickes 46; Norman 1197; Printing and the Mind of Man 226; Warda 59.

Critik der reinen Vernunft, also known as Critique of Pure Reason, is one of the most influential works in the history of philosophy. Written by Immanuel Kant, this work addresses the problem of how we can understand and grasp the nature of human knowledge.