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Eighteenth-Century Studies 37.1 (2003) 147-161



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Immanuel Kant:
Text and Context

James Schmidt
Boston University


Karl Ameriks. Kant and the Fate of Autonomy(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Pp. xiii + 351. $58.00 cloth. $23.00 paper.
Immanuel Kant. Correspondence (Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant). Edited and translated by Arnulf Zweig (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Pp. xx + 639 pages. $95.00 cloth.
Immanuel Kant. Critique of Pure Reason (Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant). Edited and translated by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Pp. xi + 785. $70.00 cloth. $27.00 paper.
Immanuel Kant. Critique of the Power of Judgment (Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant). Edited and translated by Paul Guyer, Translated by Eric Matthews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Pp. lii + 423. $75.00 cloth. $25.00 paper.
Immanuel Kant. Lectures on Metaphysics (Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant). Edited and translated by Karl Ameriks and Steve Naragon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). Pp. xlviii + 642. $100.00 cloth. $40.00 paper.
Immanuel Kant. Lectures on Ethics (Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant). Edited by Peter Heath and J. B. Schneewind. Translated by Peter Heath (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). Pp. xxvii + 507. $95.00 cloth. $28.00 paper.
Immanuel Kant. Opus postumum (Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant). Edited by Eckhart Förster. Translated by Eckhart Förster and Michael Rosen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Pp. lviii + 303. $64.95 cloth. $26.00 paper.
Immanuel Kant. Practical Philosophy(Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant). Edited and translated by Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Pp. xxxiii + 668. $90.00 cloth. $32.00 paper.
Immanuel Kant. Religion and Rational Theology (Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant). Edited and translated by Allen W. Wood and George di Giovanni (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Pp. 544. $90.00 cloth. $32.00 paper.
Immanuel Kant. Theoretical Philosophy, 1755-1770 (Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant). Edited and translated by David Walford in collaboration with Ralf Meerbote (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). Pp. lxxxi + 543. $130.00 cloth. $35.00 paper. [End Page 147]
Manfred Kuehn. Kant: A Biography(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Pp. xxii + 544. $35.00 cloth. $25.00 paper.
G. Felicitas Munzel. Kant's Conception of Moral Character: The 'Critical' Link of Morality, Anthropology, and Reflective Judgement(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999). Pp. xxii + 377. $53.00 cloth. $24.00 paper.

Two hundred years ago, the Monthly Magazine's "Retrospect of German Literature" brought its readers news of the latest philosophical developments: Schelling's star was rising, while the "venerable Kant," now in his eighties, "vegetates in retirement from the scene of action" (Vol. XV: I [1803] 667-8). Though Kant's philosophy had been attacked only a few years earlier in the pages of the Anti-Jacobin Review as "extremely dangerous" (V [Jan-April 1800] 339-47), it now appeared that it was well on the way to becoming passé. Indeed, even those who had been appalled by it were beginning to wonder whether it was anything more than a passing fancy. An 1801 letter to the editor of the Anti-Jacobin Review concluded, "I always was of the opinion that that ephemeron, Kant's Philosophy, would not outlive its author and be forgotten, when Bacon, Newton, Leibniz, and Co. will continue to stand the test of ages" (VII [Sept-Jan. 1801] 507-8).

The rumors of the demise of Kant's philosophy were, of course, greatly exaggerated, and two centuries later, there are few eighteenth-century thinkers whose impact on the way in which philosophy is conducted rivals that of Kant. The major tendencies in continental philosophy, from Heidegger to Foucault, from the critical theory of the Frankfurt School to Karl Popper's critical rationalism have all been decisively shaped by encounters with Kant. Much present-day moral and political philosophy is inconceivable without Kant, thanks in large part to the impact of the work of John Rawls and...

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