The Academy Volume 37 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1890 Excerpt: ...philosopher's Bible. Eich of the three chief Kritik was by different judges pronounced the key to the whole system. Nor was that all. The first of the three Kritiken had appeared in two editions separated by a six years' interval. Half a century later a division of opinion, never altogether silent, burst out with energetic affirmations of the superior merit of one or other of these edition?, and of their decided divergence. Lastly, minute inspection tended to suggest a view that, whichever edition was made authoritative, the first Kritik was far from being a homogeneous whole, and included passages from inconsistent standpoints. In these and other difficulties philology revels, to the consequent risk of subordinating the study of philosophy to a question of words and names. Prof. Caird's work is in the way of recalling philology to its position of pioneer and explorer. It may be laid down that all limitation of Kant's philosophy to one book or part of a book is in the first instance an arbitrary and unfair step, characterising the critic rather than expounding his author. The critic should, on the contrary, rise above divisions which to the author seemed insuperable, and detect a unity which, because unintended, did not fall within his ken. In the case of Kant, one may go too far in the way of marking off one period as absolutely tit critical period. The critical spirit is not a sudden birth of 1770 or 1781; for from his very beginnings Kant is bent on getting behind the oppositions of doctrine to the presupposition of common truth, and up to the very last his critical spirit is subdued to lapses into dogmatic prejudice. Nor was the critical spirit the creation of Kant. For all modern philosophy had been in its measure criticism: it had sought to be, what K...