Cambridge University Press Selected Essays on Kant II: Method, Idealism, and Purpose

Paul Guyer, winner of the 2024 International Kant Prize, is one of the world's leading Kant scholars. This volume collects ten of his essays on Kant's critical approach to metaphysics and epistemology that have been published since his path-breaking Kant and the Claims of Knowledge (Cambridge 1987). These essays resolve long-running debates about the meaning of Kant's doctrine of transcendental idealism while criticizing Kant's fundamental argument for the position; show what is nevertheless enduringly valuable in Kant's transcendental method; and situate Kant's work in theoretical philosophy in his teleological approach to philosophy in general. The essays clarify Kant's inheritance from and disagreements with two of his most important predecessors, John Locke and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and analyse the difference between Kant's philosophical method and that of his most influential modern interpreter, Peter Strawson.