Metaphysical Works of the Celebrated Immanuel Kant,

THREE OF KANTS MAIN WORKS, IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION

Translated from the German, with Sketch of His Life and Writings, by John Richardson, Many Years a Student of the Kantian Philosophy. Containing: 1. Logic. 2. Prolegomena to Future Metaphysics. 3. Enquiry into the Proofs for the Existence of God, and into the Theodicy, now first published.

First editions in English, three parts collected in one-volume as issued. 8vo. [2], vii, [3], [9]-243, [1]; [6], xviii, [17]-206, [2, blank]; [2], [v]-xx, [17]-262, [2] pp., engraved frontispiece portraits of Kant to first and third parts. Nineteenth century half black morocco with black pebble grain cloth covered boards, spine with five single raised bands outlined in gilt, second panel lettered in gilt, the rest with gilt fleurons, marbled endpapers, marbled edges (superficial split to text block at title page, holding firmly, some occasional browning and spotting, contents otherwise generally unmarked; spine and corners somewhat rubbed, still a handsome copy). London, [W. Simpkin and R. Marshall].

A collection bringing together three of Kant's main works, edited and translated by the Scottish Kantian John Richardson (fl. c. 1797), a pioneering populariser of Kant in English.

Richardson 'studied under the mathematician Jacob Beck, who had been a pupil of Kant, and was also friendly Kantian scholar Ludwig Jakob. He probably knew Kant personally: Kant was certainly familiar with Richardson's work. During 1798-9 Richardson translated around twenty of Kant's own works, including all of his writings on philosophy of history and philosophy of politics, in two volumes under the title Essays and Treatises on Moral, Political, and Various Philosophical Subjects. ... because of his proximity to their author, Richardson's translations of Kant must stand as some of the most authoritative ever produced in English' (Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century British Philosophers, p. 755).

The present collection includes three separate works, all of which are preceded by introductions by Richardson:

(1) Kant's lectures on logic, originally published in German in 1800, treating 'topics such as the so-called laws of thinking (including the laws of identity, contradiction, and tertium non datur)' and 'the logical perfection of cognition'. It was a major influence on Hegel, whose own Science of Logic was published between 1812 and 1816 (The Bloomsbury Companion to Hegel, p. 74).

(2) The Prolegomena to Future Metaphysics, originally published in German in 1785, written by Kant as a clarification of the Critique of Pure Reason, which he believed had been widely misunderstood upon publication. It became one of Kant's most influential works and he incorporated much of it into the second edition of the Critique. Schopenhauer described the Prolegomena as the 'finest and most comprehensible of Kant's principal works'.

(3) An assemblage of Kant's writings on religion under the title 'Enquiry into the Proofs for the Existence of God, and into the Theodicy', being translations of two distinct texts: first, Kant's early pre-critical work The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God, originally published in German in 1763; and second, Kant's later essay On the Miscarriage of All Philosophical Trials in Theodicy, originally published in Germain in 1791, an English translation of which had already appeared earlier in Richardson's 1798-9 miscellany of Kant's Essays and Treatises. These two distinct texts are also accompanied by substantial extracts from all three of Kant's Critiques to help contextualise his philosophy of religion.

The present collected edition was issued in 1836 and brings together these three separately printed works, each with individual title pages dated 1819. However, only Logic and Prolegomena to Future Metaphysics had actually been published in that year, and the present collection marks the first publication of the Enquiry into the Proofs for the Existence of God.

See: J.H. Burns, 'Scottish Kantians: An Exploration', Journal of Scottish Philosophy.

Stock Code: 255230