Description: Immanuel Kant revolutionized philosophical method and decisively shaped modern politics. Three hundred years after Kant's birth, Marcus Willaschek brings together the German idealist's life and thought, examining the personality who changed the course of intellectual history as well as the substance and enduring importance of his ideas.
Brief description: Marcus Willaschek is Professor of Philosophy at Goethe University, Frankfurt, and a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Science, where he is responsible for the German standard edition of Kant's works. The author of four books, he is also coeditor of the three-volume Kant-Lexikon.
Review Quotes: An expert and engaging new introduction to the philosopher...Argues that what made Kant revolutionary was his contention that to understand anything--science, justice, freedom, God--we first have to understand ourselves...As Willaschek demonstrates, Kant believed that his ideas would change humanity's understanding of its place in the world as profoundly as the Copernican revolution had changed our sense of Earth's place in the cosmos.--Adam Kirsch "New Yorker" (10/27/2025 12:00:00 AM)