What’s so wonderful about Immanuel Kant?
Can you enlightened minds tell me in a few sentences why people like him?
I decided to try to read Critique of Pure Reason from a surplus copy the library had, and, I, uh, am completely lost. 
Found an e-text based on a 1929 translation.
http://www.hkbu.edu.hk/~ppp/cpr/toc.html
Here’s a quote from the introduction:
“…her empire gradually through intestine wars gave way to complete anarchy…”
If there’s more of that sort of thing, I sympathise with your difficulties, Cran.
But seriously, I think most of us would have to take little bits at a time and digest them. So to speak. 
I’m glad you asked. His is the first name in my favourite philosophy song:
Immanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable,
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar who could think you under the table,
David Hume could out-consume Schopenhauer and Hegel,
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.
There’s nothing Nietzsche couldn’t teach ya 'bout the turning of the wrist,
Socrates himself was permanently pissed…
John Stuart Mill, of his own free will, with half a pint of shandy was
particularly ill,
Plato, they say, could stick it away, half a crate of whiskey every day,
Aristotle, Aristotle was a beggar for the bottle,
Hobbes was fond of his dram,
And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart, “I drink therefore I am.”
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he’s pissed.
djm
Start with the Prolegomena, not with the Critique of Pure Reason, you’ll go even madder, else.
In English I believe it is called “Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics” and it’s short.
Notice that the word freedom is used in about three different senses. There’s plenty of people here on the chiffboard you can ask about Kant. Cool stuff.
Read this after the Prolegomena, and after thinking about them, not before:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/k/kantmeta.htm
Here’s an e-text to the Prolegomena:
He was an early German “Romantic” philospher. He drew his ideas from Rousseau. If you want a potted version of his ideas, I recommend the chapter on Kant in Bertrand Russell’s “History of Western Philosphy”.
One warning though. Russell was a terrible old snob, and his main aim in the book was to advertise his works on “Logical Philosophy”. To take him at face value, all Western thought was a step along the path to this, his work, which was the pinnacle of Western Thought. Bit of a pity Goedel buggered it up. 
But anyway: Kant was an early liberal, who held that Man should be free to make his own decisions. We take it for granted now, but it was very radical for his time. (The Aristocracy make the decisions, you do as you’re told.) He considered the exploitation of Man to be the very worst evil. He advocated a World Federation of States. This in the Eighteenth Century! We’re not even close to that today.
According to Russell, Kant’s “achievement” was Hegel - the next link in Mr Russell’s chain of progress.
Kant was the firsst philosopher to use the expression “thing-in-itself”, which has become a sort of cliché among not-quite philosophers. You’ll find Gunther Grass poking fun at it.
First thing that popped into my brain, as well.
Kant was a German Idealist philosopher, in fact he was the German Idealist; I’ve never heard him referred to as “Romantic.” I don’t know about Rousseau, either, although Kant himself admits to building on Hume.
But anyway: Kant was an early liberal, who held that Man should be free to make his own decisions. We take it for granted now, but it was very radical for his time. (The Aristocracy make the decisions, you do as you’re told.) He considered the exploitation of Man to be the very worst evil. He advocated a World Federation of States. This in the Eighteenth Century! We’re not even close to that today.
I think you are closer to the truth if you call Kant a libertarian, rather than a liberal. Man should be free according to Kant, in fact man is only man, if he is free. Kant’s teaching on human dignity, that man must always be an end in himself never the means to an end, are not that easily translated into practical social programs, like the fight against exploitation.
Kant was the firsst philosopher to use the expression “thing-in-itself”, which has become a sort of cliché among not-quite philosophers. You’ll find Gunther Grass poking fun at it.
Noumena are cool, phenomena are bunk.
Start with Aristotle, Socrates and work your way up to Kant. You’ll be doing yourself a favor.
For my own self, though they are perfect for educating oneself on the art of argument, I hate ethics and philosophy.
Ooh, you’re executive management material, you are. 
There was an Idealist named Kant
And no one was sure what he meant,
IB called him Romantic,
And Bloomfield grew frantic,
And Cran tried to get it but can’t.
I have never been able to read the Critique. I dropped out of
two graduate seminars in it. Kant was a man of
genius who, with all the wit that genius provides, pursued
a virtually incomprehensible way of writing. I am told
that German students of Kant read the Kemp Smith
English tranalation to try to make sense of Kant.
His ethics are far more accessible, I do agree that
it is better to start elsewhere entirely, in fact.
Aristotle is very hard to read, usually, not because he
was a bad writer but because his polished writings
are lost–he wrote dialogues and they are gone.
What we have are often his lecture notes, apparently,
and these are a mess–a deeply interesting, profound
mess.
Probably the best place to start reading philosophy
is Plato–we have his dialogues, they are wonderful
as literature and theater, and they are great philosophy
too. These often deal with issues that interest you, Cranberry,
in fact. The early and middle dialogues are much
better reading than the late dialogues.
This is some of the greatest literature and the greatest
philosophy–combined. Perhaps you have read
some Plato already.
Russells ‘History of Philosophy’ is worth looking at, but
I agree that it’s not a good book. Much more about
Russell, often, than the people he writes about.
Thank you DJM I thought I was going to listen to the Pythons in a do loop for a bit to get the words!
Bravo!
P. S. In the Phaedo Socrates is in prison–it is the day
of his execution and he will have to drink hemlock
in a few hours. His friends have assembled to spend
these hours with him.
And they spend this time debating the immortality of
the soul–it would be hard to imagine a more dramatic
setting.
Socrates is convinced that his soul will survive his
execution, and he gives a series of forceful arguments
to prove it.
But there are two young men, Pythagoreans, who are
talking together quietly when Socrates finishes.
Socrates says–‘Please, if you have any objections to
what I’ve said, tell us. Don’t hesitate.’
And they say: ‘Socrates, do you wish to really prove the
soul’s immortality or merely appear to?’
‘The former, of course’ Socrates answers.
And then they demolish every argument for the soul’s
immortality that Socrates has given. So there we are
in the middle of the dialogue, the hour of execution
nearing, and Socrates’s conviction that physical death
is not extinction in tatters.
His friends are horrified.
And, under these circumstances, he begins to respond…
Dramatic, yes? This is a dramatic device that Plato uses
in other places, e.g. The Republic. Socrates appears to
prove something quite definitely, something very important,
but when he finishes, two young men are unpersuaded
and destroy his arguments utterly. Then the dialogue
resumes in earnest.
The Phaedo ends, by the way, with Socrates’s drinking
the hemlock and a description of his death.
I’ve a feeling that our dear Walden will make a superb English major, upon his re-entry to college. 
I couldn’t agree more. Well done sir! 
Kant’s Critique takes off where most systematic metaphysics ends so to get even a superficial grasp of it, you need to have a solid working knowledge of what a metaphysical system is.
For a reasonable understanding, do a philosophy major with loads of systematic metaphysics and leave Kant until after you’ve finished. Take a graduate class in the Critique after, and only after, you have a detailed knowedge of several metaphysical systems.
For a very superficial grasp, read Descartes’ Meditations, copious amounts of Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley and Hume, good secondary sources on all of the above, and then the Prolegomena. My own philosophical position is, in a very broad sense, neo-Kantian, as is the position of a great many philosophers in the second half of the 20th century and into this one. I think Kant’s insight into our epistemic predicament is brilliant and pretty much the compulsory starting point for anybody who wants a sophisticated grasp of the major figures of the 20th century. On points of detail, though, he ranges from brilliant to embarrassing and beyond to incomprehensible. But there is no point engaging with the details until you can locate his project in the history of philosophy up to his time.
I don’t mean to be anti-intellectual, but arguments about “pure reason” and the like I kant tolerate while I am trying to deal with global warming, a Vietnam-like war in Iraq and Afganistan, and arthritic pains in places that I kannot mention.