Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. Kant: A Biography
  • Cited by 193
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
May 2014
Print publication year:
2001
Online ISBN:
9781107050433
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107050433
Subjects:
Eighteenth-Century Philosophy, History, Philosophy, History of Ideas and Intellectual History
Information

Book description

This is the first full-length biography in more than fifty years of Immanuel Kant, one of the giants amongst the pantheon of Western philosophers as well as the one with the most powerful and broad influence on contemporary philosophy. It is well known that Kant spent his entire life in an isolated part of Prussia living the life of a typical university professor. This has given rise to the view that Kant was a pure thinker with no life of his own, or at least none worth considering seriously. In this biography, Manfred Kuehn debunks that myth once and for all. Taking account of the most recent scholarship Professor Kuehn allows the reader (whether interested in philosophy, history, politics, German culture, or religion) to follow the same journey that Kant himself took in emerging as a central figure in modern philosophy.

Reviews

‘Kuehn’s fine and rather touching biography reveals a philosophical life lived with pathos, courage and good humour, as well as a terrible and merciless intelligence.’

Source: Lingua Franca

‘… a timely and impressive achievement, a detailed, often subtle reading of a great thinker …’.

Source: Toronto Globe and Mail

‘Dispels the idea of Kant as colorless. Gives us a Kant we have never known before.’

Source: Washington Post Book World

‘… exhaustive and fascinating …’.

Source: The New Republic

‘Kuehns Werk is ausgezeichnet durch Vielseitigkeit der Interessen, Ausgewohnheit des Urteils und schriftstellerische Klarheit.’

Source: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

‘The first full biography in the proper sense of the term and therefore very welcome.’

Source: Literary Review

‘An excellent new life … a substantial biography.’

Source: The Economist

‘Manfred Kuehn’s book on Immanuel Kant is a fascinating and monumental treatment of one of the central figures of Western thought. This book fills a need, since it is the first full-length biography of Kant in fifty years; many of the earlier bibliographies were full of distortions and false stereotypes … Kuehn’s book … is accessible to the general reader …’.

Source: The Times Higher Education Supplement

‘Manfred Kuehn’s book is a fascinating treatment of one of the central figures of western thought.’

Harry Gensler Source: The Times Higher Education Supplement

‘The detail on his teaching is particularly good … Kuehn is surprisingly good when summarizing the import of Kant’s work … the presentation of the ideas is impressive, clear and useful. This makes this a good introduction to Kant’s work as well as an exemplary life … it is both thoughtful and thought-provoking, and for such an unpromising story it is surprisingly interesting. There really is nothing comparable in this field. It should be on the shelves of anyone interested in Kant.’

Source: The Heythrop Journal

‘Kuehn’s study of Immanuel Kant’s life and works combines the virtues of historical scholarship and philosophical analysis. It is written in a clear and sometimes entertaining style, and contains a lot of new and valuable information. It will replace Karl Vorgander's Immanuel Kant: der Mann und das Werk as the standard reference work, despite the fact that other biographies have been written in the meantime … This excellent study can be highly recommended to many readers: to Kant scholars, of course, but also to other philosophers interested in reliable information on Kant’s personal and philosophical development, and even to historians of science and society as well.’

Source: Philosophical Quarterly

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

Contents

Contents

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

Book summary page views

Total views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.