The Age of German Idealism (review)

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS 525 and third Paralogisms, and the second edition subjective deduction, always with an eye towards what implications the arguments have for Kant's model of the mind. Discussion of his detailed exegetical work is not possible here, but his major claims should at least be mentioned. First, Brook stresses against Henrich, Strawson, and Guyer that ASA is not crucial to the actual argument of either Transcendental Deduction (TD). Second, Brook argues that the relational categories play a crucial role in the TD, since they alone enable the unification of global objects. Third, Brook notes that Kant's Paralogisms fit nicely with contemporary functionalism's agnosticism about the ultimate structure of the mind. Fourth, Brook interprets the Paralogisms as employing two strategies: a) an analysis of the concepts of a thinking being and of self-awareness and b) an examination of what self-awareness tells us about ourselves. Finally, Brook interprets Kant's model of the mind as implying that we can be aware of the mind as it is and, further, that the mind is a global representation. Brook's twofold project is quite interesting and very worthwhile reading for both contemporary philosophers of mind and Kant scholars. Philosophers of mind will appreciate Brook's attempts to make Kant both accessible and relevant to their own concerns in philosophically interesting ways, while Kant scholars can benefit from his clear and detailed exegetical work. It should be noted, however, that Brook neglects almost entirely the relevant German scholarship on Kant's theory of mind in the form of work by G. Prauss, W. Carl, M. Frank, G. Mohr, B. Th61e, and D. Sturma (to mention but a few), and Brook's arguments are at times not as explicit as one might like. Also, Brook's final claims that we can be aware of the mind as it is and that the mind is a global representation raise serious questions, especially since the latter seems to conflict directly with Kant's belief (based on practical arguments) that the noumenal self is an immaterial substance, not a representation. ERIC WATKINS Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen M. Higgins, editors. The Age of German Idealism. Routledge History of Philosophy, Volume VI. New York: Routledge, 1993. Pp. xxv + 4o8. Cloth, $85.oo. This is a collaborative work. The eleven chapters have eleven different authors (including the two editors). The editors have added a short introduction, a valuable chronology showing events in politics, the arts, science, and philosophy from the birth of Rousseau (l 712) to the death of Schopenhauer (186o), and a glossary. The authors have tried to write an introductory account of their assigned topic; and the essays are quite self-contained. So the volume fails to be a historyof philosophy at all, because interactions and influences are only sporadically discussed. It will be most useful to students making their first acquaintance with the particular authors (and works) dealt with. I shall offer here only a summary verdict upon it, chapter by chapter; and the reader must remember that myjudgment is probably sounder for the first eight chapters than for the last three. 526 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 33:3 JULY 1995 L. W. Beck's "From Leibniz to Kant" is elementary "history of philosophy" at its best. He expounds the German Enlightenment from its two sides (Rationalism and Pietism), looking always for the problems that it bequeathed to Kant. A better historical introduction to the study of Kant could hardly be imagined. Virtually all of us (students and teachers alike) need it; one hopes that all will read it (and fears that many will not). Kant has three chapters, and their value is rather uneven. Daniel Bonevac is content to provide a brief and simple exposition of the deductions of the categories in the Critique of Pure Reason--with a few pages on the Dialectic, especially the treatment of the Ontological Proof. Then Don Becker deals with Kant's moral philosophy almost entirely through the Grundlegung; after that he passes to the Metaphysik der Sitten, the essay on history, and "Perpetual Peace." The Critique of Practical Reason itself--which beginning students of the Categorical...