Neujahr, Philip J. : Kant's Idealism

In Kant's Idealism, Philip Neujahr argues that there is in fact no single form of Kantian idealism and no simple contrast between Kant's transcendental idealism and the idealist doctrines of his predecessors. Two questions are answered in this study. The first deals with who exactly the idealist's perceiving or knowing "mind" is and how this mind is supposed to relate to human beings. The second question concerns the relation of this subject to its object. It is the question of how this perceiving and thinking mind "determines" its object in knowing it and, indeed, what it even means to say that the mind's consciousness is "of an object" at all. Kant's Idealism argues that to each of these questions Kant gives different and conflicting answers. Kant's Idealism attempts to make clear the various strands of idealism in Kant''s different forms of idealism in the conflicting demands of Kant's theories of perception (sensibility) and thought (understanding). In spite of his efforts to combine them into a single theory of experience, Kant's doctrines of perception and thought do not fit together, and this lack of fit is what ultimately prevents them from constituting any single Kantian, "transcendental" version of idealism. It is also one of th things that makes Kant's philosophy so difficult Kant's Idealism is insightful, informative, and thought provoking reading and a superlative addition to any Kantian collection. --