Kant's Critique of Pure Reason

There are moments of brilliance throughout this 8 week lecture series, but they are certainly sparse and scattered throughout the professor’s presentations in a seemingly unorganized fashion. If you are looking for a clear, thorough, and unbiased engagement with the CPR, this series might not be for you. The bias, as many have pointed out below, is that the professor is an unapologetic realist. If you are looking for a academic engagement with the CPR, there does exist such a series offered by the University of Glasgow here on the podcast app. I profited greatly from the series a couple of years ago during the initial phases of my Master’s thesis. If you are looking for a series that very generally walks through the main themes of the CPR, then you can rest assured that this series does an adequate job. Keep in mind that it is an 8 weeks series, and for that reason it is more topical than academic. It really seems to be a series designed for graduate philosophy students to obtain, or refresh, their familiarity with Kant’s project and its historical placement. The main themes if the CPR are covered, and the listener is left with a very basic understanding of Kant’s general project. Scattered throughout the series there are interesting digressions into Locke, Hume, and Reid, which provides a relevant backdrop for Kant’s project, and somewhat paints, in broad strokes, the philosophical climate of the day. Considering the 8 week time constraint of this series, and taking into account the original audience that this lecture series was crafted for, the series is fine. Do not judge it outside of this context. Oxford has been kind enough to share this with the public. However, it is definitely a series that I play in the car on the way to the office, and not a series that I sit listening to intently, pen-in-hand, to advance my understanding of Kant. As a brief aside, if you are unfamiliar with Aristotle’s basic acts of mind, unfamiliar with John Locke and David Hume, and unfamiliar with Kant’s basic jargon...good luck. This series does not elucidate Kant’s jargon par excellence, but swashes it around in a fashion that often leaves little clarity as to what is being said in detail. Again, there are moments of pure brilliance and insight, but they are buried within random digressions that are interesting, usually obscure, and only sometimes relevant. If you really want to grasp the CPR deeper, get a copy of the CPR—Norman Kemp Smith translation is very good—and a commentary, and then go listen to the University of Glasgow series.

This is a fantastic lecture series on the fundamental philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Someone said that the good parts of the lecture were sparse but I have to disagree. Although it does take some thought and careful dissection; I feel that the brilliance of Immanuel Kant’s philosophy can be extracted from nearly every statement made throughout the lectures.

These lectures on Kant are a lot of fun and great for reminding you of the fundamentals if you’ve studied him. I’m not sure how good they would be as an introduction but they are very entertaining at any rate

Low reviews are being a little excessive in my opinion. These are very enjoyable and useful lectures. As others have noted though it does not stand alone. I recommend as a companion for dedicated study of the first critique.