The Bounds of Sense: An Essay on Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....

’s Critique of Pure Reason

Critique of Pure Reason

The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant, first published in 1781, second edition 1787, is considered one of the most influential works in the history of philosophy. Also referred to as Kant's "first critique," it was followed by the Critique of Practical Reason and the Critique of Judgement...

is a 1966 book by P.F. Strawson, a 20th-century Oxford

Oxford

The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

 philosopher

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

. The book is a critical reading of Kant's text (referring to parts of it as proceeding "by a non sequitur

Non sequitur (logic)

Non sequitur , in formal logic, is an argument in which its conclusion does not follow from its premises. In a non sequitur, the conclusion could be either true or false, but the argument is fallacious because there is a disconnection between the premise and the conclusion. All formal fallacies...

 of numbing grossness"), with an emphasis on the analytical argument of the transcendental

Transcendence (philosophy)

In philosophy, the adjective transcendental and the noun transcendence convey the basic ground concept from the word's literal meaning , of climbing or going beyond, albeit with varying connotations in its different historical and cultural stages...

 deduction, which Strawson takes to be one of the few lasting contributions Kant made to philosophy. The title is a play on a title Kant himself proposed for the Critique of Pure Reason, with "sense" referring both to the mind

Mind

The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...

 and the sense faculties, and hence the bounds can be either those of reason

Reason

Reason is a term that refers to the capacity human beings have to make sense of things, to establish and verify facts, and to change or justify practices, institutions, and beliefs. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, ...

 or sensation. The book, along with Jonathan Bennett

Jonathan Bennett (philosopher)

Jonathan Francis Bennett is a British philosopher of language and metaphysics, and a historian of early modern philosophy.Born in Greymouth, New Zealand, Bennett was educated at the University of Oxford. He has taught at the University of Cambridge , Simon Fraser University , the University of...

's Kant's Analytic (Cambridge, 1966), reinvigorated Kant studies.