The Embodiment of Reason: Kant on Spirit, Generation, and Community

Shell, Susan Meld

ISBN 10: 0226752178 / ISBN 13: 9780226752174

Published by The University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London, 1996

About this Item

With Index. 483 pages. Wear to cover edges and corners a little curled. Size: 230mm Tall, 8vo.

Seller Inventory # 6925

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Embodiment of Reason: Kant on Spirit, Generation, and Community
• Publisher: The University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London
• Publication Date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226752178
• ISBN 13: 9780226752174
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Fair
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
• Book Type: Book
• Seller catalogs:
  • Philosophy

About this title

Synopsis

Commentators on the work of Immanuel Kant have long held that his later "critical" writings are a radical rejection of his earlier, less celebrated efforts. In this pathbreaking book, Susan Shell demonstrates not only the developmental unity of Kant's individual writings, but also the unity of his work and life experience.

Shell argues that the central animating issues of Kant's lifework concerned the perplexing relation of spirit to body. Through an exacting analysis of individual writings, Shell maps the philosophical contours of Kant's early intellectual struggles and their relation to his more mature thought. The paradox of mind in matter and the tensions it generates—between freedom and determinacy, independence and community, ideal and real—are shown to inform the whole of his work. Shell's fresh, penetrating analysis of the precritical works will surely catapult them to new prominence in Kant studies.

Shell's critique goes further to consider the context of contemporary intellectual life. She explores the fascinating realm of Kant's sexual and medical idiosyncracies, linking them to the primary concerns of his critical philosophy. She develops a sure-to-be controversial treatment of the connection between Kant's philosophy and his chronic hypochondria, and illuminates previously unforeseen connections in a remarkable convergence of life and thought, with important theoretical and practical implications for modern times.

About the Author

Susan Meld Shell is a professor in the department of political scence at Boston College. She is the author of several books on Kant's philosophy and also writes on Rousseau, German Idealism, and selected areas of public policy.