The standard work on this part of Kant's philosophy. In this remarkable exposition, Paton succeeds in meticulously deconstructing the text of the Critique of Pure Reason. Unlike previous commentators on Kant (Kemp Smith, Adickes & Vaihinger), who viewed the Critique as an inconsistent & disunified patchwork, Paton demonstrates its unity, coherence & clarity. The result is a text that encourages not only Kantian studies but also the reappraisal of Kant's standpoint for contemporary philosophy. Vol. 1. Kant's problem Appearance & reality Synthetic a priori judgments Space & time. Sense & sensibility Space & time: the metaphysical exposition; transcendental exposition & conclusions; Kant's assumptions; Kant's conclusions Formal & transcendental logic. Formal logic Transcendental logic Metaphysical deduction of the categories. Conception & judgement Conception & synthesis Metaphysical deduction Categories Transcendental deduction: introductory exposition. Problem Method of solution Provisional exposition Threefold synthesis Object & the concept Apperception & the unity of nature Transcendental object Apperception & the categories Affinity of appearances Transcendental deduction of the categories. Progressive exposition Regressive exposition Understanding & nature Objective deduction Subjective deduction Argument of the deduction Factors in experience Vol. 2. Schematism of the categories. Category & schema Transcendental schemata Significance of the schema Principles of the understanding. Supreme principle of synthetic judgements Principles of the understanding Mathematical principles. Axioms of intuition Anticipations of sense-perception Analogies of experience. Principle of the analogies Special character of the analogies First analogy Substance Second analogy Argument for causality Causality & continuity Third analogy Postulates of empirical thought. Possibility Actuality & necessity Transcendental idealism. Empirical realism Inner sense & self-knowledge Self-knowledge & knowledge of objects Transcendental use of concepts Noumenon & transcendental object Phenomena & noumena
Herbert James Paton was Professor of Logic and Rhetoric at Glasgow University from 1927 until 1937, and Dean of the Faculty of Arts from 1935 to 1937. In 1937 he left Glasgow to become White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford University and a Fellow of Corpus Christi College.
Though best known for his philosophical writings, he spent some ten years in the Admiralty and Foreign Office dealing with emergent European states in the aftermath of the First World War. At the Peace Conference of 1919 he was a member of the British delegation which advised on the Polish settlement, about which he wrote in the six volume History of the Peace Conference of Paris.
Paton was an authority on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, and his two-volume commentary on the first half of Kant's Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Kant's Metaphysic of Experience (1936) is an important work of philosophical scholarship.