Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, a slow reading, a careful study (Session 1)

Hello and welcome to Gerry and Philip's Meetup on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. We realize there are many other Meetups on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason out there. So what sets us apart?

[To read for first meeting — Prefaces A and B (1st and 2nd edition prefaces) from the Guyer translation of Critique of Pure Reason. See below for details.]

About this group. We are aiming for a balance between two things:

On the one hand, this Meetup will be welcoming and accessible towards
people who are absolute beginner's when it comes to studying the First Critique (which is another name for the Critique of Pure Reason). But on the other hand, we will be doing real Philosophy in this Meetup. The goal will be to achieve a real understanding and this will not be a place for mere chit chat. We will be digging deep and really trying to get at what Kant is saying.

So if you are a beginner at studying Kant, yet want to work hard at understanding him, this is absolutely the right Meetup for you. Of course we also hope to get many people who have a lot of familiarity and expertise with the Critique of Pure Reason and want to
work hard at understanding it even better. This is absolutely the right Meetup for Kant veterans as well.

Our primary text will be the Guyer and Wood translation of the Critique of Pure Reason

Canada: https://www.amazon.ca/Critique-Pure-Reason-Immanuel-Kant/dp/0521657296/

US: https://www.amazon.com/Critique-Reason-Cambridge-Works-Immanuel/dp/0521657296/

Another thing which sets us apart is that, in addition to the First Critique itself, there will be a secondary source which is required reading. This book is: Kant’s Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense (Second Edition) by Henry E. Allison

Canada: https://www.amazon.ca/Kants-Transcendental-Idealism-Interpretation-Enlarged/dp/0300102666/

US: https://www.amazon.com/Kants-Transcendental-Idealism-Interpretation-Defense/dp/0300102666/

It is not that we necessarily think that Henry Allison has all the answers (although the book is awfully good). The idea is that we will allow Henry Allison to give us, in the Meetup, a shared interpretation which we can then agree with and argue against as the Meetup progresses.

Philip and Gerry are very aware of the problem of anchor bias. In
this context, anchor bias would mean the tendency to uncritically
accept the first interpretation you learn as being the correct
interpretation. To make sure that no one in the Meetup falls prey to anchor bias we will, from time to time, also assign short (roughly 3 pages) selections from later Philosophers who thought hard about Kant.

We will wait many months maybe even more than a year, before doing this, but when the group agrees that the time is right we will look at short selections from philosophers such as:

Hannah Arendt
W.V.O. Quine
Martin Heidegger
Wilfred Sellars
Nelson Goodman
Judith Butler
Robert Brandom
Donald Davidson
John McDowell
Michel Foucault and many others

As you can see from this list, this Meetup will respect that fact that
Kant is important to all subsequent philosophical traditions (Analytic, Continental, Pragmatic and others). Of course the focus will be squarely on Kant himself and these other philosophers will not take up much of our time.