Book Club Potluck - Prolegomena

Mark Hopkins will host our discussion of the Prolegomena to Any Future Megaphysics by Immanuel Kant. Mark suggested this book.

Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Present Itself as a Science (German: Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik, die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können) is a book by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, published in 1783, two years after the first edition of his Critique of Pure Reason. One of Kant's shorter works, it contains a summary of the Critique‘s main conclusions, sometimes by arguments Kant had not used in the Critique. Kant characterizes his more accessible approach here as an "analytic" one, as opposed to the Critique‘s "synthetic" examination of successive faculties of the mind and their principles.

The book is also intended as a polemic. Kant was disappointed by the poor reception of the Critique of Pure Reason, and here he repeatedly emphasizes the importance of its critical project for the very existence of metaphysics as a science. The final appendix contains a response to an unfavorable review of the Critique.

If you would like to host one of our events and you have a book in mind, please let me, Karl Kiefer, or Mark Hopkins know, and we will create a Meetup event for your book, assuming your suggested title qualifies as a book on philosophy in our view, and assuming that we deem you to be qualified to host. Our criteria are somewhat vague, but let's just say that we are not interested in books on the supernatural. We are interested in books that you might find in a syllabus for a college philosophy course. We are also focused on finding hosts who have demonstrated ability to direct philosophical conversation. You can always email me at camkruger@gmail.com if you have questions and/or suggestions.

As always, it's essential that everyone who comes to the meeting reads the book in its entirety and brings something for the potluck.

Happy reading!