Critique of Pure Reason

By: Immanuel Kant

Narrated by: Peter Wickham

Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason is a core text of modern philosophy. Presenting an examination of the nature of human reason, its central argument is that the way in which man perceives his environment is a direct consequence of the mind’s ability to act on this environment and convert it into something meaningful. The work brings together two opposing schools of philosophy—rationalism and empiricism—and proposes a third way, which came to be known as transcendental idealism.

Critique of Pure Reason proved to be hugely influential, not least on Marx, Heidegger and Nietzsche. In this engaging recording, the ideas and arguments in the Critique are put forward with great clarity.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

Public Domain (P)2022 Naxos AudioBooks UK Ltd.

The Narrator Deserves an Audie

Peter Wickham, the narrator, deserves an Audie award. I would not have been able to trudge through Emmanuel Kant without him. Kant liked to string big words together in sentences as if that would mean he said something important.
Kant: “In one word, this transcendental thing is merely the schema of a regulative principal by means of which reason, so far as it lies, extends the dominion of systematic unity over the whole sphere of experience.”
Me: “in one word, schema.” There, I fixed it.
I will say he does make a logical point regarding God. The previous 16th century philosophers convinced themselves that because the three angles in a triangle always add up to 180 degrees, there must be a God. Kant calls them out on their lack of logic.

The narrator is incrdible

I have never imagined Kant could be read in such a lovable way. Perfect inflections and just the right amount of emotion put into the words to coney meaning without overdramatising.