Kritik der Urteilskraft
📘 About This Book
Immanuel Kant: Kritik der Urteilskraft Erstdruck: Berlin und Libau (Lagarde und Friedrich) 1790. Der Text folgt der 2. Auflage: Berlin (Lagarde) 1793. Vollständige Neuausgabe mit einer Biographie des Autors. Herausgegeben von Karl-Maria Guth. Berlin 2016, 2. Auflage. Textgrundlage ist die Ausgabe: Immanuel Kant: Werke in zwölf Bänden. Herausgegeben von Wilhelm Weischedel. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1977. Die Paginierung obiger Ausgabe wird in dieser Neuausgabe als Marginalie zeilengenau mitgeführt. Umschlaggestaltung von Thomas Schultz-Overhage. Gesetzt aus der Minion Pro, 11 pt.
📖 Summary
Immanuel Kant's Kritik der Urteilskraft, originally published in 1790 and presented here in a thorough 2016 edition edited by Karl-Maria Guth based on Wilhelm Weischedel's acclaimed twelve-volume collection, represents the culmination of Kant's critical philosophical project. Having previously investigated the boundaries of human knowledge in the Critique of Pure Reason and moral obligation in the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant turns his attention in this work to the faculty of judgment. This vital capacity serves as a mediating bridge between the realm of understanding, governed by natural necessity, and the realm of reason, governed by freedom. The text is divided into two primary parts, focusing first on the critique of aesthetic judgment and second on the critique of teleological judgment. In the aesthetic domain, Kant examines the nature of the beautiful and the sublime, famously characterizing aesthetic pleasure as a form of disinterested satisfaction that nonetheless lays claim to universal validity. He explores how objects evoke a harmonious play of our cognitive faculties, imagination, and understanding, without being subordinated to a determinate concept or practical purpose. The sublime, by contrast, confronts human consciousness with magnitudes or powers that overwhelm our sensible capacities, ultimately directing our attention inward to the superior destination of our own rational faculties. Transitioning to the teleological part of the work, Kant investigates how we perceive purpose and design in nature. He grapples with the inherent limitations of human cognition when attempting to explain living organisms and organic systems, which cannot be adequately understood through sheer mechanical causality alone. Instead, we must employ a reflective teleological judgment to comprehend living things as natural purposes, wherein the parts and the whole exist for and through one another. This 2016 edition preserves the scholarly rigor of the Weischedel text, including line-accurate marginal pagination corresponding to the standard multi-volume corpus, alongside a helpful biographical overview of the author. Set in elegant Minion Pro typography and featuring a thoughtful cover design, this publication offers modern readers a definitive and structurally faithful encounter with one of the most influential texts in the history of aesthetics and philosophy.
🎯 Key Lessons
⚖️ Pros & Cons
✅ Pros
Faithful reproduction of the authoritative Weischedel text foundation
Includes line-accurate marginal pagination for academic reference
Features a comprehensive biographical overview of Immanuel Kant
Clean, legible typography set in Minion Pro
⚠️ Cons
Dense philosophical German requires advanced reading proficiency
Lacks extensive modern critical commentary beyond the basic editorial setup
✍️ About the Author
❓ FAQ
What is the main purpose of Kritik der Urteilskraft? +
It bridges the gap between Kant's theoretical philosophy of nature and practical philosophy of freedom.
Which edition does this 2016 publication follow? +
It follows the text established by Wilhelm Weischedel in his twelve-volume Kant edition, based on the historical second edition of 1793.
What does Kant mean by aesthetic judgment? +
It involves our capacity to evaluate the beautiful and the sublime through disinterested pleasure and universal validity.
What is teleological judgment according to the text? +
It is the reflective capacity to view natural phenomena, particularly living organisms, as having purposes or design.
Does this edition include any extra biographical material? +
Yes, it includes a helpful biography of Immanuel Kant edited by Karl-Maria Guth.
