Abstract

The author of this rather lengthy book proposes another way of obtaining a glance at the "heretofore rarely seen unity of the Kantian system." He suggests a common theme present in and often foundational for, many of Kant’s reflections, the notion of "action" ; more generally the notion of the human subject itself as a kind of Handlung. Such a project is certainly a plausible one. Kant’s frequent use of notions like spontaneity, self-legislation, freedom, and others make the prospects for the author’s ambitious attempt at least relatively reasonable. Often, though, instead of a unified interpretation of various texts, we find here just isolated interpretations of Kantian issues, some indeed intimately connected with the theme of action, many tangentially related, a few not at all. The author’s whole approach also causes some difficulties. His style can most charitably be described as idiosyncratic; neologisms and odd contructions abound in every section: "transcendental constellation," "transcendental motion," "world projection," "practical being," "practical apperception," and so on. References to philosophers whose doctrines could, by contrast or similarity, help clarify Kant’s, are almost nonexistent. There is little reference to Leibniz, only a few references to Schelling and Hegel, and no discussion of Fichte’s theory of Tathandlung. Indeed there is no reference to any recent or classic secondary Kant literature. There is also a curious, brief, sweeping dismissal of all "analytic" philosophies of action as all committed to a thoroughly "causal" interpretation of action as observable behavior, predicable of a subject.