Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason

Abstract

IT is astonishing how long the English-speaking public has had to wait for an adequate translation of Kant's epoch-making work. The “Critique of Pure Reason” was published in 1781, all but a hundred and fifty years ago, and the first English translation did not see the light until 1838. The translator enlarges in his preface on the difficulty of rendering “so entirely novel and original a mode of philosophising”, and almost disarms criticism by the modesty with which he acknowledges “how frequently, with every endeavour to be correct, he may have failed in a right understanding of his author”. Meiklejohn, who next essayed the task, in 1855, produced a version which, in lack of a better, was destined to serve the needs of successive generations of students for three-quarters of a century. It is true that in 1881, the centenary of the original, a fresh translation was given to the public with an authoritative gesture by Max Müller. This was certainly in point of accuracy and general effect distinctly better than Meiklejohn's, but by an unfortunate error of judgment the translation was made from Kant's first edition, whereas the second edition of 1787, in which Kant re-wrote important sections, must be regarded for ordinary purposes as the authoritative text of the work. Unfortunately, too, the translation, at least as originally issued, was encumbered, by way of introduction, with a crudely written historical sketch of all previous philosophy by Prof. L. Noiré, extending to no less than 360 pages. For its irrelevance and lack of all proper perspective, this so-called introduction was drastically characterised at the time by the late Prof. Adamson as “comprehended under the well-known definition of dirt: matter in the wrong place”. Under these disadvantages it was no wonder that the centenary translation failed to ‘catch on’, and Meiklejohn continued to be the ordinary student's vade-mecum up to the present day. This was perhaps scarcely to be regretted; for, although of course absolutely competent in his knowledge of German idiom and his mastery of the English language, Prof. Max Müller was, after all, not a professional philosopher, and Adamson in his careful and appreciative review of the book for Mind felt “constrained to add that the ideal translation does not yet seem to have been attained”. After giving examples of his meaning, he concludes in fact that the translation “stands in need of a thorough revision from the philosophical point of view”.

Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.

Translated by Prof. Norman Kemp Smith. Pp. xiii + 681. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1929. 25s. net.