Kant, Hume And Causation
Abstract
Paul Guyer: Knowledge, Reason and Taste: Kant's Response to Hume (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2008) pp. ix-267. 23.95 (hb). ISBN 13: 978-0691-13439-0 Paul Guyer is one of the foremost Anglo-American writers on Kant and in focusing this work on Kant's response to Hume he addresses a connection that has always been taken to be central within the reception of the Critical Philosophy. Guyer's intent here is, however, to widen the understanding of the relationship between Kant and Hume. Rather than just focusing on the question of how Kant takes himself to be responding to Hume's problems concerning causation, Guyer here gives some reasons for viewing the Critical Philosophy generally as formed through responses to Hume. In illustrating this argument, Guyer treats us to a taxonomy of types of scepticism and discusses the nature of Hume's problems with the self, practical reason, taste and teleology in order to show how Kant can profitably be seen in each case to be responding to him. Hence, Guyer presents the engagement with Hume as important for each of Kant's major critical works. Nonetheless, despite this breadth of focus, there are some problems with connecting the discreet inquiries presented here together