Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics

Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics

First edition cover
Author	Martin Heidegger
Original title	Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik
Country	Germany
Language	German
Subject	Immanuel Kant
Publisher	Friedrich Cohen
Publication date	1929
Published in English	1962 (Churchill) 1990 (Taft)
Preceded by	Being and Time
Followed by	Introduction to Metaphysics

Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics (German: Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik; 1929) is a book by the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. It is often referred to simply as the "Kantbook".

The book is dedicated to the memory of Max Scheler.

Background

During the 1920s Heidegger read Immanuel Kant extensively. The Kantian influence is pervasive throughout Heidegger's most celebrated and influential book, Being and Time. The Kantbook can be seen as a supplement for the unfinished second part of Being and Time. Additionally, during the winter semester of 1927/28 Heidegger delivered a lecture course dealing explicitly with Kant's philosophy entitled Phenomenological Interpretation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (volume 25 of the Gesamtausgabe). However, the main source for the Kantbook was Heidegger's encounter with Ernst Cassirer in Davos, in 1929. It is here Heidegger begins to develop his unique interpretation of Kant which places unprecedented emphasis on the schematism of the categories. Heidegger began writing Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics immediately after Davos.

Translations

English translations

• Martin Heidegger, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, trans. by James S. Churchill (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1962).
• Martin Heidegger, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, trans. by Richard Taft, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990).

Taft notes Churchill's translation "occasionally falls into awkward and misleading renderings of the original that make it hard to use today." The primary reason for this is that Churchill's translation is one of earliest translations of any of Heidegger's works into English, thus predating most of the now established conventions in Heidegger scholarship in the English speaking world.