Baumgarten and Kant on Metaphysics
Alexander Baumgarten's Meaphysics: A Critical translation
With Kant's Elucidations, Selected Notes and Related Materials
“Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten's Metaphysica was both a refined restatement of the German rationalism of Leibniz and Wolff and an original work of philosophy. Not merely the textbook for Immanuel Kant's lectures on metaphysics and anthropology, it fundamentally shaped Kant's "Critical Philosophy" and through that most of later German philosophy. This lucid translation finally makes Baumgarten's seminal work available in English. Including Kant's annotations in his own copy of the Metaphysica along with an illuminating introduction and extensive notes and glossary, this volume will be indispensable for all future students of Kant and German philosophy.” – Paul Guyer, Jonathan Nelson Professor of Humanities and Philosophy, Brown University
“Baumgarten's manual was enormously influential and widely discussed in Kant's time in matters such as metaphysics, cosmology, and psychology. Kant used it repeatedly in many of his courses and annotated it extensively. This volume offers the first full translation of Baumgarten's Metaphysics (in its fourth, 1757 edition) in English, inclusive of Kant's hand-written elucidations. It is a very welcome addition to the primary sources available to scholars. The current state of debate makes this a timely contribution that will help anyone interested in Kant to gauge in a more accurate and historically informed fashion the extent of his relation to his eighteenth-century German predecessors. Fugate and Hymers' rich, attentive and scrupulous critical notes never make the reader feel unassisted in this undertaking.” – Alfredo Ferrarin, University of Pisa, Italy “Fugate and Hymers’s translation . . . is an excellent contribution to the historical, contextual and comparative study of eighteenth-century German philosophy. In addition to highlighting Baumgarten’s own contributions to philosophy during this period, their translation will help scholars understand the relationship between the Leibnizian–Wolffian philosophy and Kant’s philosophy more critically.” - J. Colin McQuillan, Journal of Eighteenth Century Studies |
“A splendid and permanent contribution to the study of modern philosophy. The translators' historically contextualizing introduction, textual annotations, and ancillary translations of Kant's notes on the Metaphysica will thus be remarkably useful to anyone who wants to understand what goes on in a highly significant phase of early modern philosophy. It almost goes without saying that Kant scholars should find this book indispensable.” - Jeffrey Edwards, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Stony Brook University “The influence of Baumgarten's philosophy in the 18th century, and on Kant's system in particular, cannot be overestimated. Its structure is a major catalyst for the form and content of much of even Kant's critical work, and especially of its metaphysics. This new English edition is therefore essential reading for all scholars interested in the most substantive work of the period.” - Karl Ameriks, McMahon-Hank Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame “Hitherto, readers unable to read Latin had to resort to Meier's version, or, more recently, to Naragon and Ameriks's selections, Watkins's selections, or the German historical-critical translation of the Metaphysica by Gawlick and Kreimendahl. The critical translation by Courtney D. Fúgate and John Hymers changes this. It offers us not only the full text of the fourth edition of the Metaphysica (published in 1757 and used by Kant), but also a substantial historical and systematic introduction, Kant's notes written into his copy of the book (with sample facsimiles), Meier's and Eberhard's prefaces, Eberhard's insertions, Baumgarten's three prefaces, a glossary of the main Latin terms, and also many useful footnotes in the running text, containing further explanations or references to other works, such as Kant's and Wolff’s.” – Edward Kanterian, Review of Metaphysics |
“En conclusion, la traduction en anglais que nous proposent Courtney D. Fugate and John Hymers dans ce magnifique volume ne nous semble pas simplement préciuse, mais même indispensable, et ce, pour étudier non seulement la Metaphysica de Baumgarten, mais également les notes que Kant a rédigées dans son propre eemplaire de la Metapysica qu’il utilisait comme manuel de cours, nous offrant ainsi un autre accès à la pensée de Kant, à la genèse et au dévelopment de ses principaux concepts et arguments. Pour finir, nous ne pouvons que formuler un regret (et partant un souhait): celui ne pas disposer, à ce jour, d’une traduction critique équivalente de la Metaphysica en langue française.” - Sophie Grapotte, Kant Studien (read in full)
The Teleology of Reason
A Study of the Structure of Kant's Critical Philosophy
“Reading The Teleology of Reason is both edifying and inspiring. From the single perspective of teleology, Fugate has woven together the central topics of Kant’s mature philosophical system—possibility of experience, freedom, highest good, unity of reason, etc.—with an admirable combination of clarity, historical sensitivity, analytical incisiveness and original insights. No single commentary can do justice to the depth and richness of the book. Nor shall I attempt to do so.” - Huaping Lu-Adler, Georgetown University, Critique
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“In The Teleology of Reason, Courtney Fugate claims that Kant achieves systematicity in his philosophy through teleology, and specifically his appeal to the aims of theoretical and practical reason (knowledge and moral perfection, respectively). … The Teleology of Reason is thoroughly researched, and Fugate’s interpretation illuminates much of Kant’s work, including many references to teleology that seem out of place on other readings.” – Matthew Altman, Central Washington University, Journal of the History of Philosophy
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Johann Eberhard's Preparation for Natural Theology,
With Kant's Notes and the Danzig Natural THeology Transcripts
“The best recommendation that can be made for Preparation for Natural Theology is that despite the high quality of the translations, explanatory footnotes, and Introduction, the reader is left wanting more. Armed with the work of Fugate and Hymers we can expect great strides in English language Kantian scholarship filling in the connections and associations laid bare by their pioneering service to the academy.” - Derek A. Michaud, University of Maine (read in full at readingreligion.org)
“Fugate and Hymers have already provided Anglo-phone students of Kant with an invaluable resource with their richly annotated translation of Baumgarten's Metaphysica, which was the text that Kant used for his metaphysics lectures. In this new work, which contains similarly annotated translations of Eberhard's Preparation for Natural Theology, which was one of the texts that Kant used for his lectures on rational theology, together with Kant's unpublished notes on this work and the Danzig transcript of these lectures, they have provided another such resource. These materials are essential for any student of Kant's philosophical theology. And, as they explain in their informative introduction, the views of Eberhard were of particular importance to Kant, because he later became engaged in a bitter controversy with him regarding fundamental tenets of the Critique of Pure Reason.” – Henry E. Allison, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of California San Diego, USA and Boston University
Selected Papers
“Kant's World Concept of Philosophy and Cosmopolitanism,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, Volume 101, Issue 4, Pages 535–583. read.
“’With a Philosophical Eye’: The Role of Mathematical Beauty in Kant’s Intellectual Development,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 44, 759-788. Reprinted in Kant: Studies on Mathematics in the Critical Philosophy, ed. by Lisa Shabel and Emily Carson, Routledge. read.
“Baumgarten on the Principle of Sufficient Reason,” Philosophica, 44, 127-147. read
“The Highest Good and Kant’s Proof(s) of God’s Existence,” History of Philosophy Quarterly, 31.2, 137-158. read.
“On a Supposed Solution to the Reinhold/Sidgwick Problem in Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals,” European Journal of Philosophy, DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0378.2012.00531.x. read.
“The Unity of Metaphysics in Kant’s Lectures,” in Reading Kant’s Lectures. Ed. by R. Clewis, Walter de Gruyter. 64-87. read.
“The German Cosmological Tradition and Poe’s Eureka,” The Edgar Allen Poe Review, Special Issue: “Theory-Mad Beyond Redemption”: The Post-Kantian Edgar Allen Poe. Vol. 13, 109-134. read.