Allen W. Wood, The Free Development of Each: Studies on Freedom, Right, and Ethics in Classical German Philosophy

Allen W. Wood, The Free Development of Each: Studies on Freedom, Right, and Ethics in Classical German Philosophy

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The Free Development of Each collects twelve essays on the history of German philosophy by Allen W. Wood, one of the leading scholars in the field. They explore moral philosophy, politics, society, and history in the works of Kant, Herder, Fichte, Hegel, and Marx, and share the basic theme of freedom, as it appears in morality and in politics.
All of the essays have been re-edited and revised for this collection, and five are previously unpublished. They are accompanied by an Introduction which sets out the central, philosophical viewpoint of the volume, and a comprehensive bibliography.

Kojin Karatani, Transcritique: On Kant and Marx

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From the MIT Press:

"Kojin Karatani's Transcritique introduces a startlingly new dimension to Immanuel Kant's transcendental critique by using Kant to read Karl Marx and Marx to read Kant. In a direct challenge to standard academic approaches to both thinkers, Karatani's transcritical readings discover the ethical roots of socialism in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and a Kantian critique of money in Marx's Capital.

Karatani reads Kant as a philosopher who sought to wrest metaphysics from the discredited realm of theoretical dogma in order to restore it to its proper place in the sphere of ethics and praxis. With this as his own critical model, he then presents a reading of Marx that attempts to liberate Marxism from longstanding Marxist and socialist presuppositions in order to locate a solid theoretical basis for a positive activism capable of gradually superseding the trinity of Capital-Nation-State." 

Allen W. Wood, Kant

Allen W. Wood, Kant

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 The aim of this book is to introduce the philosophical thought of Immanuel Kant, especially to readers who are not yet familiar with it. What is most remarkable about the philosophy of Kant, in my opinion,is the wide range of topics on which his thoughts repay carefulstudy. In so many areas - not only in metaphysics but in natural science,history, morality, the critique of taste - he seems to have gone to the rootof the matter, and at least raised for us the fundamental issues, whetheror not we decide in the end that what he said about them is correct. Inhis brief, five-page essay on the question "What is Enlightenment?" forexample, he locates the essence of enlightenment not in learning or thecultivation of our intellectual powers but in the courage and resolve tothink for oneself, to emancipate oneself from tradition, prejudice, andevery form of authority that offers us the comfort and security of lettingsomeone else do our thinking for us. Kant's essay enables us to see thatthe issues raised by the challenge of the Enlightenment are still just asmuch with us as they were in the eighteenth century.