Table Of ContentLewis White Beck
A Commentary
on Kant's
Critique of Practical
Reason
Midway Reprint
Philosophy
In this exegesis a leading Kantian scholar makes a full historical, literary,
and philosophical examination of the Critique of Practical Reason, consid
ering it in relation to the total eighteenth-century background.
"Indispensable for the proper understanding of Kant's moral philos
ophy."—Marcus G. Singer, The Journal of Philosophy
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The University of Chicago Press
A Commentary on Kant’s
Critique of Practical Reason
A Commentary on Kant's
Critique of Practical Reason
LEWIS WHITE BECK
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
CHICAGO & LONDON
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 1960 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 1960
Midway reprint 1984
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 0-226-04076-3
LCN: 60-5464
Foreword
Odd though it may be, the Critique of Practical Reason is a neglected
work. There is no study of it in any language that can be compared
favorably with the commentaries on the Critique of Pure Reason by
Kemp Smith, Paton, or Vaihinger. Not even briefer commentaries like
those of Cohen, Ewing, or Weldon on the first Critique exist in Eng
lish for the second; there seems to be only one (that of Stange) in
German. Nothing like the uncompleted commentary on the Critique
of Judgment by Baeumler has been published to give the full histori
cal background for the development of Kant’s ethical theory. H. W.
Cassirer, who has written commentaries on the first and third Critique's,
has not done so for the second. So far as I have been able to discover,
no book even with the title of commentary has been published on the
Critique of Practical Reason since the eighteenth century.1 Every book
on Kant in general and on his ethics in particular, of course, deals with
some of its contents; and surveys and abstracts of it as a connected
whole appear occasionally as chapters in larger works. But no one, I
believe, has essayed on a large scale to study the Critique of Practical
Reason as a literary unity and integral philosophical treatise.
There are at least two reasons for this comparative neglect of one of
Kant’s greatest works. First, a commentary is not so absolutely indis
pensable to the study of this Critique as it is to that of the others. The
book has few of the stylistic difficulties and philosophical obscurities
of the other Critique's. In contrast to the bewildering complexity of
the first and the third, most of the second Critique is straightforward
and almost simple. Or at least it appears to be on first reading, which
is perhaps the only reading most people give it.
The second reason lies in the understandable preference that many
readers have for the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. This
1 Unless one excepts August Messer’s Kommentar zu Kants ethischen und reli
gionsphilosophischen Hauptschriften (1929), in which he attempted to cover all the
principal treatises and succeeded in giving little more than paraphrases. The title, of
course, is not the important thing. Barni’s Examen ... (1851) is a commentary in
most senses of the word, though it neglects to explore historical and literary con
nections. Bami says that “it is not meant to be a sterile commentary but an advanced
and fruitful criticism,” though its analytical chapter “will offer at least an exact and
useful commentary” (pp. vi, vii).
vi Foreword
small work has had three English commentaries (those of Duncan,
Paton, and Ross) in the last ten years and is perhaps the most widely
read of all Kant’s works in England and America, existing in no less
than five current English translations (by Abbott, Beck, Friedrich,
Manthey-Zorn, and Paton). The Foundations does not, at least in its
first two parts, presuppose knowledge of the rest of Kant’s writings
and is directed to those not involved in, or committed to, the Kantian
system. As a contribution to moral philosophy it must stand on its own
internal merits, and this fact makes it pedagogically more useful than
the larger Critique. While there are topics discussed in the Critique
which are omitted from the Foundations, there is also much overlap
ping. In these overlapping areas, preference has almost always been
given to the simpler exposition in the Foundations^ and the more obvi
ously systematic and in part divergent treatments in the Critique have
been regrettably overlooked. Only the teachings of the Critique which
have no counterpart in the Foundations find their way into most expo
sitions and criticisms of Kant’s work. It has been wittily remarked that
if a reader of books on Kant noticed the few isolated passages from the
Critique of Practical Reason which are repeatedly cited, he might con
clude that the Critique was a lost work, only a few fragments of which
have survived.
Nevertheless, as a part of the system of the critical philosophy, the
Foundations does not have the full merit of the larger work to be ex
amined here. For it is only in the Critique that all the various strands
of Kant’s thought are woven together into the pattern of his practical
philosophy. This pattern, in turn, can be understood only in the entire
fabric of the critical philosophy, and that rich design can be clear only
to those who have understood each of its three principal parts, which
are the three Critique's and not shorter and more popular works like
the Prolegomena and the Foundations.
The absence of a commentary is a sign, in part an effect but perhaps
in part also a cause, of neglect of the Critique. It is my hope here to
take a step toward removing this cause. The commentary has a two
fold purpose. First, as a hermeneutic study, it will seek to place the
Critique of Practical Reason in the context of Kant’s philosophy and
of the moral philosophy of the eighteenth century insofar as it was the
body of thought to which Kant responded and which he wished to
modify. The Critique was written as a technical, professional work by
a philosopher who saw, and who insisted that his readers should see, the
way in which every part involved the others. Kant’s architectonic has
been much derided as a pedantic crotchet of the aging baroque philos-
Foreword vii
opher. But it is a mistake to believe that what is of utmost importance
to an author can be justly neglected by the reader. Parallels and differ
ences in content and structure and terminology between this Critique
and the others cannot be passed over in silence if we are to penetrate
below the surface of any of them. In attempting to show how this
treatise stands out against a background often discerned only vaguely
by the reader, I shall have to recall again and again the doctrines of
Kant’s contemporaries and the revolutionary theses in other parts of his
own work, knowledge of which was tacitly assumed when he came to
write this Critique. I hope to provide this basic information with suffi
cient brevity and accuracy not to drive away the Kant-scholar—a man
known in the legends of scholarship for the vastness of his learning and
the shortness of his temper, a trait which has given a notorious acerbity
to Kant-literature for nearly two centuries. But I hope also to be able
to provide it with sufficient fulness and simplicity to throw light on
the text needed by those to whom memory of the first Critique gives,
at best, only wavering illumination and uncertain guidance. I cannot
flatter myself into thinking that I may not at times offend either the
Kant-adept or the beginner; I hope only that if I tire or irritate the
former, I shall not, on the same page, puzzle or discourage the latter.
My second purpose is to examine the contents of this work on their
philosophical merits. We seem to be going through one of the periods
—the third in English philosophy, the second in American—in which
the study of Kant provides stimulation and sustenance to new and crea
tive work in philosophy. In the past few years there has been a note
worthy increase in the amount and improvement in the quality of stud
ies devoted to Kant in France, England, Italy, and America; there seems
to be a heightening of interest in Kant even in Germany, where the
number and quality of Kant-studies have always been high. It seems as
if a period of thought in which the creative and critical work and
spirit of David Hume are dominant (as in America and England) is to
be followed by one in which Kantian criticism and reconstruction—
perhaps not recognized as such—revive. In this book, therefore, exposi
tion of Kant may well be combined with philosophic estimation inso
far as the latter does not require a whole treatise to itself.
But the first task is to find out what Kant said, how he said it, and
why. Only then can evaluation have before it a firm object, not an
amorphous mass that varies in shape with the degree of sympathy or
hostility with which it is approached; too often in the past, debates on
whether Kant was right or wrong have been vitiated by lack of the
most rudimentary agreement as to what he actually said and meant.
viii Foreword
It is a genuine pleasure to record my thanks to those who made it
possible for me to write this book. The University of Rochester al-
owred me to be free of all academic duties during 1957-58 so that the
book could be completed. That year was spent in Germany and Italy
under a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foun
dation and with the generous assistance of the Committee on Grants in
Aid for Research of the College of Arts and Science of the University
of Rochester. During the time I was in Germany, I was guest of the
Philosophical Seminar of the Albertus Magnus University in Cologne
and used its extensive facilities. Members of my family and colleagues
gave encouragement, advice, and assistance; each of them will see, on
page after page, evidence of my indebtedness. I am particularly grate
ful to Professor C. B. Earp, of Wake Forest College, for help with the
eighteenth-century Latin authors.
The Frontispiece is by Heinrich Wolff, and was first published in
the bicentenary memorial volume for Kant issued by the University of
Königsberg.
L. W. B.
San Domenico, Firenze
