The first edition of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, the first and most important of his three major works of critical philosophy, in which he first presented his system of transcendental idealism that would completely define the trajectory of western philosophy thereafter. A well-preserved copy in a robust late-nineteenth century binding.
‘Kant’s great achievement was to conclude finally the lines on which philosophical speculation had proceeded in the eighteenth century, and to open up a new and more comprehensive system of dealing with the problems of philosophy. … No other thinker has been able to hold with such firmness the balance between speculative and empirical ideas. His penetrating analysis of the elements involved in synthesis, and the subjective process by which these elements are realised in the individual consciousness, demonstrated the operation of ‘pure reason’; and the simplicity and cogency of his arguments achieved immediate fame’ (PMM).
Provenance: from the library the German industrialist and coke manufacturer Albert Hüssener (1837-1902), with ownership inscription ‘Hüssener’ to the front free endpaper and a lengthy presentation inscription from his nephew Max Hüssener to the front flyleaf: ‘Meinem Oheim Fabrikdirektor Albert Hüssener, Gelsenkirchen, zur Erinnerung an meinen Vater Gymnasial-Ober-lehrer Dr. phil. Hermann Hüssener, Berlin. Essen a.d. Ruhr, den 26. September 1894. Max Hüssener’.
Warda, 59; Printing and the Mind of Man, 226.
