Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason is one of the seminal and monumental works in the history of Western philosophy. Published in May 1781, when its author was already fifty-seven years and sub stantially revised for its second edition six years later, the was both the culmination of three decades of its author’s often very private work and the starting-point for nearly two more decades of his evolving now very public philosophical thought. In the more than two centuries since the book was first published, it has been the constant object ofscholarly interpretation and a continuous source of inspirationto inventive philosophers. To tell the whole story of the book’s influence would be to write the history of philosophy since and that is beyond our intention here. After a summary of the Critique’s structnre and argument, this introduction will sketch its genesis and evolution from Kant’s earliest metaphysical treatise in 1755 to the of the first edition of the Critique in 1781, and its revision for the second edition of 1787.
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