Work · East Asian Philosophy
Critique of Critical Philosophy
A reading of Kant through Marx: the forms of reason and beauty are “sedimented” from collective human practice over history.
Introduction
Li Zehou drafted much of the book while he was sent to a “May Seventh Cadre School” for political re-education during the Cultural Revolution; it was published in Beijing in 1979. Formally an introduction to Kant’s three Critiques, it reinterprets Kant’s a priori forms through Marx: they are not innate but have been “sedimented” in humanity through the history of practice, above all the making and use of tools. Li called this view an “anthropo-historical ontology”. The book was widely read by students and intellectuals in the 1980s and prepared Li’s later aesthetics and cultural theory. An English version appeared in 2018 as A New Approach to Kant.
Connections
Builds on
- Critique of Pure Reason1781 · Immanuel Kant
- Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 18441844 · Karl Marx
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