Yirmiyahu Yovel, Kant's Philosophical Revolution ***

 I accept Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (1781) as "perhaps the most influential book of philosophical modernity," but I have never read it. Its reputation for difficulty matches its reputation for profundity. Here's a representative quote to illustrate:

The thoroughgoing identity of the apperception of a manifold given in intuition contains a synthesis of the representations, and is possible only through the consciousness of this synthesis. (B133)

I am good with learning Kant's philosophy through his commentators. (Frankly, I feel the same about most German philosophers, Schopenhauer excluded.) I was attracted to this short volume because it seeks to provide a "clear and authoritative summary" of the Critique of Pure Reason on a chapter-by-chapter basis, with a minimum of evaluation. The book derives from an introduction that Yovel wrote for his Hebrew translation of the Critique.

Kant's Philosophical Revolution is by no means a Cliff Notes for general readers. Yovel's prose is clearer than Kant's and benefits from centuries of discussion about the work, but it still ain't easy. I'm not sure I would have followed his presentation if I weren't already familiar with the main points. While it purports to present Kant's arguments in the order they appear in the original work, the book didn't give me any sense of how the Critique is actually organized.