BOOK REVIEWS 335 any kind of aesthetics which applics to works of literature standards of reasonableness. Particularly meritorious is Alexander's attempt to explain Hamann’s criticism of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. But it is somewhat marred by his misinterpretation of Hume. Alexander presents him as if he bad based his criticism of the concept of causality on the fallibility of sense impressions (pp. 113f,), which is entirely erroneous. ‘And it is misleading to say thet the category of causality is according to Kant pure intuition (p. 114). In his conclusion Alexander sums up Hamann's main objections to the Enlighten- ment, but he also characterizes him to be, in some respects, a man of the Enlightenment. This latter, somewhat surprising assertion Alexander substantiates: Hamann rejects authority and drops “the legal framework as the framework of theology” (p. 198). Since the authority to which the Enlightenment objected was the avtiority of the tyrant and the priest, since Alexander quotes no specific passage proving that Hamann also rejected these two authorities, since Hamann hardly ever deals ex professo with “the legal framework” of Christian theology. and since the Enlightenment is hardly interested in this specific problem, I find it difficult to follow Alexander. “Hamann's writings are still obscure,” says Alexander (p. 199) and on this modest note closes his book. For clearing up some of Hamann’s obscurities Alexander deserves gratitude from oll Hamann scholars. Pau MERLAN Scripps College and Claremont Graduate School The Bounds of Sense: An Essay on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. By P. F. Strawson. (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1966. Pp. 296. $6.25) No book on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is without its difficulties. On the one shand there is the tendency toward slavish exegesis, usually of the sort that avoids basic Philosophical problems by submerging them in the very Kantian language which gave rise to them in the first place, On the other hand, as one’s own philosophical commit- ‘ments come to the fore, there is an almost irresistible compulsion to merge what Kant actually said with what he was “struggling” to say, “really” meant, or should have said. P. F, Strawson’s book has its difficvities too, but not the ones I have mentioned. He avoids the pitfalls of Kantian terminology while remaining faithful on the whole to the philosophical problems this terminology was designed both to clarify and to solve. ‘Though he has a great deal to say about Kent's actual views, what Kant seemed to have in mind, what is salvagable in Kant’s views, and what a philosopher might truly say concerning the problems with which Kant struggled, Strawson is scrupulous in his identification of which particular enterprise he is engaged in at any particular point in his book. What results is a study at once both faithful to Kant and relevant to con- temporary philosophical problems. ‘The source of the major difficulties in Strawson’s study is at the same time the source of its major virtues. Strawson carefully distinguishes two enterprises cngazed in by Kant: (1) the articulation of a minimal conecptual framework in terms of which any experience can be said to be intelligible and without reference to which no experience can be meaningfully conceived, and (2) the forging of a philosophy of mind, a “transcendental” psychology of human cognitive mechanisms (faculties), on the basis of which human experience becomes explicable. The former Strawson con- strues as a metaphysics of experience, descriptive in the sense in which Strawson uses Copyright (¢) 2001 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company Copyright (¢) Journal of the History of Philosophy, Ine.