Essay on Transcendental Philosophy presents the first English translation of Salomon Maimon's principal work, originally published in Berlin in 1790. In this book, Maimon seeks to further the revolution in philosophy wrought by Kant's Critique of Pure Reason by establishing a new foundation for transcendental philosophy in the idea of difference. Kant judged Maimon to be his most profound critic, and the Essay went on to have a decisive influence on the course of post-Kantian German Idealism. A more recent admirer was Gilles Deleuze who drew on Maimon's Essay in constructing his own philosophy of difference. This long-overdue translation makes Maimon's brilliant analysis and criticism of Kant's philosophy accessible to an English readership for the first time. The text includes a comprehensive introduction, a glossary, translators' notes, a bibliography of writings on Maimon and an index. It also includes translations of correspondence between Maimon and Kant and a letter Maimon wrote to a Berlin journal clarifying the philosophical position of the essay, all of which bring the book's context alive for the modern reader.

Translators' Introduction Note on the Translation Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Matter, Form of Cognition, Form of Sensibility, Form of Understanding, Time and Space. 2. Sensibility, Imagination, Understanding, Pure A Priori Concepts of the Understanding or Categories, Schemata, Answering the Question Quid Juris, Answering the Question Quid Facti, Doubts about the Latter. 3. Ideas of the Understanding, Ideas of Reason, etc. 4. Subject and Predicate. The Determinable and the Determination. 5. Thing, Possible, Necessary, Ground, Consequence, etc. 6. Identity, Difference, Opposition, Reality, Logical and Transcendental Negation 7. Magnitude 8. Alteration, Change, etc. 9. Truth, Subjective, Objective, Logical, Metaphysical 10. On the I, Materialism, Idealism, Dualism, etc. Short Overview of the Whole Work My Ontology On Symbolic Cognition and Philosophical Language Notes & Clarifications Appendix I Letter from Maimon to Kant Appendix II Letter from Kant to Herz Appendix III Maimon Article from Berlin Journal for Enlightenment Appendix IV Newton's Introduction to 'The Quadrature of Curves' Glossary Bibliography Index