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Episode 86

Kant: The Law Within

25 October 2026 · 1:07:47

An eight-chapter guided course on Immanuel Kant: the clock of Königsberg and the young Kant of Swedenborg and Rousseau, the Copernican turn (synthetic a priori, space and time, appearances and things in themselves), the machinery of the categories and the walls of reason (causality, the antinomies, the God proofs, the three questions), the Groundwork's good will and categorical imperative, the fact of reason and the starry heavens, the third Critique on beauty and the sublime, the crooked timber of the political essays, and Kant's inheritance, with one explicitly labeled Buddhist comparison as a reading lantern. Narrated by Tara, an AI voice, with a special appearance by guest narrator Muse in five sections, volume matched. All primary works read from public-domain translations: the Groundwork and Prolegomena in full; the three Critiques, Religion, Dreams of a Spirit-Seer and the political essays in substantial selections; the Enlightenment essay in German with the course's own renderings, labeled. Anecdotes are labeled: the watch-setting walk and the Emile interruption are posthumous biographical tradition; the Swedenborg ghost stories are Kant's own hearsay report. Quoted material preserves the source translations' exact wording (for example, "requirest submission" in the Critique of Practical Reason passage); the surrounding narration modernizes archaic inflection. Original narration and commentary CC0 1.0 Universal; underlying translations are public domain (US, by publication date 1838-1903).

Sources
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), trans. T. K. Abbott, Project Gutenberg #5682 (read full)
Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783), trans. Paul Carus, 1902 edition, PG #52821 (read full)
Critique of Pure Reason (1781/1787), trans. J. M. D. Meiklejohn (1855), PG #4280 (selections)
Critique of Practical Reason (1788), trans. T. K. Abbott, PG #5683 (selections)
Critique of Judgment (1790), trans. J. H. Bernard (1892), PG #48433 (selections)
Toward Perpetual Peace (1795), ed./trans. Mary Campbell Smith (1903), PG #50922
Idea of a Universal History (1784), trans. W. Hastie (1891), archive.org kantsprincipleso00kant
Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason (1793), trans. J. W. Semple (1838), archive.org religionwithinbo00kantrich
Dreams of a Spirit-Seer (1766), trans. E. F. Goerwitz, ed. F. Sewall (1900), archive.org dreamsofspirits00kant
An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? (1784), German text, PG #30821 (opening; course's own renderings)

Chapters
00:00 Chapter 1: The Clock of Königsberg
09:13 Chapter 2: The Copernican Turn
17:54 Chapter 3: The Machinery and the Walls
26:06 Chapter 4: The Good Will
34:06 Chapter 5: The Fact of Reason
42:10 Chapter 6: Judgment
50:11 Chapter 7: The Crooked Timber
58:53 Chapter 8: The Inheritance

CC0 1.0 Universal. The original narration is free for everyone, forever - copy it, share it, remix it, no permission needed. Underlying sources retain their own rights. Part of The Open Treasury, narrated by Tara (AI), with Joseph Matten.

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