COGS? ROI, EVA, or Residual Income?

Tempted as I am to extol my love of accounting, both financial and managerial, I shall instead take this opportunity to respond to the one request (it doesn't take much) to say something about my book.

First, it's an unbelievable thrill ride, a roller-coaster of action-packed excitement, with sex, drugs, rock 'n roll, perversion, politics, murder, mayhem, carnage, and cosmic significance.

Oh, wait: Kant was against lying. My apologies.

It is a study of the Critique of Pure Reason, suggesting that we read it the way Kant saw it: as a logic. That is, as identifying and justifying (in one way or another) a set of universal and necessary rules for the possiblity of the domain over which those rules range. To keep my one reader here, I'll just say that for thought to be possible, it must conform to rules we might call "logic"; for cognition to be possible, it as well must conform to rules, which Kant refers to as the "logic of experience." My guess is that the same thing applies to the moral philosophy, as well as aesthetic and teleological judgements. The central idea is that "transcendental" is to be glossed as "necessity for a possibility," and reading the Critique that way makes Kant's claims relatively modest and relatively defensible.

To scotch any ill-founded rumors, often started by the French department at Wright State University: it is not a pop-up book. There are no pictures. It is in English (sort of). It can be read by those with a general interest in philosophy; there is some slow-going stuff, but not all that much. It will not be a book on tape, the author will not appear on Oprah, it will not be reviewed by the NY Times, and it will not make the best-seller list. It is what it is: a nice solid little book explaining the final and absolute truth about Kant, that makes all others obsolete and superfluous.

It is being published by the Catholic University of America Press, apparently as part of the Vatican's continuing attempt to get me to enroll in its 12-step program (or to convert; I'm not sure of the difference)--after all, I've taught mostly at Catholic Universities (Loyola of Chicago and the University of Dayton), a really Catholic school (I guess) is publishing my book, and I have yet to be put on the Index (is it still going?). The odd thing was that a) a surprisingly large (I don't know how to do exponents here) number of publishers chose not to publish this piece of brilliance and 2) after I had accepted CUA's offer, I was called by a pretty good publisher asking me why I hadn't responded to their e-mails of six months ago, offering to publish it. I thought my reason a pretty good one, and I told them: "Because I never saw them." But I was in the unique situation, for me almost certainly never to be repeated, of saying "I've decided to go with another press." I tried to use my best Gore Vidal voice, albeit masculino voce.

So when I find out when it is appearing, I'll let you know. As I've indicated elsewhere, expect the kind of madness that occurred a few years ago with "Tickle Me Elmo."

And for those who really care, here's the Table of Contents:


Necessity and Possibility: The Logical Strategy of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason


Chapter One Kant's Critical Model of the Subject

1. Introduction
2. The Archytpal Model
3. The Ectypal Model
4. The Archtypal and Ectypal Model
5. Kant's indirect argument for the "critical" model
6. The judging subject and objective validity

Chapter Two Kant's Conception of General Logic

1. General Logic and Aristotle
2. The Role of General Logic
3. General Logic as A Priori
4. Criticisms of a Kantian Conception of General Logic

Chapter Three The Historical Background of Kant's Logic

1. General Logic and Grammar
2. The Historical Background of Kant's General Logic
3. Kant's General Logic: Some Conclusions

Chapter Four The Metaphysical Deduction

1. The Goal of the Metaphysical Deduction
2. The Strategy of the Metaphysical Deduction
3. The Argument of the Metaphysical Deduction
4. Logic and Common Sense

Chapter Five Kant and Contemporary Philosophy

1. Introduction
2. Kant and Laurence BonJour's "Moderate Rationalism"
3. Kant, Davidson, and Conceptual Schemes
4. An excursus into the postmodern
4.1 Introduction
4.2 The tenets of postmodernism
4.3 Kant and the postmodern
4.4 Kant, Foucault, and Foundationalism

Chapter Six The Modesty of the Critical Philosophy

1. Introduction
2. Kant's epistemological modesty
3. Kant and Common Sense
4. Conclusion