Reinhold's Letters on the Kantian Philosophy is arguably the most influential book ever written concerning Kant. It propelled Kant's Critical Philosophy, which had previously enjoyed an equivocal reception, into the central position which it has held to this day. It also brought fame to Reinhold, who became a professor at Jena and later developed his own "Elementary Philosophy." This volume presents the first English translation of the work, together with an introduction that sets it in its philosophical and historical contexts.

It has been argued that Kant's all-consuming efforts to place autonomy at the center of philosophy has had, in the long-run, the unintended effect of leading to the widespread discrediting of philosophy and of undermining the notion of autonomy itself. The result of this "Copernican revolution" has seemed to many commentators the de-centering, if not the self-destruction, of the autonomous self. Ameriks challenges the presumptions that dominate popular approaches to the concept of freedom, and to the interpretation of the relation among the Enlightenment, Kant and post-Kantian thought.