Jakob Friedrich Fries was an important German philosopher whose response to
Immanuel Kant explained previously misunderstood paradoxes of Kant’s transcendental system. In his insightful three-volume work
Neue oder anthropologische Kritik der Vernunft, or “New or Anthropological Critique of Reason” (1807), Fries attempted to give a new foundation of psychological analysis to Kant’s critical theory and to reconcile these ideas with the philosophy of
Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi. For a proper understanding of Kant’s system and approach, the evaluation of Fries cannot afford to be ignored.