LISA A. SHABEL. Mathematics in Kant's Critical Philosophy: Reflections on Mathematical Practice. Studies in Philosophy Outstanding Dissertations, Robert Nozick, ed. New York & London: Routledge, 2003. ISBN 0-415-93955-0. Pp. 178 (cloth)

Lisa Shabel's book Mathematics in Kant's Critical Philosophy: Reflections on Mathematical Practice, published in the Harvard Series of Outstanding Dissertations, presents the unrevised text of her dissertation, which she defended at the University of Pennsylvania in 1997. In this interesting and engaging book, Shabel offers an interpretation of Kant's philosophy of mathematics as expressed in his critical writings. Shabel's analysis is based on the insight that Kant's philosophical standpoint on mathematics cannot be understood without an investigation into his perception of mathematical practice in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. She aims to illuminate Kant's theory of the construction of concepts in pure intuition—the basis for his conclusion that mathematical knowledge is synthetic a priori. She does this through a contextualized interpretation of his notion of mathematical construction, which she argues can be approached by looking at Euclid's Elements and Christian Wolff's mathematical textbooks. The...