Professor Roberts started to drone on

[Bassim]

Have I made any mistakes?

Professor Roberts started to drone on Kant's The Critiques of Pure Reason, and Peter felt as if the all the oxygen had been sucked out of the lecture room. Who cares what Kant had said hundreds of years ago? Peter thought, drawing a portrait of Maria in his notebook. He closed his eyes for a moment and saw her riding her bicycle on a sunny day. It was windy, and her long blond hair was floating behind, sparkling under the sun. How his heart skipped a beat! That was pure beauty. You can chuck away Kant, Plato and the whole philosophy and the humankind wouldn't even notice it, but a beautiful woman makes the world stop. Oh, God, please make Maria my wife, he prayed silently and felt goose pimples on his skin.

 

[teechar]

Have I made any mistakes?

Professor Roberts started to drone on [missing something] Kant's The Critiques of Pure Reason, and Peter felt as if the all the oxygen had been sucked out of the lecture room. Who cares what Kant had said hundreds of years ago? Peter [punctuation] thought, drawing a portrait of Maria in his notebook. He closed his eyes for a moment and saw her riding her bicycle on a sunny day. It was windy, and her long blond hair was floating behind, sparkling under the sun. How his heart skipped a beat! That was pure beauty. You can chuck away Kant, Plato and the whole philosophy and the humankind [Use "all" or "all of" and remove the articles] wouldn't even notice it, but a beautiful woman makes the world stop. Oh, God, please make Maria my wife, he prayed silently and felt goose pimples on his skin.

.

 

[Bassim]

It should be "drone on about Kant's"

Would it be OK with this version?
Who cares what Kant had said hundreds of years ago, Peter thought. (I didn't use the quotation marks because I read that many editors of fiction think they shouldn't be used in this kinds of sentences, i.e. when you mention the inner thoughts of a character).

Would this version be OK?
You can chuck away Kant, Plato and all of philosophy and humankind wouldn't even notice it...

 

[Tarheel]

I would say:

Who cares what Kant said hundreds of years ago?

In fact, variations of that have been spoken or written millions of times.

As a native speaker I would only use past perfect if there was a reason to.

 

[Tarheel]

Perhaps:

Professor Roberts started droning on about Kent's "The Critiques of Pure Reason" ....

And:

You could chuck away Kant, Plato, and all of philosophy, and nobody would notice ....

(Isn't the whole point of writing such books to impress people with how smart you are?)

 

[Bassim]

No, Tarheel. I believe philosophers want to present their ideas to others, just as painters want to show their pictures to people. But the problem is when their ideas become doctrines, and then those in power use them to justify their actions. Marx and Engels certainly wanted to help ordinary workers and wrote their books to show what the problem with capitalism was, but then Stalin and other communist leaders came to power and used Marxism to oppress their own people, och they committed terrible crimes.
Nowadays, philosophy has become just like poetry, written by coteries of professors at universities, who use such a difficult language that ordinary people will never understand it.

 

[jutfrank]

Kant's The Critiques of Pure Reason

Kant's Critique of Pure Reason

(Isn't the whole point of writing such books to impress people with how smart you are?)

No.

 

[Tarheel]

Opinions are like noses. Everbody has one.

 

[Tarheel]

I can recommend Aristotle. And Newton. There is a difference between explaining how to think and telling people what to think.