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Kant

Name: Immanuel Kant

Achievements: Major German philosopher

Born: April 22, 1724; Konigsberg, East Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia)

Died: February 12, 1804; Konigsberg, East Prussia (Aged 79)

Field & Discipline: Philosophy.

Language: German

Father: Johann Georg Cant (d. 1746)

Mother: Anna Regina Reuter

Siblings: 1 brother, 3 sisters

Spouse: None

Children:  None 

Education: Collegium Fridericianum (1732-40); University of Konigsberg (1740-46, 1755)

Major Work:

“Critique of Pure Reason” (1781)

Life & Times:

In 1770, after many years of financial hardship, Kant was made Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at the University of Koningsberg, a job he retained for 27 years.

Beginning in 1781, with the first edition of the “Kritik der Reinen Vernunft” (“Critique of Pure Reason”), Kant produced a steady stream of great and original works and very quickly created a revolution in philosophical thought.

With the publication of his first “Critique,” the main outline of Kant's whole critical system was determined. The “Critique” took the title from its third part, the "Transcendental Dialect,” which criticises rationalistic claims to know through reason what is beyond sense experience.

For a long time, Kant had disagreed with the empiricism of the British philosophers [disagreed with views of] Locke* [disagreed with views of] and Hume's*. 

In his “Critique,” Kant argued that the immediate objects of perception are due not only to the evidence provided by our sensations, but also to our own perceptual apparatus, which creates intelligible unities out of our sense-impressions.   He wrote that, while our sensations were, rightly, empirical, the “ordering” was not dependent on experience, and was therefore “a priori” (present in advance of any particular experience to which they applied).   In other words, although knowledge started with experience, it didn’t follow that it arose out of experience.

Kant felt he had accounted for the application of the mind's “a priori” principles to objects, by demonstrating that the objects conformed to the mind.  In knowing, it was not the mind that conformed to things, but instead it was things that conformed to the mind.

For Kant, knowledge of ultimate realities, or "things in themselves,” was impossible, since we could only know our ordered sense-impressions, or "phenomena.”  Space and time were subjective, “a priori” forms of human sensibility, which conditioned whatever was experienced through the senses. 

He maintained that all ordering of sense-impressions took place in time, using the application of basic concepts or “categories,” like cause and effect, which were not learnt from experience, but made up our basic conceptual apparatus for making sense of experience and the world.

Kant developed these ideas in 1783, with “Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic,” which simplified the ideas of “Critique of Pure Reason,” in 1785 with the “Grundlagen zur Metaphysik der Sitten” (“Groundwork to a Metaphysic of Morals”) and in 1788, in the “Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft” (“Critique of Practical Reason”).

“Groundwork” contains Kant's ethical theory based on good will and presents his “Categorical Imperative” or basic moral principle, "Act only on that maxim which you can,  at the same time,  will to become a universal law.”

In 1790, Kant completed his “Critique” series, with “Kritik der Urteilskraft” (“Critique of Judgement”).   In this work, he included a treatment of the philosophical problems in aesthetics, or judgement of “taste.”  By providing an objective basis for judgement, he tried to show how to connect with man’s ability to recognize "purposiveness" in nature.

Kant’s work had a great influence on subsequent philosophy, especially the idealism of his pupil [influenced] Fichte*, and of [influenced] Hegel* and [influenced] Schelling*.  One of Kant's successors at the University of Königsberg, [influenced] Herbart*, incorporated some of Kant's ideas in his own work.  Kant also inspired later German writers, including the critic and poet [influenced] Herder*, the dramatist [influenced] Schiller* and the philosopher [influenced] Schopenhauer*.

In his later years, Kant was treated as an oracle by hundreds of followers, many of whom travelled long distances to meet him, until his health began to decline in the early 1790s.

Extra Connections: His work related to that of  [work related to] Clausewitz*, [work related to] Alexander von Humboldt*, [work related to] Condillac*, [work related to] Coleridge*, [work related to] Bode*, [work related to] Georg Forster*, [work related to] Burke*, and [work related to] Helmholtz*

Assessment: One of the greatest figures in the history of philosophy.

Oneliner:  Immanuel Kant,  major German philosopher

Bibliography: