Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was a German philosopher. Kant was among the last of the major Enlightenment thinkers, and was one of the most influential intellectuals in Europe during his lifetime.
Born in Konigsberg, the starting point for Kant's life work in philosophy was the works of David Hume who awakened Kant from his "dogmatic slumber" and led him to make his "Copernican revolution in philosophy"[1]
In his A Critique of Pure Reason Kant criticizes pure reason as a guide to life, establishing several categories through which reason is able to comprehend the ultimate reality. Kant also established a systematic basis for critical philosophy, establishing synthetic a priori considerations as a prior necessity to analytic a priori concepts, and suggested a material origin for the solar system (prior to Kant, the origin of the solar system was considered to be immaterial and possibly even a priori). Kant's own suggestion for a moral daily life was the categorical imperative: Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. It does not mean that an act is moral only if it works as a rule for everyone as that is consequentialist. Kant uses the example of suicide out of self-love being wrong in that it is contradictory to love oneself and want to commit suicide. Thus, the maxim is contradictory and cannot be a universal law. On the other hand, if a murderer asks you where someone is hiding, you should always tell them because lying is wrong. The categorical imperative can be contrasted with the hypothetical imperative, which says that you should act according to any maxim which might possibly be willed. He remained single throughout his life, though he said, toward the end of it, that he could not afford a wife in his youth and did not need one in his old age. Kant's aim was to make philosophy truly scientific.
Writings
Books
- Critique of Pure Reason (1781, 1787)
- Metaphysic of Morals
- Critique of Practical Reason (1788)
- Metaphysical Elements of Ethics
- General Intro to Metaphysic of Morals
- Science of Right
- Critique of Judgement (1790)
- "Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me." Critique of Practical Reason, 1799.
Articles (published in the 1780s and 1790s)
- An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?
- What Does It Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking?
- On the Miscarriage of All Philosophical Trials in Theodicy
- Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason
- “What can I know? What ought I do? For what may I hope?”
References
- ↑ The New American Desk Encyclopedia, Penguin Group, 1989