Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is a person.

• AKA: The Sage of Königsberg, Der Alleszermalmer, The All-Crusher.
• Context:
  • They can range from being a Pre-Critical Philosopher to being a Critical Philosopher, depending on philosophical development.
  • They can range from being a Rationalist Thinker to being a Transcendental Idealist, based on philosophical approach.
  • ...
  • They can (typically) examine pure reason through transcendental method.
  • They can (typically) analyze moral law through categorical imperative.
  • They can (typically) investigate human knowledge through synthetic a priori.
  • They can (typically) structure human experience through transcendental categories.
  • ...
  • They can (often) explore aesthetic judgment through reflective judgment.
  • They can (often) study phenomena through space and time.
  • They can (often) evaluate moral action through duty-based ethics.
  • They can (often) consider human freedom through practical reason.
  • ...
  • They can be known for Immanuel Kant Publications, such as:
    • "Critique of Pure Reason" which establishes his epistemological theory.
    • "Critique of Practical Reason" which develops his moral philosophy.
    • "Critique of Judgment" which explores aesthetic theory and teleology.
    • "Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals" which presents his ethical framework.
  • They can be known for Immanuel Kant Quotes, such as:
    • "Two things awe me most, the starry sky above me and the moral law within me." which expresses his view of the sublime connection between natural law and moral law.
    • "Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play." which captures his synthesis of rationalism and empiricism.
    • "Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life." which reflects his distinction between theoretical reason and practical reason.
    • "Act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world." which summarizes his categorical imperative.
    • "Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind." which encapsulates his view that both sensibility and understanding are necessary for knowledge.
    • "Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end." which expresses his fundamental principle of human dignity.
    • "What can I know? What ought I to do? What can I hope?" which outlines the three fundamental questions of his critical philosophy.
    • "Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness." which distinguishes between moral worth and happiness.
    • "I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief." which explains his limitation of reason to make space for faith.
    • "He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men." which shows his views on the connection between moral character and treatment of animals.
    • "I freely confess: it was the objection of David Hume that first, many years ago, interrupted my dogmatic slumber." which serves as both a powerful call for philosophers to question their fundamental assumptions and wake up from their own dogmatic thoughts, and an expression of deep intellectual gratitude to the thinker who catalyzed one's philosophical awakening.
  • ...
• Examples:
  • Kant, 1770s, during which he developed his critical philosophy culminating in the "Critique of Pure Reason".
  • Kant, 1780s, when he published his major works on moral philosophy and epistemology.
  • Kant, 1790s, as he completed his system with works on aesthetics, religion, and perpetual peace.
  • ...
• Counter-Example(s):
  • David Hume (1711-1776), who maintained radical skepticism rather than transcendental idealism.
• See: Philosopher, Metaphysics, Epistemology, Deontology, Ought Implies Can, Aesthetics, Philosophical Skepticism, Subject–Object Problem.

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References

2014

• (Wikipedia, 2014) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant Retrieved:2014-8-17.
  • Immanuel Kant (22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher who is widely considered to be a central figure of modern philosophy. He argued that fundamental concepts structure human experience, and that reason is the source of morality. His thought continues to have a major influence in contemporary thought, especially the fields of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, and aesthetics.

    Kant's major work, the Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 1781), aimed to explain the relationship between reason and human experience. With this project, he hoped to move beyond what he took to be failures of traditional philosophy and metaphysics. He attempted to put an end to what he considered an era of futile and speculative theories of human experience, while resisting the skepticism of thinkers such as David Hume. Kant argued that our experiences are structured by necessary features of our minds. In his view, the mind shapes and structures experience so that, on an abstract level, all human experience shares certain essential structural features. Among other things, Kant believed that the concepts of space and time are integral to all human experience, as are our concepts of cause and effect. One important consequence of this view is that one never has direct experience of things, the so-called noumenal world, and that what we do experience is the phenomenal world as conveyed by our senses. These claims summarize Kant's views upon the subject–object problem. Kant published other important works on ethics, religion, law, aesthetics, astronomy, and history. These included the Critique of Practical Reason (Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, 1788), the Metaphysics of Morals (Die Metaphysik der Sitten, 1797), which dealt with ethics, and the Critique of Judgment (Kritik der Urteilskraft, 1790), which looks at aesthetics and teleology.

    Kant aimed to resolve disputes between empirical and rationalist approaches. The former asserted that all knowledge comes through experience; the latter maintained that reason and innate ideas were prior. Kant argued that experience is purely subjective without first being processed by pure reason. He also said that using reason without applying it to experience only leads to theoretical illusions. The free and proper exercise of reason by the individual was a theme both of the Age of Enlightenment, and of Kant's approaches to the various problems of philosophy. His ideas influenced many thinkers in Germany during his lifetime, and he moved philosophy beyond the debate between the rationalists and empiricists. Kant is seen as a major figure in the history and development of philosophy.

2014

• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aesthetic-judgment/
  • QUOTE: … In the first part of this essay, we will look at the particularly rich account of judgments of beauty given to us by Immanuel Kant. The notion of a “judgment of taste” is central to Kant's account and also to virtually everyone working in traditional aesthetics; so we begin by examining Kant's characterization of the judgment of taste. In the second part, we look at the issues that 20th century thinkers raised. We end by drawing on Kant's account of the judgment of taste to consider whether the notion of the aesthetic is viable. 1788 by the Critique of Practical Reason and in 1790 by the Critique of Judgment. In the preface to the first edition Kant explains what he means by a critique of pure reason: "I do not

1797

• (Kant, 1797) ⇒ Immanuel Kant. (1797). “The Metaphysics of Morals."

1790

• (Kant, 1790) ⇒ Immanuel Kant. (1790). “Critique of Judgment."
  • Critique of Judgment.

1788

• (Kant, 1788) ⇒ Immanuel Kant. (1788). “Critique of Practical Reason."
  • Critique of Practical Reason

1785

• (Kant, 1785) ⇒ Immanuel Kant. (1785). “Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals."

1784

• (Kant, 1784) ⇒ Immanuel Kant. (1784). “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?”

1781

• (Kant, 1781) ⇒ Immanuel Kant. (1781). “Critique of Pure Reason."

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