Immanuel Kant, 1724-1804

Immanuel Kant, 1724-1804

kant.jpg (5110 bytes) The greatest member of the idealist school of German philosophy, Immanuel Kant was born at Königsberg, where he spent his entire life, the son of a saddler, reputedly of Scottish origin. Brought in relative poverty and the puritanical strictness of Pietism, Kant studied at the university and after some years as a private tutor in 1755 obtained his doctorate and was appointed privatdozent. His lectures, unlike his written work, were often witty and humorous. The same year he published an essay in Newtonian cosmology in which he anticipated the nebular theory of Laplace and predicted the existence of the planet Uranus, before its actual discovery by Herschel in 1781.

At first a rationalist, Kant became more skeptical of metaphysics in his "pre-critical" works as in Dreams of a Ghost-Seer (1766) against Swedenborg's mysticism. But Kant was dissatisfied with David Hume's reduction of knowledge of things and causation to mere habitual associations of sense-impressions. How for example was it possible for mathematics to apply to the objects of our sense-impressions? From 1775 he labored on an answer to Hume, which materialized in his Critique of Pure Reason (1781, 2nd ed., 1786), a philosophical classic, in which he shows 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 orders our sense-impressions into intelligible unities. Whereas the former are rightly empirical and synthetic, the ordering is not dependent upon experience, i.e., a priori. Hence, Kant's famous claim that "though our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it arises out of experience." This has the corollary which Kant likened to a Copernican revolution in philosophy, that instead of presuming that all our knowledge must conform to objects, it is more profitable to suppose the reverse.

Knowledge of objects as such, "things in themselves" or noumena, is impossible since we can only know our ordered sense-impressions (phenomena). Space and time are subjective particulars, a priori intuitions. All ordering of sense-impressions takes place in time, with the appropriate application of general concepts. Antinomies arise when general concepts (or categories) are misapplied to non-experiential data or space and time are treated as if they were categories. hence, we cannot prove the existence of God, but Kant recognizes three principle ideas of reason -- God, freedom and immortality -- which pure reason leads us to form for practical, i.e., moral considerations. These are developed in the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic (1783), the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) and the Critique of Practical Reason (1788).

The Groundwork contains his ethical theory based on the good will, enshrined in the famous "Categorical Imperative" -- "act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." This important rendering or moral obligation was criticized by Jacobi as "the good will that wills nothing." The Critique of Judgement (1790) completes the Kantian system. It comprises a remarkable treatment of the basic philosophical problems in esthetics, not least the claim that the esthetic judgement is independent of personal, psychological and moral considerations, yet singular and universally valid.

Kant lived an extremely ordered life, possible because of his delicate constitution, and it has been said that the people of Königsberg set their watches by his daily walks. He never traveled more than one hundred miles from Königsberg. Kant was an ardent admirer of J. J. Rousseau (a portrait of Rousseau hung in Kant's study) and the French Revolution (though not the Terror). He was liberal in his politics and theological lectures although the latter were deemed anti-Lutheran by the Prussian government. In his Perpetual Peace (1795), Kant advocated a world federation of free states.

Etexts
Critique of Judgment (text only)
Critique of Practical Reason (text only)
Critique of Pure Reason (HTML)
Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (PDF)
The Metaphysics of Morals (Introduction)
Perpetual Peace (HTML)
Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (HTML)
Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone (HTML)
The Science of Right
Universal Natural History and Theory of Heaven
What is Enlightenment? (HTML)

Resources
Garth Kemerling's Kant Page
Immanual Kant Information Online
Immanuel Kant: Links
Island of Freedom -- Kant
Kant on the Web

Bibliography

Aquila, Richard E. Matter in Mind: A Study of Kant's Transcendental Deduction. Indiana University Press, 1989.

Cox, J. Gray. The Will at the Crossroads: A Reconstruction of Kant's Moral Philosophy. University Press of America, 1984.

Beck, Lewis White. Kant Studies Today. Open Court, 1969.

Bennett, Jonathan. Kant's Analytic. Cambridge University Press, 1966.

________. Kant's Dialectic. Cambridge University Press, 1974.

Bird, Graham. Kant's Theory of Knowledge. Humanities Press, 1962.

Coleman, Francis X. J. The Harmony of Reason: A Study in Kant's Aesthetics. University of Pittsburgh Press, 1974

Despland, Michael. Kant on History and Religion. McGill-Queen's University Press, 1973.

Dryer, Douglas P. Kant's Solution for Verification in Metaphysics. Allen and Unwin, 1966.

Duncan, A. R. C. Practical Reason and Morality. Nelson, 1957.

Ewing, A. C. A Short Commentary on Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason". Methuen, 1978.

Galston, William A. Kant and the Problem of History. University of Chicago Press, 1975.

Garnett, Christopher Browne. The Kantian Philosophy of Space. Kennikat, 1965.

Gram, Moltke S., ed. Kant: Disputed Questions. Quadrangle, 1967.

Grayeff, Felix. Kant's Theoretical Philosophy. Barnes & Noble, 1970.

Guyer, Paul. Kant and the Experience of Freedom. Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Hartnack, Justus. Kant's Theory of Knowledge. Harcourt, Brace and World, 1967.

Heidegger, Martin. Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. Indiana University Press, 1962.

Hendel, C. W., ed. The Philosophy of Kant and Our Modern World. Liberal Arts, 1957.

Hoffe, Otfried. Immanuel Kant. State University of New York Press, 1994.

Hutchings, Patricia A. E. Kant on Absolute Value. Wayne State University Press, 1972.

Jones, Hardy E. Kant's Principle of Personality. University of Wisconsin Press, 1971.

Kemal, Salim. Kant's Aesthetic Theory: An Introduction. St. Martin's Press, 1992.

Kitcher, Patricia. Kant's Transcendental Psychology. Oxford University Press, 1990.

Körner, S. Kant. Penguin, 1955.

Martin, Gottfried. Kant's Metaphysics and Theory of Science. Manchester University Press, 1974.

Milmed, Bella K. Kant and Current Philosophical Issues. New York University Press, 1961.

Nikam, N. A. Sense, Understanding and Reason. Asia Publishing House, 1966.

O'Neill, Onora. Constructions of Reason: Explorations of Kant's Practical Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Paton, Herbert James. Kant's Metaphysic of Experience. Humanities Press, 1961.

Rotenstreich, Nathan. Experience and Its Systematization. Martinus Nijhoff, 1965.

Saner, Hans. Kant's Political Thought. University of Chicago Press, 1973.

Smith, Alic Halford. Kantian Studies. Greenwood Press, 1974.

Smith, Norman Kemp. Commentary to Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason''. Humanities Press, 1962.

Strawson, P. F. The Bounds of Sense: An Essay on Kant's " Critique of Pure Reason". Methuen, 1966.

Ward, Keith. The Development of Kant's View of Ethics. Humanities Press, 1972.

Vleeschauwer, H. J. The Development of Kantian Thought. Nelson, 1962.

Watson, John. The Philosophy of Kant Explained. Garland, 1976.

Wolf, R. P., ed. Kant. Doubleday, 1967.

Zammito, John. The Genesis of Kant's Critique of Judgment. University of Chicago Press, 1992.

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