Immanuel Kant Biography

Immanuel Kant was born in East Prussia, in the city of Konigsberg, on April 22, 1724, where he spent his entire life. Kant was a philosopher and professor dedicated to teaching and study. He is the first and most important representative of the criticism and precursor of the German idealism. Also, he is considered one of the most influential thinkers of Modern Europe and universal philosophy. His real name according to his baptism is Emmanuel, but when he learned Hebrew he changed it to Immanuel. Immanuel was the fourth son of nine brothers. In his youth, he was a persevering student, and that will lead him in 1740 to enter the University of Konigsberg as a student of Theology and was a student of Martin Knutzen, who introduced him to the philosophy of Leibniz and Wolff and instilled interest in natural science in particular, by Newton’s mechanics.

After his father died in 1746, Kant would interrupt his studies and became a private tutor in the towns surrounding his hometown.

Kant’s philosophy does not deny the existence of God, nor a moral order, nor the thinkable reality of a physical world. What he denies is that human reason can transcend and reach those entities in themselves: be the “world”, “God” or the “soul”. In addition, Kant set the idea that the world, the sun, and all the planets are complementary to each other.

In 1749, he published his first philosophical work called: Meditations on the true estimation of living forces. His work is vast and complex and in it converges the great currents of the seventeenth century, rationalism, and empiricism. He was the founder of German Classical Idealism, his main philosophical works were: Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason and Critique of Judgment.

The Kantianism also denominated Criticism, is one of the main philosophical currents of the contemporary time, it has brought up several contradictory tendencies such as German Idealism, Irrationalism, and Positivism.

Kant is the author of an essay on the origin of the solar system. He also points out that the only source of knowledge is experience and sensations, but then he affirms that space, time and causal connections are clear categories of a priori; again the ambivalence Materialism-Idealism is presented.

At 46 years of age, Kant was a well-known Scholar and an increasingly influential philosopher, much was expected of him.

In response to a letter from Markus Hers, his student, Kant came to know that in the Inaugural Dissertation he failed to explain the relationship and connection between our intellectual and sensitive faculties, he also acknowledged that David Hume woke him up from the dogmatic dream. Kant would not public any philosophic work for eleven years.

In 1781, Kant published “Critique of Pure Reason” which is recognized as one of the greatest works in the history of philosophy. Six years later, in 1787, Kant published a second edition of the “Critique of Pure Reason” with many modifications in the first parts of the book. Most of his later works focused on other parts of philosophy, he also wrote several popular essays on religion, politics and other subjects. These works were received by the contemporaries of Kant and confirmed their priority position in the philosophy of the eighteenth century.

Immanuel Kant died on February 12, 1804, in the residence of his hometown, at the age of 79 years.

 

WORKS

Pre-critical period

• 1749 “Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces”.
• 1755 “Brief Outline of Certain Meditations on Fire”
• 1755 “Universal Natural History and Theory of Heaven”.
• 1755 “A New Elucidation of the First Principles of Metaphysical Cognition”.
• 1762 “The False Subtlety of the Four Syllogistic Figures
  ”.
• 1762 “The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God”.
• 1764 “Inquiry Concerning the Distinctness of the Principles of Natural Theology and Morality”.
• 1764 “Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime”.
• 1766 “Dreams of a Spirit-Seer”.
• 1770 “Dissertation on the Form and Principles of the Sensible and the Intelligible World”

 

critical period

• 1787 “Second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason”
• 1788 “Critique of Practical Reason”
• 1790 “Critique of Judgment”
• 1793 “Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone”
• 1793 “On the Old Saw: That may be right in theory, but it won’t work in practice”
• 1795 “Perpetual Peace”
• 1797 “Metaphysics of Morals”
• 1798 “Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View “
• 1798 “The Contest of Faculties”
• 1800 “Logic”
• 1803 “On Pedagogy”
• 1804 “Opus Postumum”
• 1817 “Lectures on Philosophical Theology”

 

QUOTES

• “The wise mandoubts often, and changes his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubts not; he knows all things but his own ignorance”.
• “Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination”
• “Patience is the strength of the weak, impatience is the weakness of the strong”.
• “All our knowledgebegins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason”.