Immanuel Kant
Philosopher of the Enlightenment
About
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) spent his entire life in Königsberg, Prussia, teaching at its university and becoming its Full Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in 1770. His mature philosophy unfolds across three Critiques: the Critique of Pure Reason (1781) argues for a 'Copernican revolution' in which objects of experience conform to the mind's own forms of intuition rather than the mind passively mirroring an external world, leaving us knowledge only of appearances (phenomena) and not of things as they are in themselves (noumena). The Critique of Practical Reason (1788) grounds morality in reason, and the Critique of Judgment (1790) turns to aesthetics, arguing that judgments of beauty rest on a 'disinterested' pleasure — one detached from personal desire or use — that nonetheless claims universal assent from others. Famously disciplined in his habits, Kant reshaped nearly every subsequent branch of philosophy from a single, systematic body of work.
Key Contributions
- Argued for a 'Copernican revolution' in philosophy: objects of experience conform to the mind's forms of intuition, not vice versa
- Distinguished phenomena (appearances we can know) from noumena, or the thing-in-itself (which remains unknowable), in the Critique of Pure Reason (1781)
- Grounded moral philosophy in practical reason in the Critique of Practical Reason (1788)
- Argued in the Critique of Judgment (1790) that beauty is felt as disinterested pleasure that nonetheless claims universal assent
- Held the chair of Logic and Metaphysics at the University of Königsberg for the whole of his career
