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Name:
Immanuel Kant
Dates:
Born: April 22, 1724 in Konigsberg, Prussia
Died: February 12, 1804
Biography:
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher who was responsible for much of what
has developed in modern philosophy. His primary focus was to counter the skeptical
arguments created by David Hume and thus provide a sounder basis for human
knowledge.
According to Kant, knowledge is possible because of the activity of the human mind. In essence, our minds impose form and structure on the information which our brains receive. Because it is we who cause our experiences to be coherent, it is possible for us to create synthetic, a priori judgments and these judgments allow for interesting forms of knowledge.
However, such knowledge can only be applied to the "world as we know it." Thus, we can only have knowledge of things as we understand them, not as they are in an of themselves. This distinction between a thing "as we know it" and the "thing-in-itself" is crucial.
One consequence of Kant's insistence that we can only have knowledge of those things which are part of our experiential world was that we could have no knowledge of God because, by definition, God is beyond experience. Nevertheless, he argued that we had to postulate the existence of God because, otherwise, it wasn't possible to make any sense out of science or morality.
Major Works:
The Critique of Pure Reason (1781)
Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals (1785)
Critique of Practical Reason (1788)
Critique of Judgement (1790)
Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1786)
Religion within the Bounds of Reason Alone (1793)
Also Known As: none
Alternate Spellings: none
Common Misspellings: none
Related Resources:
Biographies of Philosophers
This index of biographical index of famous philosophers throughout history includes many others who have contributed to our understanding of human nature and life - including sociologists, psychologists, scientists, and more.What is Philosophy?
What is philosophy? Is there any point in studying philosophy, or is it a useless subject? What are the different branches of philosophy - what's the difference between aestheitcs and ethics? What's the difference between metaphysics and epistemology?
