Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

Immanuel Kant is one of the most important philosophers of Western tradition, and among the most systematics. He is best known for his transcendental philosophy, which he viewed as a revolution for the humanities comparable to the one brought forth by Copernicus in the sciences. He authored a vast number of texts, including the three critiques: Critique of Pure Reason(first published in 1781, then in a revised version in 1787), Critique of Practical Reason(1788), Critique of Judgment(1790). An innovator, among other things Kant is also considered a prominent voice for the advocates of human rights.

Kant lives most of his life in the same town, Königsberg. The town is today called Kaliningrad and is part of Russia, but in 1724 (the year Kant was born) it was part of Prussia, a German state. This is why Kant spoke and wrote in German. He was born out of two modest parents, who embraced Pietism (an evangelical Lutheran movement). He attended Pietist school and the local university. When still young, Kant firmly reacted against his religious upbringing. Upon finishing his studies, he worked for six years as private tutor, until 1754, when he started lecturing at his alma mater. It should be noted, however, that for his first fifteen years Kant did not receive a salary for his work as a lecturer, being hired to a permanent position only in 1770. He kept the job till retirement in 1796.

Kant authored some tens of works, addressing key questions in all areas of philosophy, from metaphysics and epistemology to ethics, political philosophy, and aesthetics.

A breaking point of his career is considered the year 1769, when his thinking started revolving around a revolutionary idea.

Kant’s philosophy is remarkable for the importance he assigns to human cognition. Till him, all philosophers had assumed that the possibility of knowledge (including philosophical knowledge) revolves around the world; that is, the world comes with its own structure and to know something about the world is to get that external structure right. Slowly during his life, Kant realized that matters stand exactly the other way round: the structure that philosophers have sought to attribute to the world is rather the reflex of the very organization of human cognition.

For example, if our experiences are organized according to spatial and temporal coordinates, it is because we cannot but think of those experiences as taking place in space and time; that does not mean that the external existence of space and time have to be proved: there is no such proof to be offered, because it is utterly impossible to think of an experience of an object which does not take place at some space or some time.

This is, in a nutshell, Kant’s "Copernican revolution" in philosophy. And indeed, it was a revolution that he applied to all aspects of philosophical thinking. Among its chief consequences is the fact that all humans share the same form of cognitive structure; this is what Kant referred to as the transcendental form of all cognition, because it transcends (it is independent of and common to) any specific act of cognition. The goal of philosophy is to uncover the transcendental structure of cognition, so to unveil the commonalities of all rational beings. This is why Kant’s philosophy is central for the defense of human rights. And, this is how Kant purported to have dissolved the challenges to philosophy posed by skepticism, most notably by David Hume (1711-1776).

Kant’s influence on the development of philosophy was nearly instantaneous and it is hard to overestimate. To offer just one example, German idealism, most notably the work of Schelling and Hegel, is a response to Kant’s philosophical work.

"Kant" at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant/

A comprehensive list of resources about Kant on the web:
http://www.hkbu.edu.hk/%7Eppp/Kant.html

The North American Kant Society:
http://northamericankantsociety.onefireplace.org/