Immanuel Kant
1724 – 1804 German philosopher
The philosopher who reshaped how we think about knowledge and morality.
- Religion
- Raised a Pietist Lutheran, he replaced dogma with a rational, moral faith and argued that God cannot be proved by pure reason.
- Affiliations
- Professor at the University of Konigsberg. No secret society.
Kant argued that the mind actively shapes experience, so we know the world only as it appears to us, not as it is in itself. His moral philosophy grounded duty in the categorical imperative, acting only as we could will everyone to act. His critical philosophy remade the whole field.
Connections
- influenced David Hume — Kant said Hume woke him from his dogmatic slumber.
- influenced Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel — Hegel built on and challenged Kant's idealism.
- influenced John Locke — Kant responded to the empiricist tradition Locke began.