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Immanuel KantGerman philosopher  

Main

 born April 22, 1724, Königsberg, Prussia [now Kaliningrad, Russia] died February 12,

1804, Königsberg

German philosopher whose comprehensive and systematic work in the

theory of knowledge, ethics, and aesthetics greatly influenced all subsequent

 philosophy, especially the various schools of  Kantianism and Idealism.

Kant was the foremost thinker of the Enlightenment and one of the greatest

 philosophers of all time. In him were subsumed new trends that had begun with the

Rationalism (stressing reason) of René Descartes and the Empiricism (stressing

experience) of Francis Bacon. He thus inaugurated a new era in the development of 

 philosophical thought.

Background and early years

Kant lived in the remote province where he was born for his entire life. His father, a

saddler, was, according to Kant, a descendant of a Scottish immigrant, although scholars

have found no basis for this claim; his mother, an uneducated German woman, was

remarkable for her character and natural intelligence. Both parents were devoted

followers of the Pietist branch of the Lutheran Church, which taught that religion

 belongs to the inner life expressed in simplicity and obedience to moral law. The

influence of their pastor made it possible for Kant—the fourth of nine children, but the

eldest surviving child—to obtain an education.

At the age of eight Kant entered the Pietist school that his pastor directed. This was a

Latin school, and it was presumably during the eight and a half years he was there thatKant acquired his lifelong love for the Latin classics, especially for the naturalistic poet

Lucretius. In 1740 he enrolled in the University of Königsberg as a theological student.

But, although he attended courses in theology and even preached on a few occasions, he

was principally attracted to mathematics and  physics. Aided by a young professor who

had studied Christian Wolff , a systematizer of Rationalist philosophy, and who was also

an enthusiast for the science of Sir Isaac Newton, Kant began reading the work of the

English physicist and, in 1744, started his first book, dealing with a problem concerning

kinetic forces. Though by that time he had decided to pursue an academic career, the

death of his father in 1746 and his failure to obtain the post of undertutor in one of the

schools attached to the university compelled him to withdraw and seek a means of 

supporting himself.

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Background and early years » Tutor and Privatdozent

He found employment as a family tutor and, during the nine years that he gave to it,

worked for three different families. With them he was introduced to the influential

society of the city, acquired social grace, and made his farthest travels from his native

city—some 60 miles (96 kilometres) away to the town of Arnsdorf. In 1755, aided bythe kindness of a friend, he was able to complete his degree at the university and take up

the position of  Privatdozent , or lecturer.

Three dissertations that he presented on obtaining this post indicate the interest and

direction of his thought at this time. In one, De Igne (On Fire), he argued that bodies

operate on one another through the medium of a uniformly diffused elastic and subtle

matter that is the underlying substance of both heat and light. His first teaching was in

mathematics and physics, and he was never to lose his interest in scientific

developments. That it was more than an amateur interest is shown by his publication

within the next few years of several scientific works dealing with the different races of 

men, the nature of winds, the causes of earthquakes, and the general theory of theheavens.

At this period Newtonian physics was important to Kant as much for its philosophical

implications as for its scientific content. A second dissertation, the Monodologia physica (1756), contrasted the Newtonian methods of thinking with those employed in

the philosophy then prevailing in German universities. This was the philosophy of 

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, a universal scholar, as systematized and popularized by

Wolff and by Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, author of a widely used text, the

 Metaphysica (1739). Leibniz’ works as they are now known were not fully available to

these writers; and the Leibnizian philosophy that they presented was extravagantly

Rationalistic, abstract, and cut-and-dried. It nevertheless remained a powerful force, and

the main efforts of independent thinkers in Germany at the time were devoted to

examining Leibniz’s ideas.

In a third dissertation, Principiorum Primorum Cognitionis Metaphysicae Nova Dilucidato (1755), on the first principles of metaphysics, Kant analyzed especially the

 principle of sufficient reason, which, in Wolff’s formulation, asserts that for everything

there is a sufficient reason why it should be rather than not be. Although critical, Kant

was cautious and still a long way from challenging the assumptions of Leibnizian

metaphysics.

During the 15 years that he spent as a Privatdozent , Kant’s renown as a teacher and

writer steadily increased. Soon he was lecturing on many subjects other than physics

and mathematics—including logic, metaphysics, and moral philosophy. He even

lectured on fireworks and fortifications and every summer for 30 years taught a popular 

course on physical geography. He enjoyed great success as a lecturer; his lecturing

style, which differed markedly from that of his books, was humorous and vivid,

enlivened by many examples from his reading in English and French literature, and in

travel and geography, science and philosophy.

Although he twice failed to obtain a professorship at Königsberg, he refused to accept

offers that would have taken him elsewhere—including the professorship of poetry at

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Berlin that would have brought greater prestige. He preferred the peace and quiet of his

native city in which to develop and mature his own philosophy.

Background and early years » Critic of Leibnizian Rationalism

During the 1760s he became increasingly critical of Leibnizianism. According to one of his students, Kant was then attacking Leibniz, Wolff, and Baumgarten, was a declared

follower of Newton, and expressed great admiration for the moral philosophy of the

Romanticist Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

His principal work of this period was Untersuchung über die Deutlichkeit der Grundsätze der natürlichen Theologie und der Moral (1764; “An Inquiry into the

Distinctness of the Fundamental Principles of Natural Theology and Morals”). In this

work he attacked the claim of Leibnizian philosophy that philosophy should model

itself on mathematics and aim at constructing a chain of demonstrated truths based on

self-evident premises. Kant argued that mathematics proceeds from definitions that are

arbitrary, by means of operations that are clearly and sharply defined, upon conceptsthat can be exhibited in concrete form. In contrast with this method, he argued that

 philosophy must begin with concepts that are already given, “though confusedly or 

insufficiently determined,” so that philosophers cannot begin with definitions without

thereby shutting themselves up within a circle of words. Philosophy cannot, like

mathematics, proceed synthetically; it must analyze and clarify. The importance of the

moral order, which he had learned from Rousseau, reinforced the conviction received

from his study of Newton that a synthetic philosophy is empty and false.

Besides attacking the methods of the Leibnizians, he also began criticizing their leading

ideas. In an essay Versuch, den Begriff der negativen Grössen in die Weltweisheit ein- zuführen (1763), he argued that physical opposition as encountered in things cannot be

reduced to logical contradiction, in which the same predicate is both affirmed and

denied, and, hence, that it is pointless to reduce causality to the logical relation of 

antecedent and consequent. In an essay of the same year,  Der einzig mögliche Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstration des Daseyns Gottes, he sharply criticized the

Leibnizian concept of Being by charging that the so-called ontological argument, which

would prove the existence of God by logic alone, is fallacious because it confuses

existential with attributive statements: existence, he declared, is not a predicate of 

attribution. Moreover, with regard to the nature of space, Kant sided with Newton in his

confrontation with Leibniz. Leibniz’ view that space is “an order of co-existences” and

that spatial differences can be stated in conceptual terms, he concluded to be untenable.

Some indication of a possible alternative of Kant’s own to the Leibnizian position can

 be gathered from his curious Träume eines Geistersehers erläutert durch Träume der  Metaphysik (1766). This work is an examination of the whole notion of a world of 

spirits, in the context of an inquiry into the spiritualist claims of Emanuel Swedenborg,

a scientist and biblical scholar. Kant’s position at first seems to have been completely

skeptical, and the influence of the Scottish Skeptic David Hume is more apparent here

than in any previous work; it was Hume, he later claimed, who first awoke him from his

dogmatic slumbers. Yet Kant was not so much arguing that the notion of a world of 

spirits is illusory as insisting that men have no insight into the nature of such a world, a

conclusion that has devastating implications for metaphysics as the Leibniziansconceived it. Metaphysicians can dream as well as spiritualists, but this is not to say that

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their dreams are necessarily empty; there are already hints that moral experience can

give content to the ideal of an “intelligible world.” Rousseau thus acted upon Kant here

as a counterinfluence to Hume.

Background and early years » Early years of the professorship at Königsberg

Finally, in 1770, after serving for 15 years as a Privatdozent , Kant was appointed to the

chair of logic and metaphysics, a position in which he remained active until a few years

 before his death. In this period—usually called his critical period, because in it he wrote

his great Critiques —he published an astounding series of original works on a wide

variety of topics, in which he elaborated and expounded his philosophy.

The Inaugural Dissertation of 1770 that he delivered on assuming his new position

already contained many of the important elements of his mature philosophy. As

indicated in its title, De Mundi Sensibilis atque Intelligibilis Forma et Principiis: Dissertatio, the implicit dualism of the Träume is made explicit; and it is made so on the

 basis of a wholly un-Leibnizian interpretation of the distinction between sense andunderstanding. Sense is not, as Leibniz had supposed, a confused form of thinking but a

source of knowledge in its own right, although the objects so known are still only

“appearances”—the term that Leibniz also used. They are appearances because all

sensing is conditioned by the presence, in sensibility, of the forms of time and space,

which are not objective characteristics or frameworks of things but “pure intuitions.”

But though all knowledge of things sensible is thus of   phenomena, it does not follow

that nothing is known of things as they are in themselves. Certainly, man has no

intuition, or direct insight, into an intelligible world; but the presence in him of certain

“pure intellectual concepts, such as those of possibility, existence, necessity, substance,

cause, enables him to have some descriptive knowledge of it. By means of these

concepts he can arrive at an exemplar that provides him with “the common measure of 

all other things as far as real.” This exemplar gives man an idea of perfection for both

the theoretical and practical orders: in the first, it is that of the Supreme Being, God; in

the latter, that of moral perfection.

After the Dissertation, Kant published virtually nothing for 11 years. Yet, in submitting

the Dissertation to a friend at the time of its publication, he wrote:

About a year since I attained that concept which I do not fear ever to be obliged to alter,

though I may have to widen it, and by which all sorts of metaphysical questions can be

tested in accordance with entirely safe and easy criteria, and a sure decision reached asto whether they are soluble or insoluble.

Period of the three “critiques”

In 1781 the Kritik der reinen Vernunft (spelled “Critik” in the first edition; Critique of  Pure Reason) was published, followed for the next nine years by great and original

works that in a short time brought a revolution in philosophical thought and established

the new direction in which it was to go in the years to come.

Period of the three “critiques” » The Critique of Pure Reason

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The Critique of Pure Reason was the result of some 10 years of thinking and

meditation. Yet, even so, Kant published the first edition only reluctantly after many

 postponements; for although convinced of the truth of its doctrine, he was uncertain and

doubtful about its exposition. His misgivings proved well-founded, and Kant

complained that interpreters and critics of the work were badly misunderstanding it. To

correct these wrong interpretations of his thought he wrote the Prolegomena zu einer  jeden künftigen Metaphysik die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können (1783) and

 brought out a second and revised edition of the first “critique” in 1787. Controversy still

continues regarding the merits of the two editions: readers with a preference for an

Idealistic interpretation usually prefer the first edition, whereas those with a Realistic

view adhere to the second. But with regard to difficulty and ease of reading and

understanding, it is generally agreed that there is little to choose between them. Anyone

on first opening either book finds it overwhelmingly difficult and impenetrably obscure.

The cause for this difficulty can be traced in part to the works that Kant took as his

models for philosophical writing. He was the first great modern philosopher to spend all

of his time and efforts as a university professor of the subject. Regulations required thatin all lecturing a certain set of books be used, with the result that all of Kant’s teaching

in philosophy had been based on such handbooks as those of Wolff and Baumgarten,

which abounded in technical jargon, artificial and schematic divisions, and great claims

to completeness. Following their example, Kant accordingly provided a highly artificial,

rigid, and by no means immediately illuminating scaffolding for all three of his

Critiques.

The Critique of Pure Reason, after an introduction, is divided into two parts, of very

different lengths: A “Transcendental Doctrine of Elements,” running to almost 400

 pages in a typical edition, followed by a “Transcendental Doctrine of Method,” which

reaches scarcely 80 pages. The “. . . Elements” deals with the sources of human

knowledge, whereas the “. . . Method” draws up a methodology for the use of “ pure

reason” and its a priori ideas. Both are “transcendental,” in that they are presumed to

analyze the roots of all knowledge and the conditions of all possible experience. The

“Elements” is divided, in turn, into a “Transcendental Aesthetic,” a “Transcendental

Analytic,” and a “Transcendental Dialectic.”

The simplest way of describing the contents of the Critique is to say that it is a treatise

about metaphysics: it seeks to show the impossibility of one sort of metaphysics and to

lay the foundations for another. The Leibnizian metaphysics, the object of his attack, is

criticized for assuming that the human mind can arrive, by pure thought, at truths aboutentities, which, by their very nature, can never be objects of experience, such as God,

human freedom, and immortality. Kant maintained, however, that the mind has no such

 power and that the vaunted metaphysics is thus a sham.

As Kant saw it, the problem of metaphysics, as indeed of any science, is to explain how,

on the one hand, its principles can be necessary and universal (such being a condition

for any knowledge that is scientific) and yet, on the other hand, involve also a

knowledge of the real and so provide the investigator with the possibility of more

knowledge than is analytically contained in what he already knows; i.e., than is implicit

in the meaning alone. To meet these two conditions, Kant maintained, knowledge must

rest on judgments that are a priori, for it is only as they are separate from thecontingencies of experience that they could be necessary and yet also synthetic; i.e., so

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that the predicate term contains something more than is analytically contained in the

subject. Thus, for example, the proposition that all bodies are extended is not synthetic

 but analytic because the notion of extension is contained in the very notion of body;

whereas the proposition that all bodies are heavy is synthetic because weight supposes,

in addition to the notion of body, that of bodies in relation to one another. Hence, the

 basic problem, as Kant formulated it, is to determine “How [i.e., under what conditions]are synthetic a priori judgments possible?”

This problem arises, according to Kant, in three fields, viz., in mathematics, physics,

and metaphysics; and the three main divisions of the first part of the Critique deal

respectively with these. In the “Transcendental Aesthetic,” Kant argued that

mathematics necessarily deals with space and time and then claimed that these are both

a priori forms of human sensibility that condition whatever is apprehended through the

senses. In the “Transcendental Analytic,” the most crucial as well as the most difficult

 part of the book, he maintained that physics is a priori and synthetic because in its

ordering of experience it uses concepts of a special sort. These concepts—“categories,”

he called them—are not so much read out of experience as read into it and, hence, are a priori, or pure, as opposed to empirical. But they differ from empirical concepts in

something more than their origin: their whole role in knowledge is different; for,

whereas empirical concepts serve to correlate particular experiences and so to bring out

in a detailed way how experience is ordered, the categories have the function of 

 prescribing the general form that this detailed order must take. They belong, as it were,

to the very framework of knowledge. But although they are indispensable for objective

knowledge, the sole knowledge that the categories can yield is of objects of possible

experience; they yield valid and real knowledge only when they are ordering what is

given through sense in space and time.

In the “Transcendental Dialectic” Kant turned to consideration of a priori synthetic

 judgments in metaphysics. Here, he claimed, the situation is just the reverse from what

it was in mathematics and physics. Metaphysics cuts itself off from sense experience in

attempting to go beyond it and, for this very reason, fails to attain a single true a priori

synthetic judgment. To justify this claim, Kant analyzed the use that metaphysics makes

of the concept of the unconditioned. Reason, according to Kant, seeks for the

unconditioned or absolute in three distinct spheres: (1) in philosophical psychology it

seeks for an absolute subject of knowledge; (2) in the sphere of cosmology, it seeks for 

an absolute beginning of things in time, for an absolute limit to them in space, and for 

an absolute limit to their divisibility; and (3) in the sphere of  theology, it seeks for an

absolute condition for all things. In each case, Kant claimed to show that the attempt isdoomed to failure by leading to an antinomy in which equally good reasons can be

given for both the affirmative and the negative position. The metaphysical “sciences” of 

rational psychology, rational cosmology, and natural theology, familiar to Kant from the

text of Baumgarten, on which he had to comment in his lectures, thus turn out to be

without foundation.

With this work, Kant proudly asserted that he had accomplished a Copernican

revolution in philosophy. Just as the founder of modern astronomy, Nicolaus

Copernicus, had explained the apparent movements of the stars by ascribing them partly

to the movement of the observers, so Kant had accounted for the application of the

mind’s a priori principles to objects by demonstrating that the objects conform to the

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mind: in knowing, it is not the mind that conforms to things but instead things that

conform to the mind.

Period of the three “critiques” » The Critique of Practical Reason

Because of his insistence on the need for an empirical component in knowledge and hisantipathy to speculative metaphysics, Kant is sometimes presented as a Positivist before

his time; and his attack upon metaphysics was held by many in his own day to bring

 both religion and morality down with it. Such, however, was certainly far from Kant’s

intention. Not only did he propose to put metaphysics “on the sure path of science,” he

was prepared also to say that he “inevitably” believed in the existence of God and in a

future life. It is also true that his original conception of his critical philosophy

anticipated the preparation of a critique of moral philosophy. The Kritik der praktischenVernunft (1788, spelled “Critik” and “practischen”; Critique of Practical Reason), the

result of this intention, is the standard source book for his ethical doctrines. The earlier 

Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (1785) is a shorter and, despite its title, more

readily comprehensible treatment of the same general topic. Both differ from Die Metaphysik der Sitten (1797) in that they deal with pure ethics and try to elucidate basic

 principles; whereas the later work is concerned with applying what they establish in the

concrete, a process that involved the consideration of virtues and vices and the

foundations of law and politics.

There are many points of similarity between Kant’s ethics and his epistemology, or 

theory of knowledge. He used the same scaffolding for both—a “Doctrine of Elements,”

including an “Analytic” and a “Dialectic,” followed by a “Methodology”; but the

second Critique is far shorter and much less complicated. Just as the distinction between

sense and intelligence was fundamental for the former, so is that between the

inclinations and moral reason for the latter. And just as the nature of the human

cognitive situation was elucidated in the first Critique by reference to the hypothetical

notion of an intuitive understanding, so is that of the human moral situation clarified by

reference to the notion of a “holy will.” For a will of this kind there would be no

distinction between reason and inclination; a being possessed of a holy will would

always act as it ought. It would not, however, have the concepts of duty and moral

obligation, which enter only when reason and desire find themselves opposed. In the

case of human beings, the opposition is continuous, for man is at the same time both

flesh and spirit; it is here that the influence of Kant’s religious background is most

 prominent. Hence, the moral life is a continuing struggle in which morality appears to

the potential delinquent in the form of a law that demands to be obeyed for its own sake —a law, however, the commands of which are not issued by some alien authority but

represent the voice of reason, which the moral subject can recognize as his own.

In the “Dialectic,” Kant took up again the ideas of God, freedom, and immortality.

Dismissed in the first Critique as objects that men can never know because they

transcend human sense experience, he now argued that they are essential postulates for 

the moral life. Though not reachable in metaphysics, they are absolutely essential for 

moral philosophy.

Kant is often described as an ethical Rationalist, and the description is not wholly

inappropriate. He never espoused, however, the radical Rationalism of some of hiscontemporaries nor of more recent philosophers for whom reason is held to have direct

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insight into a world of values or the power to intuit the rightness of this or that moral

 principle. Thus, practical, like theoretical, reason was for him formal rather than

material—a framework of formative principles rather than a content of actual rules. This

is why he put such stress on his first formulation of the categorical imperative: “Act

only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a

universal law.” Lacking any insight into the moral realm, men can only ask themselveswhether what they are proposing to do has the formal character of law—the character,

namely, of being the same for all persons similarly circumstanced.

Period of the three “critiques” » The Critique of Judgment

The Kritik der Urteilskraft (1790: spelled “Critik”)—one of the most original and

instructive of all of Kant’s writings—was not foreseen in his original conception of the

critical philosophy. Thus it is perhaps best regarded as a series of appendixes to the

other two Critiques. The work falls into two main parts, called respectively “Critique of 

Aesthetic Judgment” and “Critique of Teleological Judgment.” In the first of these, after 

an introduction in which he discussed “logical purposiveness,” he analyzed the notionof “aesthetic purposiveness” in judgments that ascribe beauty to something. Such a

 judgment, according to him, unlike a mere expression of taste, lays claim to general

validity; yet it cannot be said to be cognitive because it rests on feeling, not on

argument. The explanation lies in the fact that, when a person contemplates an object

and finds it beautiful, there is a certain harmony between his imagination and his

understanding, of which he is aware from the immediate delight that he takes in the

object. Imagination grasps the object and yet is not restricted to any definite concept;

whereas a person imputes the delight that he feels to others because it springs from the

free play of his cognitive faculties, which are the same in all men.

In the second part, Kant turned to consider teleology in nature as it is posed by the

existence in organic bodies of things of which the parts are reciprocally means and ends

to each other. In dealing with these bodies, one cannot be content with merely

mechanical principles. Yet if mechanism is abandoned and the notion of a purpose or 

end of nature is taken literally, this seems to imply that the things to which it applies

must be the work of some supernatural designer; but this would mean a passing from

the sensible to the suprasensible, a step proved in the first Critique to be impossible.

Kant answered this objection by admitting that teleological language cannot be avoided

in taking account of natural phenomena; but it must be understood as meaning only that

organisms must be thought of “as if” they were the product of design, and that is by no

means the same as saying that they are deliberately produced.

Last years

The critical philosophy was soon being taught in every important German-speaking

university, and young men flocked to Königsberg as a shrine of philosophy. In some

cases, the Prussian government even undertook the expense of their support. Kant came

to be consulted as an oracle on all kinds of questions, including such subjects as the

lawfulness of vaccination. Such homage did not interrupt Kant’s regular habits.

Scarcely five feet tall, with a deformed chest, and suffering from weak health, he

maintained throughout his life a severe regimen. It was arranged with such regularity

that people set their clocks according to his daily walk along the street named for him,“The Philosopher’s Walk.” Until old age prevented him, he is said to have missed this

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regular appearance only on the occasion when Rousseau’s Émile so engrossed him that

for several days he stayed at home.

With the publication of the third Critique, Kant’s main philosophical work was done.

From 1790 his health began to decline seriously. He still had many literary projects but

found it impossible to write more than a few hours a day. The writings that he thencompleted consist partly of an elaboration of subjects not previously treated in any

detail, partly of replies to criticisms and to the clarification of misunderstandings. With

the publication in 1793 of his work  Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossenVernunft , Kant became involved in a dispute with Prussian authorities on the right to

express religious opinions. The book was found to be altogether too Rationalistic for 

orthordox taste; he was charged with misusing his philosophy to the “distortion and

depreciation of many leading and fundamental doctrines of sacred Scripture and

Christianity” and was required by the government not to lecture or write anything

further on religious subjects. Kant agreed but privately interpreted the ban as a personal

 promise to the King, from which he felt himself to be released on the latter’s death in

1797. At any rate, he returned to the forbidden subject in his last major essay,  Der Streit der Fakultäten (1798; “The Conflict of the Faculties”).

The large work at which he laboured until his death—the fragments of which fill the

two final volumes of the great Berlin edition of his works—was evidently intended to

 be a major contribution to his critical philosophy. What remains, however, is not so

much an unfinished work as a series of notes for a work that was never written. Its

original title was Übergang von den metaphysische Anfangsgründe der  Naturwissenschaft zur Physik (“Transition from the Metaphysical Foundations of 

 Natural Science to Physics”), and it may have been his intention to carry further the

argument advanced in the Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft (1786)

 by showing that it is possible to construct a priori not merely the general outline of a

science of nature but a good many of its details as well. But judging from the extant

fragments, however numerous they are, it remains conjectural whether its completion

would have constituted a major addition to his philosophy and its reputation.

After a gradual decline that was painful to his friends as well as to himself, Kant died in

Königsberg, February 12, 1804. His last words were “Es ist gut” (“It is good”). His

tomb in the cathedral was inscribed with the words (in German) “The starry heavens

above me and the moral law within me,” the two things that he declared in the

conclusion of the second Critique “fill the mind with ever new and increasing

admiration and awe, the oftener and the more steadily we reflect on.”

Otto Allen Bird

Major Works

Pre-critical writings

Gedanken von der wahren Schätzung der lebendigen Kräfte und Beurteilung der  Beweise derer sich Herr von Leibniz und anderer Mechaniker in dieser Streitsachebedient haben (1746); Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels (1755;

 Kant’s Cosmogony . . . , 1900 and 1968; Universal Natural History and Theories of the

 Heavens, 1969); Principiorum Primorum Cognitionis Metaphysicae Nova Dilucidatio(1755; Eng. trans. by F.E. England in Kant’s Conception of God , 1929); Metaphysicae

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cum geometria iunctae usus in philosophia naturali, cuius specimen I. continet  Monadologiam physicam (1756); Versuch einiger Betrachtungen über den Optimismus(1759); Die falsche Spitzfindigkeit der vier syllogistischen Figurerewiesen (1762; trans.

in Kant’s Introduction to Logic and His Essay on the Mistaken Subtilty of the Four  Figures, 1963); Der einzige mögliche Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstration des

 Daseyns Gottes (1763; Enquiry into the Proofs for the Existence of God , 1836);Versuch, den Begriff der negativen Grössen in die Weltweisheit einzuführen (1763; An

 Attempt to Introduce the Conception of Negative Quantities into Philosophy, 1911);

Untersuchung über die Deutlichkeit der Grundsätze der natürlichen Theologie und der  Moral (1764); Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen (1764,

1766, 1771; Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, 1960); Träumeeines Geistersehers erläutert durch Träume der Metaphysik (1766; Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, Illustrated by Dreams of Metaphysics, 1900; Dreams of a Spirit Seer, and Other 

 Related Writings, 1969); De Mundi Sensibilis atque Intelligibilis Forma et Principiis: Dissertatio (1770; Kant’s Inaugural Dissertation and Early Writings on Space, 1929);

Von den Verschiedenen Racen der Menschen (1775).

Critical and post-critical writings

Critik der reinen Vernunft (1781; rev. ed., Kritik der reinen Vernunft , 1787; Critique of  Pure Reason, 1929, 1950); Prolegomena zur einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik die alsWissenschaft wird auftreten können (1783; Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics,

1951); Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (1785; The Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Ethics, 1938; The Moral Law; or, Kant’s Groundwork of the

 Metaphysic of Morals, 1948; Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, 1969);

 Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft (1786; Metaphysical Foundationsof Natural Science, 1970); Critik der practischen Vernunft (1788; Critique of Practical 

 Reason, 1949); Critik der Urteilskraft (1790, 2nd ed. 1793; Kant’s Kritik of Judgment ,1892, reprinted as Kant’s Critique . . ., 1914; new version, Critique . . ., vol. 1, Kant’sCritique of Aesthetic Judgment and vol. 2, Critique of Teleological Judgment , 1911–28,

republished 1952); Über eine Entdeckung, nach der alle neu Critik der reinen Vernunft durch eine ältere entbehrlich gemacht werden soll (1790; 2nd ed., 1791); Die Religioninnerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft (1793; 2nd ed., 4 pt., 1794; ReligionWithin the Boundary of Pure Reason, 1838; Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone,

2nd ed., 1960); Zum ewigen Frieden (1795; 2nd ed., 1796; Project for a Perpetual  Peace, 1796, many later editions called Perpetual Peace; 1915 ed. reprinted 1972); Die Metaphysik der Sitten (1797; 2nd ed., 1798–1803; The Metaphysic of Morals, 2 vol.,

1799 and 1965; The Metaphysic of Ethics, 1836), comprising Metaphysische

 Anfangsgründe der Rechtslehre (The Philosophy of Law, 1887) and Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Tugendlehre (The Doctrine of Virtue, 1964); Der Streit der  Facultäten (1798); Von der Macht des Gemüths durch den blossen Vorsatz seiner krankhaften Gefühle Meister zu seyn (1798; Kant on the Art of Preventing Diseases,1806); Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht abgefasst (1798; improved ed., 1800;

The Classification of Mental Disorders, 1964); Immanuel Kants Physische Geographie,

3 vol. in 6 pt., 1801–04); I. Kants Logik: Ein Handbuch zu Vorlesungen (1800; Logic,

1819); Immanuel Kant über Pädagogik (1803; Kant on Education, 1899; The Educational Theory of Immanuel Kant , 1904; Education, 1960); Welches sind diewirklichen Fortschritte, die Metaphysik seit Leibnizens und Wolf’s Zeiten in

 Deutschland gemacht hat? (1804).

Editions

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The standard edition of Kant’s works is that of the Berlin Academy (later the DDR 

Academy), Gesammelte Schriften ), 29 vol. by 1980, which  (1902– contains Kant’s

lectures, correspondence, and literary remains as well as his published writings. There

are also modern collected editions by Ernst Cassirer, 11 vol. (1912–23); and by Karl

Vorländer, 10 vol. (1920–29). A convenient edition of the Critique of Pure Reason is

that by Raymond Schmidt (1926).

Additional Reading » Biography

The main sources for Kant’s life are three memoirs published in 1804: Ludwig Ernest

Borowski, Darstellung des Lebens und Charakters Immanuel Kants (reprinted 1968);

Reinhold B. Jachmann, Immanuel Kant geschildert in Briefen an einen Freund (reprinted 1968); and Christoph Wasianski, Immanuel Kant in seinen letzten

 Lebensjahren (the basis of Thomas De Quincey’s “The Last Days of Kant” included in

his Works). See also John H.W. Stuckenberg, The Life of Immanuel Kant (1882);

Friedrich Paulsen, Immanuel Kant: His Life and Doctrine (1902, reissued 1963;

originally published in German, 1898); Ernst Cassirer, Kant’s Life and Thought (1981;trans. of 2nd German ed., 1921); and Karl Vorländer, Immanuel Kants Leben, 3rd ed.

(1974), and Immanuel Kant: Der Mann und das Werk , 2 vol. (1924, reissued 1977).

Additional Reading » Aids to study

Rudolf Eisler, Kant-lexicon (1930, reprinted 1971); Heinrich Ratke, Systematisches Handlexikon zu Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1929, reprinted 1965).

Additional Reading » General works

The best introduction is Stephan Körner, Kant (1955, reissued 1982). See also Edward

Caird, The Critical Philosophy of Immanuel Kant , 2 vol. (1889, reprinted 1969); Kuno

Fischer, Kants Leben und die Grundlagen seiner Lehre (1860); Alois Riehl, Der  philosophische Kriticismus . . . , 3rd ed., 3 vol. (1924–26); Bruno Bauch, Immanuel  Kant , 4th ed. (1933), in German; Henrich Rickert, Kant als Philosoph der modernen Kultur (1924); Max Wundt, Kant als Metaphysiker (1924); Martin Heidegger, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics (1962, reissued 1972; originally published in German,

1929); Herman J. de Vleeschauwer, La Déduction transcendentale dans l’oeuvre de Kant , 3 vol. (1934, reissued 1976), and L’Évolution de la pensée kantienne (1939);

Pantaleo Carabellese, Il problema della filosofia in Kant (1938); Gottfried Martin,

 Kant’s Metaphysics and Theory of Science (1955, reissued 1974; originally published in

German, 1951); Heinz Heimsoeth, Studien zur Philosophie Immanuel Kants, 2nd ed.(1971); Richard Kroner, Kant’s Weltanschauung (1956; originally published in German,

1914); Friedrich Delekat, Immanuel Kant , 3rd ed. (1969), in German.

Additional Reading » Precritical writings

Mariano Campo, La genesi del criticismo kantiano (1953); Giorgio Tonelli, Elementimetodologici e metafisici in Kant dal 1745 al 1768 (1969), in German.

Additional Reading » The “Critique of Pure Reason”

 Norman Kemp Smith, A Commentary to Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason,” 2nd ed. rev.

(1923, reissued 1979); Herbert J. Paton, Kant’s Metaphysic of Experience, 2 vol.(1936); Alfred C. Ewing, A Short Commentary on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason

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(1938, reprinted 1974); Thomas D. Weldon, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, 2nd ed.

(1958); Hermann Cohen, Kants Theorie der Erfahrung , 4th ed. (1925), and Kommentar  zu Immanuel Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft , 4th ed. (1925); Hans Vaihinger,

 Kommentar zu Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft , 2nd ed., 2 vol. (1922, reissued 1970);

Heinz Heimsoeth, Transzendentale Dialektik , 3rd vol. (1966–69). See also Graham

Bird, Kant’s Theory of Knowledge (1962, reissued 1973); Peter F. Strawson, The Bounds of Sense (1966, reissued 1975).

Additional Reading » Ethical writings

Jeffirie G. Murphy, Kant: The Philosophy of Right (1970); Paul A. Schilpp, Kant’s Pre-Critical Ethics, 2nd ed. (1960, reprinted 1977); Herbert J. Paton, The Categorical 

 Imperative (1947, reissued 1971); Orna Nell, Acting on Principle: An Essay on Kantian Ethics (1975); Viggo Rossvaer, Kant’s Moral Philosophy: An Interpretation of theCategorical Imperative (1979); Lewis W. Beck, A Commentary on Kant’s Critique of 

 Practical Reason (1960); A.E. Teale, Kantian Ethics (1951, reprinted 1975); William

D. Ross, Kant’s Ethical Theory (1954, reprinted 1978); Hermann Cohen, Kants Begründung der Ethik , 2nd ed. (1910); Max Scheler, Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik , 6th ed. (1980). See also Paul Menzer’s ed. of  Eine Vorlesung 

 Kants über Ethik (1924; Eng. trans., Lectures on Ethics by Immanuel Kant , (1930);

Morris Stockhammer, Kants Zurechnungsidee und Freitheitsantinomie (1961); Henrich

W. Cassirer, A Commentary on Kant’s Critique of Judgement (1938, reprinted 1970);

Alfred Baeumler, Kants Kritik der Urteilskraft (1923).

Additional Reading » Particular problems

(Science): Erich Adickes, Kant als Naturforscher , 2 vol. (1924–25); Jules Vuillemin,

 Physique et métaphysique kantiennes (1955). (Ontology): Christopher B. Garnett, The Kantian Philosophy of Space (1939, reprinted 1965); Martin Heidegger, Kants Theseüber das Sein (1963), and What Is a Thing? (1968; originally published in German,

1962). ( Philosophy of history): Yirmiahu Yovel, Kant and the Philosophy of History(1980); Klaus Weyand, Kants Beschichtsphilosophie: Ihre Entwicklung und ihr Verhältnis zur Aufklärung (1963). ( Political philosophy): Susan M. Shell, The Rights of 

 Reason: A Study of Kant’s Philosophy and Politics (1980); Georges Vlachos, La Pensée politique de Kant (1962). ( Religion): Clement C.J. Webb, Kant’s Philosophy of  Religion (1926, reprinted 1970); Josef Bohatec, Die Religionsphilosophie Kants . . .(1938, reprinted 1966); Allan W. Wood, Kant’s Rational Theology (1978).

(Comparative studies): Johannes B. Lotz (ed.), Kant und die Scholastik heute (1955);

Karl Jaspers, Die grossen Philosophen, 2 vol. (1957–81; abridged Eng. trans., TheGreat Philosophers, ed. by Hannah Arendt, 1966). ( Aesthetics): Donald W. Crawford,

 Kant’s Aesthetic Theory (1974); Paul Guyer, Kant and the Claims of Taste (1979).

Additional Reading » Opus postumum

Erich Adickes, Kants Opus Postumum (1920, reprinted 1978); Gerhard Lehmann, Kants Nachiasswerk und die Kritik der Urteilskraft (1939).

Additional Reading » Journals

Many important works of Kantian scholarship have been published in the periodical

 Kant-studien (quarterly).

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Related Links

Aspects of this topic are discussed in the following places at Britannica.

Assorted References

• association with Albertus University of Königsberg ( in Königsberg, Albertus

University of )

• correspondence with Lambert ( in Lambert, Johann Heinrich )

• history of logic ( in logic, history of: Other 18th-century logicians )

• professionalism in philosophy ( in philosophy, Western: Factors in writing the

history )

criticism by

• Bouterwek ( in Bouterwek, Friedrich )• Eberhard ( in Eberhard, Johann August )

• Hamann ( in Hamann, Johann Georg )

• Helmholtz ( in Helmholtz, Hermann von: Early life )

• Jacobi ( in Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich )

• Mach ( in Positivism: The critical Positivism of Mach and Avenarius )

• Maimon ( in Maimon, Salomon )

• Trendelenburg ( in Trendelenburg, Friedrich Adolf )

influence on

• Adler ( in Ethical Culture )

• art criticism ( in art criticism: Art criticism in the 18th century: Enlightenment

theory )

• Cassirer ( in Cassirer, Ernst )

• Comte ( in Comte, Auguste: Thought. )

• European thought ( in Europe, history of: Early 19th-century philosophy )

• Fichte ( in Fichte, Johann Gottlieb: Early life and career )

• Gentz ( in Gentz, Friedrich: Early life and career. )

• German Enlightenment ( in Europe, history of: The Aufklärung )

• Goethe ( in Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von: Return to Weimar and the French

Revolution (1788–94) )• Hegel ( in Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich: Early life )

• Herrmann ( in Herrmann, Wilhelm )

• Peirce ( in Pragmatism: Antecedents in modern philosophy )

• Ritschl ( in Ritschl, Albrecht )

• Schelling ( in Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von: Early life and career. )

• Schiller ( in Schiller, Friedrich von: Philosophical studies and classical drama.;

in German literature: Weimar Classicism: Goethe and Schiller )

• Schopenhauer ( in Schopenhauer, Arthur: Early life and education. )

• Sidgwick ( in Sidgwick, Henry )

• Vaihinger ( in as if, philosophy of )

influenced by

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• Bacon ( in Bacon, Francis, Viscount Saint Alban (or Albans), Baron of 

Verulam: Assessment and influence )

• Baumgarten ( in Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb )

• Hume ( in Hume, David: As a philosopher )

• Rousseau ( in Europe, history of: Rousseau and his followers )

• Tetens ( in Tetens, Johannes Nikolaus )

philosophical views

( in philosophy, Western: Critical examination of reason in Kant )

aesthetics

( in aesthetics: Three approaches to aesthetics; in aesthetics: Kant, Schiller, and

Hegel )

o architecture ( in architecture: Distinction between the theory of 

architecture and the theory of art )

o music ( in music: 17th- and 18th-century Western conceptions )

o poetry ( in poetry: Poetic diction and experience )

• continental philosophy ( in continental philosophy: Kant )

critical philosophyo antinomies of reason ( in antinomy )

o categories ( in category )

o immortality ( in immortality )

o noumenon ( in noumenon )

o phenomenon ( in phenomenon )o reason ( in reason; in Rationalism: Epistemological Rationalism in

modern philosophies )

o time ( in time perception; in time: Early modern and 19th-century

scientific philosophies of time )

o transcendental dialectic ( in dialectic )

o transcendental ego ( in transcendental ego )

o transcendental idealism ( in transcendental idealism; in Idealism:

Western types )

• education ( in education: The Rousseauists )

epistemology

( in epistemology: Immanuel Kant )

o Empiricism-Rationalism controversy ( in Empiricism: In modern

 philosophy )

o experience ( in religious experience: Views of experience in general )

o inductive and deductive truth ( in a priori knowledge )

o innate ideas ( in innate idea )

o intuition ( in intuition )

o Skepticism ( in creation myth: The unknowability of creation; in 

Skepticism: Various senses and applications; in Skepticism: In the 18thcentury )

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ethics

( in ethics: Kant )

o categorical imperative ( in categorical imperative )

o deontic modalities ( in applied logic: The systematization and relation toalethic modal logic )

o deontological ethics ( in deontological ethics )

o ethical Rationalism ( in Rationalism: Types and expressions of 

Rationalism )

o voluntarism ( in voluntarism )

• history ( in history, philosophy of: The idea of an order or design in history )

law

( in law, philosophy of: “Idealism” and justice )

o intellectual property ( in intellectual-property law: Theoretical debates )

• mathematics ( in mathematics, foundations of: Riemannian geometry; in mathematics: Foundations of geometry )

metaphysics

( in metaphysics: The science of the world as a whole; in metaphysics: John

Dewey )

o Atomism ( in atomism: Atomism as a metaphysical system )

o form ( in form )

o realism ( in realism: Realism and idealism )• philosophical anthropology ( in philosophical anthropology: Man the rational

subject; in race: Enlightenment philosophers and taxonomists )

• rationalism ( in individualism )

religion

( in religion, philosophy of: Modern concepts )

o first cause argument ( in first cause )

o immortality ( in Christianity: The immortality of the soul )

o

moral basis of religion ( in religion, study of: The late 17th and 18thcenturies; in religion, study of: Theories of Schleiermacher and Hegel; in Deism: Deists in other countries )

o ontological argument ( in theism: The ontological argument )

o proofs of God’s existence ( in Christianity: God as Creator, Sustainer,

and Judge; in Christianity: The ontological argument; in atheism:

Atheism and intuitive knowledge )

o soul’s existence ( in soul )

o theological liberalism ( in theological liberalism )

• science ( in Christianity: Intellectualism versus anti-intellectualism )

• teleology ( in teleology )

political views

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• revolution ( in revolution )

• social progress and millenialism ( in eschatology: Influences on modern

ideologies )

• state ( in state )

scientific contributions

• geography ( in geography: Geography’s early research agenda in Europe )

• nebular hypothesis ( in solar nebula; in solar system: Origin of the solar system 

)

• physics ( in science, history of: The Romantic revolt )

psychologyo feeling ( in feeling )

o laughter ( in humour: Aggression and tension )

Supplemental Information

Quotations

Morality and Ethics

Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason:

"Morality is not really the doctrine of how to make ourselves happy but of how we are

to be worthy of happiness."

Morality and Ethics

Immanuel Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals:

"There is . . . but one categorical imperative, namely, this:  Act only on that maximwhereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law."

External Web sites

Student Encyclopædia Britannica articles specifically written for elementary and high

school students.

This topic is discussed at the following external Web sites.

"Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone" by Immanuel Kant 

Kant on the Web 

The Catholic Encyclopedia - Philosophy of Immanuel Kant 

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - 18th Century German Philosophy Prior to Kant 

Citations

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