Kant, Immanuel (1724–1804)

Immanuel Kant was born April 22, 1724, in Konigsberg, East Prussia. (Today, Konigsberg is called Kaliningrad and is in the part of Russia that is just above Poland and split off from the main part of Russia.) Kant was one of nine children. He attended the University of Konigsberg and then for the next 15 years served as a tutor to wealthy families in East Prussia. During this time, Kant's financial resources were severely limited. Finally, in 1770 Kant was appointed Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at the University of Konigsberg. During the first 10 years of his professorship, Kant published output gave little hint of what was to come. Most of his essays were in the natural sciences. Kant made his most notable contributions after the age of 50, when he made major original contributions to epistemology and metaphysics, ethics and aesthetics, and, toward the end of his life, political philosophy.

Kant's contributions to philosophy in the traditional sense began with the publication in 1781 of his monumental Critique of Pure Reason. This major contribution to epistemology and metaphysics showed that knowledge was a cooperative enterprise on the part of both reason and experience. As Kant put it, concepts without percepts are empty and percepts without concepts are blind. By this he meant that the content of knowledge came from experience (percepts) but that this content had to be organized according to certain concepts. Otherwise experience would be a booming, buzzing confusion. In this way Kant showed that the rationalists and the empiricists who had been warring for over two centuries were both partly right and partly wrong. Kant also showed that at the theoretical level the traditional questions of metaphysics—are we free, is there a god, and is there a promise of immortality—cannot be answered.

For the next 17 years, Kant was unimaginably productive in terms of both the quantity and quality of his work. In ethics, his emphasis on duty and the consistent following of maxims of action have been so influential that deontology is often simply referred to as “Kantian ethics.” His two most important works in ethics are The Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason. Kant also made major contributions to aesthetic theory (The Critique of Judgment) and to political philosophy and the philosophy of law (The Metaphysics of Morals Part 1). Kant represents the classic statement of the retributive theory of punishment. One of his last works, Perpetual Peace, was a forward-looking proposal aimed at bringing the state of war between nations to an end. In the philosophy of religion, Kant articulated a rationalistic theology that complemented his ethical theory. Finally, Kant is identified as the classic thinker of the Enlightenment with its emphasis on universal values, cosmopolitanism, and rationality.

Since Kant never traveled far from his birthplace, spent his entire university career at the University of Konigsberg, and never married, it might appear that he led a rather dull life. However, he was a popular lecturer, was known for his charm and wit, and frequently entertained. On receiving his professorship, his financial situation improved and he was served by his loyal servant Lampe.

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