Philosopher · Early modern period · Germany
Immanuel Kant
1724–1804
Königsberg philosopher whose Critiques reshaped epistemology and ethics. He rarely left East Prussia. Categorical imperative, autonomy of reason, and limits of knowledge are the claims recorded here.
Facts
- Born
- 22 April 1724, Königsberg, East Prussia.
- Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Immanuel Kant
- Died
- 12 February 1804, Königsberg.
- Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Immanuel Kant
- Chair
- Ordinary Professor of Logic and Metaphysics, University of Königsberg, from 1770.
- Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Immanuel Kant
- Major works
- Critique of Pure Reason (1781/1787); Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785); Critique of Practical Reason (1788); Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790).
- Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Immanuel Kant
The record
Immanuel Kant was baptized in Königsberg in 1724 and died there in 1804. He taught as an unsalaried lecturer for years, then held the logic and metaphysics chair from 1770. He did not travel far from East Prussia.
The Critique of Pure Reason argues that objects of experience conform to the forms of human sensibility and understanding; things-in-themselves remain unknowable. In moral philosophy he grounds duty in rational autonomy and formulates the categorical imperative: act only on maxims that can be willed as universal law, and treat humanity always as an end.
His political essays defend the public use of reason and sketch perpetual peace among republican states. His early writings also contain racial hierarchies he later revised; those tensions belong in a full appraisal and are not erased here.
A philosopher page records the person and the claims in the texts. It is not a history of Prussia.
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