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Immanuel Kant (1724–1804)

Author of Critique of Pure Reason

591+ Works 27,661 Members 162 Reviews 53 Favorited

About the Author

The greatest of all modern philosophers was born in the Baltic seaport of Konigsberg, East Prussia, the son of a saddler and never left the vicinity of his remote birthplace. Through his family pastor, Immanuel Kant received the opportunity to study at the newly founded Collegium Fredericianum, show more proceeding to the University of Konigsberg, where he was introduced to Wolffian philosophy and modern natural science by the philosopher Martin Knutzen. From 1746 to 1755, he served as tutor in various households near Konigsberg. Between 1755 and 1770, Kant published treatises on a number of scientific and philosophical subjects, including one in which he originated the nebular hypothesis of the origin of the solar system. Some of Kant's writings in the early 1760s attracted the favorable notice of respected philosophers such as J. H. Lambert and Moses Mendelssohn, but a professorship eluded Kant until he was over 45. In 1781 Kant finally published his great work, the Critique of Pure Reason. The early reviews were hostile and uncomprehending, and Kant's attempt to make his theories more accessible in his Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783) was largely unsuccessful. Then, partly through the influence of former student J. G. Herder, whose writings on anthropology and history challenged his Enlightenment convictions, Kant turned his attention to issues in the philosophy of morality and history, writing several short essays on the philosophy of history and sketching his ethical theory in the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785). Kant's new philosophical approach began to receive attention in 1786 through a series of articles in a widely circulated Gottingen journal by the Jena philosopher K. L. Reinhold. The following year Kant published a new, extensively revised edition of the Critique, following it up with the Critique of Practical Reason (1788), treating the foundations of moral philosophy, and the Critique of Judgment (1790), an examination of aesthetics rounding out his system through a strikingly original treatment of two topics that were widely perceived as high on the philosophical agenda at the time - the philosophical meaning of the taste for beauty and the use of teleology in natural science. From the early 1790s onward, Kant was regarded by the coming generation of philosophers as having overthrown all previous systems and as having opened up a whole new philosophical vista. During the last decade of his philosophical activity, Kant devoted most of his attention to applications of moral philosophy. His two chief works in the 1790s were Religion Within the Bounds of Plain Reason (1793--94) and Metaphysics of Morals (1798), the first part of which contained Kant's theory of right, law, and the political state. At the age of 74, most philosophers who are still active are engaged in consolidating and defending views they have already worked out. Kant, however, had perceived an important gap in his system and had begun rethinking its foundations. These attempts went on for four more years until the ravages of old age finally destroyed Kant's capacity for further intellectual work. The result was a lengthy but disorganized manuscript that was first published in 1920 under the title Opus Postumum. It displays the impact of some of the more radical young thinkers Kant's philosophy itself had inspired. Kant's philosophy focuses attention on the active role of human reason in the process of knowing the world and on its autonomy in giving moral law. Kant saw the development of reason as a collective possession of the human species, a product of nature working through human history. For him the process of free communication between independent minds is the very life of reason, the vocation of which is to remake politics, religion, science, art, and morality as the completion of a destiny whose shape it is our collective task to frame for ourselves. (Bowker Author Biography) Philosopher Immanuel Kant was born in 1724 in Konigsberg, East Prussia. He studied at the University of Konigsberg, where he would act as a lecturer and professor after a brief career as a private tutor. Kant was an incredibly influential philosopher, his theories having impact on the likes of Schopenhauer and Hegel. Kant's most prominent works include Critique of Pure Reason (1781), Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) and Critique of Practical Reason (1788). He died in 1804. (Bowker Author Biography) show less

Series

Works by Immanuel Kant

Critique of Pure Reason (1781) — Author — 6,531 copies
Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (1785) — Author — 3,258 copies
Critique of Judgment (1790) — Author — 2,131 copies
Critique of Practical Reason (1787) — Author — 1,764 copies
Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1950) — Author — 1,372 copies
Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone (1793) — Author — 784 copies
Perpetual Peace (1795) — Author — 581 copies
The Metaphysics of Morals (1797) — Author — 468 copies
Kant's Political Writings (1970) 435 copies
The Great Books of the Western World, Vol. 42: Kant (1781) — Author — 365 copies
Basic Writings of Kant (2001) 332 copies
Logic (1800) 278 copies
Practical Philosophy (1996) 256 copies
Lectures on Ethics (1930) 239 copies
Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1974) — Author — 200 copies
On Education (1960) 149 copies
Introduction to Logic (1963) 95 copies
The Conflict of the Faculties (1972) — Author — 82 copies
Kant Selections (1929) 77 copies
Opus postumum (1984) 72 copies
Opuscules sur l'histoire (1900) 71 copies
Kant: Selections (1988) 60 copies
Lectures on Metaphysics (1992) 55 copies
The essential Kant (1970) 26 copies
La dissertation de 1770 (1951) 25 copies
Correspondence (1991) 25 copies
The Science of Right (2006) 19 copies
De zin van het leven (1993) 19 copies
The living thoughts of Kant (1940) 12 copies
Pragmatische antropologie (2014) 9 copies
Kant 8 copies
La fine di tutte le cose (1996) 8 copies
An Immanuel Kant Reader (1960) 7 copies
Foundations of Ethics (1995) 7 copies
Briefe (1970) 6 copies
Pisma po roku 1781 (1969) 5 copies
Von der Macht des Gemüts (1949) 5 copies
Immanuel Kant 5 copies
Pravo na laganje (2012) 4 copies
Textos seletos (2005) 4 copies
Lettre à Marcus Herz (1968) 4 copies
Secilmis Yazilar (2015) 4 copies
Kant-Brevier (1966) 3 copies
Théorie et pratique (1994) 3 copies
Kant I 3 copies
Teoria do Céu (2004) — Author — 3 copies
Scritti morali (1970) 3 copies
Dizionario delle idee (1996) 3 copies
Scritti politici (2010) 3 copies
Vorreden (1781 - 1797) (2001) 3 copies
Géographie (1999) 2 copies
Scritti sul criticismo (1991) 2 copies
Lezioni di psicologia (1986) 2 copies
Kant (2010) 2 copies
Filosofiens frihet (2021) 2 copies
Δοκίμια 2 copies
Ragione e ipocondria (1989) 2 copies
Theoretische Philosophie (2004) 2 copies
Pravno politički spisi (2000) 2 copies
4 Books By Immanuel Kant (2009) 2 copies
"Metafísica" dohna (2007) 2 copies
Dissertazioni latine (2014) 1 copy
Yasamin Anlami (2021) 1 copy
Kant 1 copy
Apokalypsen (2022) 1 copy
Logica di Vienna (2000) 1 copy
Philosophie de l'histoire — Author — 1 copy
Scritti sui terremoti (1984) 1 copy
I. Kant 1 copy
Geografia fisica (2004) 1 copy
SELECTIONS 1 copy
Brevier 1 copy
Théorie et pratique, textes philosophiques (1997) — Author — 1 copy
Critiques 1 copy
KANT 1 copy
Fragmanlar 1 copy

Associated Works

The European Philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche (1960) — Contributor — 435 copies
Critical Theory Since Plato (1971) — Contributor, some editions — 398 copies
Criticism: Major Statements (1964) — Contributor — 220 copies
Western Philosophy: An Anthology (1996) — Author, some editions — 184 copies
Man and Spirit: The Speculative Philosophers (1947) — Contributor — 173 copies
Other Selves: Philosophers on Friendship (1991) — Contributor — 89 copies
Metaphysics: A Guide and Anthology (2004) — Contributor — 73 copies
The Range of Philosophy: Introductory Readings (1964) — Contributor — 52 copies
Classics of Modern Political Theory : Machiavelli to Mill (1996) — Contributor — 48 copies
German Essays on Music (1994) — Contributor — 18 copies
Philosophical Issues: A Contemporary Introduction (1972) — Contributor — 17 copies
The liberal tradition in European thought (1971) — Contributor, some editions — 17 copies
Reading Ethics (Reading Philosophy) (2008) — Contributor — 8 copies
Erkenntnis und Sein I Epistemologie. (1978) — Contributor — 5 copies

Tagged

Common Knowledge

Canonical name
Kant, Immanuel
Other names
KANT, Emanuel (birth)
KANT, Immanuel
Birthdate
1724-04-22
Date of death
1804-02-12
Burial location
Kaliningrad Cemetery, Kaliningrad, Russia
Gender
male
Nationality
Prussia
Germany
Birthplace
Königsberg, Prussia
Place of death
Königsberg, Prussia
Places of residence
Königsberg, Prussia
Education
Collegium Fredericianum
University of Königsberg
Occupations
philosopher
tutor
lecturer
professor
scientist
ethicist (show all 7)
scholar
Organizations
University of Königsberg
Awards and honors
After the expulsion of Königsberg's German population at the end of World War II, the University of Königsberg was replaced by the Russian-language Kaliningrad State University, which took up the campus and surviving buildings of the historic German university. In 2005, the university was renamed Immanuel Kant State University of Russia.
Short biography
Emanuel Kant was

the fourth of the nine children of Johann Georg Kant (1682-1746), a saddler from Memel (now Klaipėda, Lithuania) and his wife, Anna Regina Reuter (1697-1737), who was from Nuremburg. Kant began to spell his name "Immanuel" after learning Hebrew. His paternal grandfather, Hans Cant, had emigrated to Prussia from Scotland. Kant enrolled at Königsberg University in 1840 at the age of 16. Between 1750 and 1754 he worked as a tutor (Hauslehrer) in Judtschen (now Veselovka, Russia)and in Groß-Arnsdorf (now near Elbląg, Poland). Kant went on to become Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at Königsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia) in 1770, at the age of 46. He never married.

He was a towering figure of the Enlightenment, influenced nearly all modern philosophers. In his writings, including his masterpiece, the Critique of Pure Reason (1781), he argued that we can only truly know that which can be proven by evidence. He placed the active, rational human being at the center of the cognitive and moral worlds. He suggested that we have a moral obligation, which he called the "categorical Imperative," to behave in an intrinsically good way under all circumstances -- not necessarily in ways that would make us happy, but in ways that would make us worthy of being happy. In his 1795 work Perpetual Peace, he quoted the Latin phrase "Fiat justitia, pereat mundus" ("Let justice be done, though the world perish"). He also criticized those who focused too much on religious ritual and church hierarchy as attempts to please the Creator without having to practice the actual principles of religion and righteousness.

Members

Discussions

Immanuel Kant's library in Legacy Libraries (September 2020)
Immanuel Kant in Philosophy and Theory (September 2017)
Kant's moral theory and a priori in Philosophy and Theory (November 2009)

Reviews

Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason is an analysis of the concept of metaphysics. I have read from English translations, not the original German. I don’t think I’m up to reading on this topic in German, yet. I enjoyed the English translation; I like logic. I was fascinated by Ancient Greek philosophy starting when I was 12 or 13 years old, but it took me quite a few years before I read any modern philosophy. I can see why this is a significant book in modern philosophy that should be read. I should have read it earlier and would recommend it to others interested in philosophy.… (more)
 
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MyFathersDragon | 43 other reviews | Nov 7, 2023 |

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Associated Authors

Allen W. Wood Editor, Introduction, Contributor
Mary J. Gregor Foreword, Editor, Translator
Michel Foucault Translator
Michael W. Doyle Contributor
Jeremy Waldron Contributor
Karl Popper Contributor
Jacques Derrida Contributor
Hannah Arendt Contributor
H. B. Nisbet Translator
Lewis White Beck Translator
Wilhelm Weischedel Herausgeber
Bernd Ludwig Afterword
Rokus Hofstede Translator
Dirk De Schutter Translator
Edwin van Elden Translator
Øystein Skar Translator
Thomas Mertens Translator
Henk Daalder Translator
Remi Peeters Translator
Israel Bouseman Contributor
Rihards Kūlis Translator
Werner S. Pluhar Translator, Editor
Paul Guyer Translator, Editor
Patricia Kitcher Introduction
Atis Rolavs Translator
Gary Banham Bibliography
H. J. Paton Translator
Aleksa Buha Translator, Afterword
Jean Gibelin Translator
J. H. Bernard Translator
Andrews Reath Introduction
Paul Carus Translator
Dennis Sweet Introduction
Julián Besteiro Translator
Hoyt H. Hudson Translator
Theodor Valentiner Herausgeber
Adela Cortina Orts Introduction
W. Hastie Translator
Igors Šuvajevs Translator
Gary C. Hatfield Translator
Michael Friedman Translator, Editor
Hoyt Hudson Translator
Manfred Kuehn Introduction
Annette Churton Translator
James Ellington Translator
Thomas K. Abbot Translator

Statistics

Works
591
Also by
24
Members
27,661
Popularity
#738
Rating
3.8
Reviews
162
ISBNs
1,920
Languages
32
Favorited
53

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