Immanuel Kant wrote some of the main philosophical works of the Modernity. An influential personality in the intellectual milieu of his city and member of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Berlin, curiously, the thinker never left his hometown, Königsberg.
Kant founded a new theory of knowledge, called idealismtranscendental, and his philosophy, as a whole, founded the criticism, critical current of philosophical knowledge that aimed, as Kant wanted, to delimit the limits of human knowledge.
Kant's works have a rareerudition, a unique literary style and unparalleled methodological and philosophical rigor. Professor at the University of Königsberg for nearly five decades, the professor and researcher has dedicated himself to writing about Logic, Metaphysics, Theory of Knowledge and Éethics and moral philosophy.
Read too: Aristotle's Metaphysics: What It Is, Summary and Examples
Biography
The son of a family headed by a craftsman of Scottish descent, Kant was born in the town of Königsberg, in
Prussia east in April 22, 1724. His traditional Protestant family marked his life and relationship with religion. The great thinker of Modernity did not say atheist, but he always maintained a controversial relationship with religion by defending, in his criticism, that we can only know what we can intuit, that is, what we can see, hear, actually experience.At 16 years of age, Immanuel Kant joined the course ofTheology from the University of Königsberg, where he began to further his studies in Philosophy, mainly in Leibniz. He was also interested in Physics and Math, including writing about Natural Sciences.
In 1746, the death of his father forced the philosopher to work as a preceptor, teaching the children of wealthy families in Königsberg. Luckily for him, the thinker gained a certain prestige and managed to enter the intellectual milieu of the city, due to the influence acquired as a tutor and his unusual intelligence.
In 1754, the philosopher returned to the university, where he PhD in Philosophy and started teaching as a free teacher. In 1770, the philosopher and professor of Königsberg took up the chair of Logic and Metaphysics at the University of Königsberg, a position he held until his death.
The entry as a full professor also boosted the philosophical works of Kant, who dealt with his main works, the which would promote what he called the "Copernican Philosophy Revolution", due to his inclination towards criticism, which would resolve you impasses of previous philosophers and philosophical currents.
Kant went forbidden to writeabout religion by King Frederick William II of Prussia, due to his controversial theses, which would lead to a kind of intellectual agnosticism. Kant published texts on religion only in 1797, after the king's death.
Some of Kant's main books are: Critique of pure reason, Critique of practical reason, Critique of the Faculty of Judging and Metaphysical foundation of morals. Extremely strict and methodical, the philosopher never married and had no children, dedicating himself, almost entirely, to research and teaching in Philosophy. Interestingly, the Prussian thinker never left his hometown, and his extreme erudition and general knowledge were gained through reading and contact with outsiders.
Some curiosities about Kant's personality come to the eyes of readers of his biographies. A very smart, shrewd man, kind and kind, the philosopher also had certain habits that referred to his methodical personality. It is known that he had a strict routine and faithfully fulfilled his duties in schedules strictly controlled. He had certain times to sleep, wake up, eat, study, write, and take his afternoon walks.
It is said that the inhabitants of Königsberg, some of the philosopher's neighbors, adjusted their watches when they saw Kant passing by on the street, as he always passed the same places at the same time. Only once was the Prussian thinker delayed because he was engrossed in a reading, and this delay was enough to arouse the curiosity of his neighbors.
After suffering from a degenerative disease, the philosopher died on February 12, 1804, at 79 years of age.
See too: Discover the life and work of this great name in Scholastica
Do not stop now... There's more after the advertising ;)
Kant's Philosophy
Immanuel Kant was known for having formulated what he termed to be a “Copernican Revolution in Philosophy”. Great reader of the rationalist Gotfried Wilhelm Leibniz and the English empiricist David Hume, Kant tried to join elements of the two currents that most moved modern European Philosophy into a critical theory, without falling into any kind of relativism.
Kantian transcendental idealism built a complex web of concepts to explain that neither theempiricismhe was right and even rationalism did not fully explain human knowledge. For Kant, knowledge is obtained based on perception of what he called the “thing in itself”, which is the object.
This process takes place through what the thinker called intuition, and it is the rationality, through the mental faculties, which provides the human being with knowledge, as our mind is capable of relating pure concepts to the data of perception.
For Kant, there is the thing itself and the transcendental concept, our relationship with these two elements being strictly personal and psychological, but the fact that there is a universal concept, that serves as a parameter, prevents the Kantian theory from being relativistic.
In the moral field, Kant formulated a theory called Metaphysics of Morals, based on categorical imperative, who tries to undo any moral relativism using forces to discover the maxims or universal moral laws. For Kant, there is a universal duty based on moral laws and this duty is subject to strict compliance with moral laws in any rational situation. The human being or any other rational being must comply with what is established by the moral law.
At the political field, Kant wrote the book perpetual peace, in which he elaborates a peace treaty and imaginary universal cooperation among states. This treatise, of inspiration illuminist and republican, aimed to guarantee peace among nations, respect for Human rights is life. The Kantian work, published in 1795, strongly influenced the consolidation of the United Nations (UN), more than 150 years later.
Kant also wrote an article called "What is enlightenment?" or "What is Enlightenment?" The relationship established between enlightenment and enlightenment takes place in the translation of the terms into German (the word Aufklarung simultaneously designates enlightenment and illumination) in Kant's work. Elaborated in the style of answering the question, the text defends that the human being must leave the "minority", which would be the state of ignorance that prevents autonomous development, and reaching knowledge, which would be the guarantee of autonomy and clarification.
In the aesthetic field, Kant developed a complex theory, linked to his theory of knowledge, called transcendental aesthetics. This theory is present in the Critique of pure reason, a book that deals mostly with epistemology, and in the book Faculty of Judgment Critique, which speaks specifically of the aesthetic judgments.
See too: Learn more about this philosophical branch developed by Sartre
Main ideas
Criticism: philosophy aimed at establishing the limits of human knowledge based on an intense philosophical exercise, establishing a revisionist critique of Philosophy.
Transcendental Idealism: philosophical doctrine aimed at understanding how human knowledge occurs, based on notions such as analytical judgment, synthetic judgment and aesthetic judgment.
Enlightenment: the indication of enlightenment through knowledge is the requirement for the formation of an autonomous mind.
Categorical imperative: it is the formulation of a moral law, the maxim of ethical action in any situation. The Kantian imperative can be formulated as follows: it acts in such a way as to make its action a universal law. This means that the action must be universally correct or be, in any situation, in correspondence with the duty. There is also the maxim: act in such a way as to use nature and people as an end and never as a means. This means that there is a moral obligation not to use people as a means of getting something.
Quotes
“You cannot learn any Philosophy. [...] One can only learn to philosophize, that is, exercise the talent of reason in the observance of its universal principles.”
"War is bad, because it breeds more bad men than those it kills."
"Happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination."
"Two things that fill my soul with growing admiration and respect, the more intensely and frequently the thought of them is occupied: the starry sky above me and the moral law within me."
"Morality itself is not the doctrine that teaches us how to be happy, but how we should become worthy of happiness."
"It is in the problem of education that the great secret for the improvement of humanity rests."
"Thoughts without content are empty; intuitions without concepts are blind."
Summary
The Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant was born and has always lived in the city of Königsberg. Methodical and rigorous, he graduated in Theology and, from an early age, wrote treatises on Science, Philosophy and Religion. He earned a Ph.D. in Philosophy and went on to teach at the University of Königsberg. His most intense philosophical production took place from 1770 onwards, when he developed his philosophy critic and his transcendental idealism — a critical theory of reason that synthesizes empiricism and rationalism.
by Francisco Porfirio
Philosophy teacher
