IMMANUEL KANT
(1724-1804)
CONTENTS
 Kant: An Overview
 His Life and Works
 His Major Ideas
 Kant's Writings
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Complicated in thought but
simple in life-style, Kant--who wrote and taught on a broad range of subjects
from physics to metaphysics, from theology to philosophy--lived out his
life in the relative confines of his hometown of Königsberg, East
Prussia ("Kaliningrad" since its Russian takeover towards the end of World
War Two).
In many ways Kant's intellectual
life was shaped by the challenge that Hume had issued the world a quarter
of a century earlier. In his
Critique of Pure Reason (1781),
Kant agreed with Hume's empiricism--namely that sense-experience is essential
to human knowledge. But he also agreed with the continental rationalists
(most notably Leibniz--whose writings also were a major influence over
Kant) that knowledge is also a matter of the exercise of human reason--in
particular the use of innate human ideas ("categories") which help us to
organize this empirical information. Thus Kant saw himself as closing
the intellectual gap between the British empiricists and the Continental
rationalists.
Kant also saw himself as
answering
Hume's skepticism about ever knowing with any degree of certainty the truth
of transcendent ideas, such as moral laws or ethical principles.
In Kant's Metaphysics of Morals (1785) and Critique of Practical
Reason (1788), he proposed a new moral/ethical "categorical imperative,"
one that did not require the existence of God for its validity. And
yet Kant's concept was of a definite transcendent nature, one with absolute
universal validity. It involved an ingenious piece of moral logic:
we ought to act in such a way that our act could become accepted as a universal
principle of behavior. If it were not able to attain such a universal
validity (because, for instance, of an internal contradiction in logic)
then that action, by "practical reason," was obviously not to be pursued.
Taking this logic of "practical
reason" a step further, he turned to the issue of the existence of God.
He agreed with Hume that no rational argument could be given for God's
existence--that is, "pure reason" could not build a case for God's existence.
But "practical reason" could. Pursuing a traditional line of reason
that went back at least as far as
Ockham
in the early 1300s, Kant claimed that human reason cannot establish the
"fact" of God. But in observing the moral instincts of people we
can see (through the eyes of faith) that there is some kind of
source beyond the mere human will itself that directs life. That
higher moral grounding is by definition God. Thus God exists.
(This kind of theological reasoning did not impress the Prussian government,
which censured his work).
Finally--so impressed was
Kant that we humans could live in accordance with such higher moral imperatives
that in his Perpetual Peace he laid out a vision for a new world
order.
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His Early Life
Born in Königsberg,
Kant was brought up in that town in a financially humble and devoutly pietistic
family (and he continued to possess throughout his life a pietistic nature).
He attended a pietistic grade school (Collegium Friedericianum) in Königsberg
and in 1740 he entered the University of Königsberg. At the
University he was introduced to the rationalist philosophy of Leibniz
and Christian Wolff and the physics of Newton.
Here he wrote his first work in 1746, Thoughts on the True Estimation
of Living Forces--a scientific paper that reflected strongly the intellectual
legacy of Leibniz.
After graduation he became
a private tutor--until 1755 when he returned to the University of Königsberg
as a private lecturer. This was a position he would hold for the
next fifteen years. During this period his teaching repertoire at
the university was vast and varied--though primarily focused on science
it included also mathematics and philosophy (especially metaphysics).
In keeping with the German intellectual temperament of his times, his work
during this period was strongly shaped by Leibniz' writings. But
Kant also had a deep respect for the works of Newton, whose writings were
just being introduced to the university at Königsberg.
The Early Lead-Up to His Critical
Philosophy
This was a very formative time
for Kant, who struggled to accommodate the rationalism of Leibniz with
the empiricism of Newton. This was a very active time for him in
terms of writing. But it was also a time in which he found himself
having an increasingly difficult time of it staying with Leibniz' thoughts.
He certainly agreed with the importance of a system of logic that could
demonstrate a mathematical precision about it (as per Leibniz). But
he was beginning to wonder how this could be connected with the empirical
world "out there."
Thus in 1764 he published
Inquiry
into the Distinctness of the Principles of Natural Theology and Morals,
in which he stated his concern about how one could connect the pure world
of mathematics, which rested within the human mind, with the "practical"
world of physical life, especially human life as it faced the complexities
of actual existence. He saw a danger in rationalist thought becoming
secluded within the confines of its "pure" intellectual world--unable to
offer "practical" wisdom for life.
Also he was having second
thoughts about the logical method that Leibniz and Wolff (in particular
the latter) had built much of their logical "demonstrations" on:
the principal of contradiction. Kant was beginning to view this with
the skepticism of a classic anti-scholastic (such as Ockham)--for it seemed
fallacious to Kant to build a logical system of "truths" on the assertion
that the opposite of a proposition proven to be false must automatically
be true.
It seemed to him also equally
weak to build a proof for the existence of God on the logic of the popular
ontological argument--which the rationalists employed regularly.
In his The Only Possible Ground of Proof for a Demonstration of God's
Existence (1763) he questioned very strongly how simply the fact that
we can hold in our minds the idea of God (as the greatest of all conceivable
ideas) therefore proves the existence of God--the essence of the ontological
argument once put forth by Anselm (in the late 1000s).
Gradually Kant's critical
facilities were being fine-tuned in a way that stood him apart from the
intellectual currents of his time. Finally (to use his own words),
it was Hume who "awoke him from his intellectual
slumber"--forcing him to admit to the lack of a proper demonstration within
contemporary philosophical circles of the connection between the world
"out there" and the world within the human mind. He became determined
himself to try to build such a demonstration.
His Critical Philosophy Comes
of Age
At about this time (1770) he
was admitted as a full member of the university faculty, teaching logic
and metaphysics--a vocation he would stay with until just a few years before
his death in 1804.
During the first ten years
of this period (1770-1780) he was focused on developing his critical system
of thought. No serious publication occurred during this time.
But during the next ten years (1780-1790) he was ready to publish.
In 1781 his Critique of Pure Reason was published; in 1785 he published
Metaphysics
of Morals; three years later (1788) he came out with his Critique
of Practical Reason.
But it was not just in the
realm of philosophy, metaphysics, theology ethics that he poured forth
an enormous productivity. He was also interested in science and the
philosophy of science. He was was also interested in history and
the philosophy of history. He was interested in anthropology.
He was interested in geography.
His Opus Postumum
His last years were focused
on an effort to write a great integrative work, one which he hoped would
establish a definitive metaphysics for an emerging modern world-view.
Though what we have of that work is voluminous--it is merely fragmentary
and quite undisciplined as a philosophy. Clearly he intended a major
work to emerge from his notes. But time overtook him. He died
in 1804 at 80 years of age.
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Kant's Epistemology (Theory
of Human Knowledge)
He agreed with the British empiricists
that human knowledge is fundamentally founded on the information that our
physical senses provide our minds. This process of receiving such
information he terms "sensibility." But this kind of knowledge is
not yet truly part of our "understanding." An a priori process in
the mind turns this kind of knowledge into conceptual knowledge.
Both are knowledge. Thus he links the empiricists' understanding
of knowledge with the rationalists understanding of knowledge.
Again, with the empiricists,
he agrees that what we know is in fact only what appears by the
intuition of our minds to be so. We do not have direct knowledge
of the "objects" of our senses, the "thing-in-itself, what he terms the
noumenon.
These are transcendental objects--not attainable directly by human
perception.
What our minds do is fashion
the information our senses direct to us about the transcendent or objective
matter around us into recognizable forms, the phenomena of our minds.
The two, matter and forms, are quite distinct. Matter gives rise
to our sensations--but our mind gives form to these sensations in such
a way that objects become recognizable to us. For instance, space
and time are not matter--they are forms that the mind, on an a priori
basis, imposes on matter.
This acquiring of human knowledge
all occurs in a three-step process. The first step is the process
of intuition--receiving the sensory information. The second step
is the process of synthesis, organizing the information into recognizable
categories, such as "table." This step is enhanced through experience.
The third step involves judgments of our own about this information--what
our minds determine that this information means to us. This process
is entirely a priori--independent of the empirical process.
Here Kant is responding to
Hume's separation of cause and effect. Kant recognizes that we cannot
know with absolute certainty the empirical cause and effect at work in
the world around us. But we certain can--and do--form cause and effect
connections in our own mind--which are quite valid. Kant defines
such mental judgments as true knowledge.
In any case for Kant what
is important for us is not the objective reality "out there" but the reality
(which he also calls "objective") in our own minds. This "practical"
realm of reality is really the only one that should honestly concern us.
It is our truly "objective" world.
It is a world that is shared
by others.
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 Kant's
major works or writings:
Critique
of Pure Reason (1781)
Prolegomena
to Any Future Metaphysics (1783)
Idea for a Universal
History (1784)
Fundamental
Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals (1785)
Metaphysical Foundationsof
Natural Science (1786)
Critique
of Practical Reason (1788)
The
Critique of Judgment (1790)
Religion within the
Limits of Reason Alone (1793)
Perpetual Peace
(1795)
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 Miles
H. Hodges
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