Immanuel Kant: biography of this important German philosopher

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher whose name has not gone unnoticed, since his thought has been of great relevance to Western philosophy.

He is considered the great enlightened thinker of Germany and, in fact, it has been said that all philosophy prior to the Kantian is ancient, that it was he who caused an authentic philosophical revolution to be generated in his weather.

Let's see who this thinker was and what he wrote about through this biography of Immanuel Kant in summary format.

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Short Biography of Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant was born on April 22, 1724 in Königsberg, Germany (present-day Kaliningrad, Russia), into a modest family of Scottish origin. His education was strongly based on Lutheran pietism, professed by his mother. It is because of that young Immanuel studied at the Collegium Fridericianum, a pietist institution where he would come out with a good knowledge of classical language and culture.

Later, in 1740, he enrolled in college, where he would receive lessons in Newtonian physics and mathematics, which was what inspired him to do his first work nine years later:

Gedanken von der wahren Schätzung der lebendigen Kräfte ("Thoughts on the true estimation of living forces").

After the death of his father, Immanuel Kant, he was forced to earn a living giving classes at home to children of wealthy families during the period between 1746 and 1754. Thanks to having acquired the title of free teacher he began to teach various subjects, among which can be found exact sciences such as mathematics and physics, in addition to aspects more related to philosophy such as its history, logic and moral.

Teaching and early writings

In 1755 he obtained his doctorate with his thesis Meditationum quarundam by igne succinta delineatio ("Brief sketch of some meditations on fire"), and then free teaching with the dissertation Principiorum primorum cognitionis metaphysicae nova dilucidatio ("New elucidation of the first principles of metaphysical knowledge")

It would also be around this time that he would publish, anonymously, his "Universal history of nature and theory of the sky." In this play he presented his thesis on the formation of the solar system, which would have been formed from an original nebula. Although it did not have much repercussion in its initial moment, later, the physicist Laplace in 1796 would propose something similar, which was later baptized as the Kant-Laplace hypothesis.

The year 1769 is a key year in Kantian thought because, although he had already written his first texts, it is from this year that he begins to make several works in which he shows he critical of the paths that the philosophy of his time had taken, daring to comment on some of the greatest thinkers of the world. moment. It is for this reason that this year is considered the line of separation between two moments in his career as a writer and thinker.

Before this year we talked about the pre-critical period, in which he did some works that talked about metaphysics, but not being too critical. Then comes the critical stage, in which he is already the author of the great works for which he is known, such as "Critique of Pure Reason" or "What is illustration?"

A year later, in 1770, the university in his hometown, Königsberg, welcomed him as a professor in logic and metaphysics, giving him some economic and academic security by gaining a more or less fixed place. In addition to being a great teacher and being highly appreciated by his students, Kant devoted himself with great care to the development of new writings.

Last years

Although prolific, Kant's life is not exactly that of someone who has traveled extensively. Almost his entire life remained in Königsberg. and, in fact, it was in that Prussian city that he died due to complications of arteriosclerosis that night of February 12, 1804, having gained the fame of being the highest representative of the Enlightenment German.

As an anecdote of his life, or rather, of the end of his life, being already decrepit, almost blind and without a very good memory, that, already seeing the light At the end of the tunnel, he uttered, perhaps half delirious, perhaps already accepting the time to leave, the words “es ist gut”, “al bien” en German. Then, he would say "Genug" ("enough is enough") and his last breath would expire.

Although his death was in 1804, several decades later, between 1879 and 1881 a collection was made to be able to build a chapel, as a monument. At the moment, Kant's tomb is located outside the Cathedral of present-day Kaliningrad, on the Pregolya river. It is one of the few German monuments preserved by the Soviets after conquering the city and annexing it in 1945. The previous tomb had been destroyed that same year as a result of the Russian bombings.

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Main works

It is not possible to talk about the life of Kant without mentioning the titles of his works, which, without a doubt, have had a great impact on Western thought. These works can be encompassed within the two periods previously mentioned.

In the pre-critical phase we have: The only possible basis for a demonstration of the existence of God (1762) Dreams of a Visionary Explained by the Dreams of Metaphysics (1766) Observations on the feeling of the beautiful and the sublime (1764)

In the critical phase of it we have:

• Critique of Pure Reason (1781)
• Prolegomena to all future metaphysics (1783)
• Idea of ​​a universal history in the cosmopolitan sense (1784)
• What is the Enlightenment? (1784)
• Critique of practical reason (1785)
• Critique of the Judgment (1790)
• Religion within the limits of reason (1793)
• Perpetual Peace (1795)
• Dispute between the faculties (1797
• Anthropology in the pragmatic sense (1800)
• Logic (1800)

Philosophical thought

Of the various works mentioned above, his pure "Critique of Reason" is considered one, if not the most important, of Kantian works and of great repercussion on European thought.. In addition, we have "Critique of practical reason" and, in addition, it is worth talking about his conception of law and the state.

1. Critique of Pure Reason

In the "Critique of Pure Reason" Immanuel Kant wonders whether there is a possibility that metaphysics, a current seen as purely philosophical, could become a scientific discipline. In his view, the conception and treatment that metaphysics had received made it something that, until now, lacked a solid foundation.

In order to advance in this aspect and achieve, one day, that such metaphysics becomes something scientific, it is necessary to proceed to a critique of reason, for means of which the conditions of possibility and the limits of validity of the intellectual capacity of the human being are determined in the different fields of activity mental.

This work was published for the first time in 1781, although its second edition, dated 1787, included many modifications. It is considered a fundamental milestone in the history of Western philosophy, since its approach constitutes a synthesis between two philosophical aspects of great importance at the time: empiricism and rationalism.

These two tendencies were confronted by the fact of how the way in which human beings acquire knowledge was conceived. While empiricism started from the idea that knowledge could be obtained through sensations, that is, by Through external impressions, rationalism considered that general rules could be found by means of the reason.

From the publication of the "Critique of Pure Reason" the idea arises that it does not make sense wondering about the problem of human knowledge, without first questioning what is the limit of that knowledge, limit which is determined by the nature of the human being. Beyond such a limit, it is impossible to know more.

2. Critique of Practical Reason

The "Critique of Practical Reason", whose importance is comparable to that of the previous work and was published in 1788, it is the most important work in Kantian thought when it comes to morality.

It is about determining the nature of the moral law. The obligation becomes a law that reason imposes on the will. Respect for this law is established as the only motive for action.

3. Law and the State

The law is the aspect of human society that has the purpose of establishing the conditions that make it possible for all human beings that make up a society have their own freedom but that it respects that of the the rest. In the work, addresses individual freedom in such a way that it has helped the constitution of what would later be called legal positivism.

Kant speaks of the state as something that is constituted by the compromise of wills that are embodied in the laws. Laws, which should be set by the majority, are a legal convention: whoever respects them is within the law, whoever does not, is outside. Any dissident conduct or conduct contrary to these laws is interpreted as conduct outside the law.

Bibliographic references:

• García-Morente, M. (1917) Kant's philosophy. An introduction to philosophy. Madrid Spain.
• Martín, G. (1961). Kant. Ontology and epistemology. Cordoba Argentina. National University.
• CCG (s.f.). Immanuel Kant. mcn biographies. Taken from http://www.mcnbiografias.com/app-bio/do/show? key = kant-immanuel.