Kant, Immanuel

Kant, Immanuel (1724–1804), German philosopher. He spent his whole life in Prussia; from 1770 he was Professor of Logic at Königsberg. He first expounded his ‘Critical Philosophy’ in his Critique of Pure Reason (Der Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 1781); he applied the same principles to other problems in his later works.

It seems that Kant's main object was to discover a definitive rationale for the admitted validity of mathematics and natural science. He argued that it was the understanding (Verstand) which prescribed to nature her laws. The validity of the causal law (‘every event has a cause’) rests not on some constraining principle in the external world of nature, but in the fact that consciousness is so constituted that it cannot but so interpret the empirical data which it receives. Knowledge is thus the result of a synthesis between an intellectual act and what is presented to the mind from without. In holding that all knowledge required an ingredient derived from nature, Kant cut at the root of traditional metaphysics, with its claim to provide knowledge of subjects which transcend nature. The traditional proofs of the existence of God were all invalidated. But while insisting that Natural Theology was an illusion, Kant believed that the stern voice of conscience in man assures him of truths which reason is impotent to establish. The sense of duty assures us of freedom. Correlative with this belief in freedom is belief in immortality and a Divine Being, since the maladjustment of virtue and happiness in this world require a righteous God who will vindicate the claims of justice, and another world for His operation. Kant defined religion as the recognition of our duties as Divine commands; there is no place, he held, for mystical experience, no need for a personal redeemer, and no place (as in traditional Christianity) for the historical as such. His thought had immense influence.