Reading: Kant Speaks

Kant Speaks: The Life and Thought of Immanuel Kant

Biography: Reflections on My Life

As I sit to reflect on my life and work, I, Immanuel Kant, am struck by how quiet and uneventful my days may seem from the outside. I was born in 1724 in Königsberg, Prussia—a small city, but one I rarely left. Unlike many of the great thinkers who traveled widely or participated in public life, I spent almost my entire existence within the bounds of my hometown. Yet, within these quiet boundaries, my thoughts ventured far and wide, seeking to understand the nature of reality, morality, and human knowledge.

My early life was shaped by a strict Pietist upbringing, which emphasized discipline, humility, and faith. However, my intellectual journey led me to the works of early modern philosophers like René Descartes, John Locke, and especially David Hume. It was Hume, in fact, who famously “awakened me from my dogmatic slumber” with his skepticism about causality and knowledge. His challenge pushed me to reconcile rationalism with empiricism, and this would become the core of my work.

After years of teaching, writing, and thinking, I published my most influential work in 1781: Critique of Pure Reason. This work, along with its companions Critique of Practical Reason and Critique of Judgment, would define my contribution to philosophy. These works addressed the fundamental questions of human knowledge, morality, and aesthetics, offering a new path for philosophy to follow.

Now that you know a little of my life, let me guide you through my ideas, which shaped both the course of modern philosophy and, I hope, the way we understand ourselves.

Philosophical Views: Bridging Rationalism and Empiricism

My central concern was to answer the question: What can we know? I believed that neither rationalism nor empiricism alone could fully explain the nature of human knowledge. Descartes and the rationalists argued that knowledge comes from pure reason, independent of experience. Locke and the empiricists claimed that all knowledge derives from sensory experience. But both, I thought, were missing a crucial element. The answer, I believed, lay in synthesizing these two approaches. This led me to my famous distinction between the a priori and a posteriori forms of knowledge, and the framework that would revolutionize philosophy: transcendental idealism.

The Copernican Revolution in Philosophy: Transcendental Idealism

In my Critique of Pure Reason, I argued that the mind does not passively receive knowledge from the world, as the empiricists claimed, nor does it simply generate knowledge independently of the world, as the rationalists suggested. Instead, I proposed that the mind actively structures experience. This was my Copernican revolution in philosophy: just as Copernicus showed that the Earth revolves around the sun rather than the other way around, I proposed that objects conform to our mind, rather than our mind conforming to objects.

I wrote:

"Up to now it has been assumed that all our knowledge must conform to objects. But all attempts to extend our knowledge of objects by establishing something in them a priori through concepts have, on this assumption, ended in failure. Hence let us once try whether we do not get farther with the problems of metaphysics by assuming that the objects must conform to our knowledge."
(Critique of Pure Reason, Preface to the Second Edition)

This shift, which I called transcendental idealism, means that while we experience the world as it appears to us (phenomena), we cannot know the world as it is in itself (noumena). Our mind shapes and structures all experience, imposing categories like time, space, and causality. These categories are not features of the external world but are part of the way our minds make sense of reality. In short, we can know things only as they appear to us, not as they exist independently of our perception.

The Limits of Human Knowledge

I believed that human knowledge is limited to what we can experience and understand through these categories. This means that many of the traditional metaphysical questions—such as the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, or the nature of free will—cannot be answered definitively. These questions belong to the realm of noumena, the thing-in-itself, which is beyond the reach of human knowledge.

I famously wrote:

"The greatest and perhaps the sole use of all philosophy of pure reason is, after all, merely negative, since it serves not as an organon for the enlargement of knowledge, but as a discipline for its delimitation."
(Critique of Pure Reason, Preface to the Second Edition)

Thus, my work was not about providing answers to metaphysical questions, but about setting the limits for what we can and cannot know. In this sense, philosophy’s role was to clear the ground of false claims and ensure that human knowledge remained within its proper bounds.

Morality: The Categorical Imperative

While my Critique of Pure Reason addressed the limits of human knowledge, my Critique of Practical Reason focused on the realm of morality. I was convinced that while theoretical knowledge has limits, practical reason—our capacity to make moral decisions—can provide us with certainty.

At the heart of my moral philosophy is the idea of the categorical imperative. Unlike hypothetical imperatives, which tell us what to do if we want to achieve a certain goal (e.g., "If you want to be healthy, exercise"), the categorical imperative commands actions that are morally necessary, regardless of our desires or goals.

The most famous formulation of the categorical imperative is:

"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."
(Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Section II)

This means that when we act, we must ask ourselves whether the principle behind our action could be applied universally—whether it could be a law that everyone follows. If the answer is no, then the action is morally wrong.

For example, if you were to lie, you must consider whether it would be acceptable for everyone to lie. If everyone lied, trust and communication would break down, making lying self-defeating as a universal principle. Therefore, lying is morally impermissible according to the categorical imperative.

The Role of Duty in Morality

In my view, morality is grounded in duty, not in the consequences of our actions. An action is morally good not because of what it achieves, but because it is done from a sense of duty, in accordance with the moral law. Even if lying would produce good consequences in a particular situation, it would still be wrong because it violates the categorical imperative.

I wrote:

"It is impossible to think of anything at all in the world, or even beyond it, that could be considered good without limitation except a good will."
(Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Section I)

A good will is one that acts out of respect for the moral law, regardless of the consequences. For me, this is the essence of moral action.

Aesthetics: Beauty and the Sublime

In my third major work, Critique of Judgment, I turned my attention to aesthetics—the study of beauty and art. I sought to understand the nature of aesthetic experience and how judgments of beauty are possible. Beauty, I argued, is not a property of objects themselves, but a subjective experience that arises when we contemplate an object in a disinterested way.

I wrote:

"Beauty is the form of the purposiveness of an object, so far as this is perceived in it without the representation of an end."
(Critique of Judgment, Section I)

This means that beauty is experienced when we perceive an object as having a harmonious form, without considering any practical use or purpose for it. The experience of beauty is universal because it arises from the faculties of perception and judgment that we all share.

I also distinguished between beauty and the sublime. While beauty is about harmony and balance, the sublime is about vastness and power. The sublime inspires awe and a feeling of our own smallness in the face of nature’s immensity, yet it also uplifts us by reminding us of the greatness of our own capacity for reason.

Influence on the World of Philosophy: A Lasting Legacy

As I reflect on my work, I see that my ideas have left a profound and lasting impact on philosophy. My Critique of Pure Reason shaped the course of modern philosophy, influencing thinkers such as Hegel, Fichte, and Schelling in the German idealist tradition, as well as later existentialists and phenomenologists. My moral philosophy, especially the categorical imperative, became foundational for modern deontological ethics and continues to be studied and applied in moral reasoning today.

Kantian Ethics and Politics

My emphasis on duty and universal moral laws has had a significant influence on both ethics and political thought. The idea that individuals should be treated as ends in themselves, never merely as means to an end, has been central to human rights discourse and theories of justice.

I wrote:

"Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end, and never merely as a means."
(Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Section II)

This principle has inspired movements for social justice, equality, and human dignity, reflecting the moral seriousness with which I believed we must approach our duties to one another.

Conclusion: My Place in the Modern World

As I reflect on my life and work, I am humbled by how my ideas have shaped modern philosophy and ethics. My goal was always to understand the limits of human reason, the foundations of morality, and the nature of beauty. I believe that by placing limits on what we can know, I freed philosophy to focus on what truly matters: the moral and practical use of reason in our lives.

In a world that constantly seeks answers to deep and challenging questions, my hope is that my work continues to guide people toward clarity about the nature of human experience, the limits of knowledge, and the importance of moral duty. My legacy is one of critical inquiry, moral seriousness, and a deep respect for the dignity of human reason and freedom.