Immanuel Kant 1724 – 1804
Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804) was a German philosopher of the Modern era, associated with German Idealism and Enlightenment.
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher of the Enlightenment born in Konigsberg, Prussia. His Critique of Pure Reason sought to reconcile rationalism and empiricism by arguing that human cognition shapes experience through innate categories. In ethics he formulated the categorical imperative, requiring actions to be universalizable as moral law. He also produced major works on aesthetics, teleology, and political philosophy, including Perpetual Peace. His critical philosophy redirected Western thought and inaugurated German Idealism.
Immanuel Kant was born in Königsberg in 1724 and spent his entire life in that East Prussian city, where he became professor of logic and metaphysics at the University in 1770. His three Critiques — of Pure Reason (1781), of Practical Reason (1788), and of Judgment (1790) — define the most ambitious philosophical project of the modern era.
The first Critique aims to settle the dispute between rationalism and empiricism by showing that the very possibility of experience requires a priori categories supplied by the understanding. Necessity and universality, which Hume had reduced to custom, are reconstituted as transcendental conditions of any possible experience. The cost is that knowledge is restricted to appearances; things in themselves remain in principle unknowable.
Kant's practical philosophy grounds morality in the rational form of the will: the categorical imperative requires that one act only on maxims one can will as universal laws, and that one treat humanity, in oneself or another, always as an end and never merely as a means. The third Critique completes the system by analyzing aesthetic and teleological judgment. Kant's project shapes everything that follows in nineteenth-century German philosophy; Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche are unintelligible without him, and contemporary Anglophone moral philosophy continues to engage him as a living interlocutor.
Key facts
- Nationality
- German
- Era
- Modern
- Movements
- German Idealism, Enlightenment
Selected quotes
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“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”
Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. -
“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.”
Der kategorische Imperativ, der überhaupt nur aussagt, was Verbindlichkeit sei, ist: handle nach einer Maxime, welche zugleich als ein allgemeines Gesetz gelten kann. -
Attributed to Immanuel Kant:
“Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.”
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“Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.”
Idea for a General History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose (1784), Proposition 6. | Variant translations: Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made nothing entirely straight can be built. | From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned. | Never a straight thing was made from the crooked timber of man. -
“All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason.”
All human knowledge begins with intuitions, proceeds from thence to concepts, and ends with ideas.
Immanuel Kant by topic
Immanuel Kant vs other philosophers
Three-way comparisons including Immanuel Kant
Frequently asked about Immanuel Kant
- When did Immanuel Kant live?
- Immanuel Kant was born in 1724 and died in 1804.
- Where was Immanuel Kant from?
- Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher of the Modern era.
- What philosophical movements is Immanuel Kant associated with?
- Immanuel Kant was associated with German Idealism and Enlightenment.
- What was Immanuel Kant known for?
- Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher of the Enlightenment born in Konigsberg, Prussia.
- How many quotes are attributed to Immanuel Kant?
- There are 18 attributed quotations from Immanuel Kant in the 1001Philosophers collection, organized by topic.
Quotes that are not actually from Immanuel Kant
These lines are widely circulated as Immanuel Kant, but they do not appear in Immanuel Kant's works. Each entry below identifies the actual source.
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“Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.”
This line is from Herbert Spencer's Education: Intellectual, Moral and Physical (1861). It is sometimes misattributed to Kant but does not appear in any of Kant's works.
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“Do what is right, though the world may perish.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: This is quoted as Kant in Building Academic Language: Essential Practices for Content Classrooms, Grades 5-12 (2007) by Jeff Zwiers, p. 202, but apparently derives from Kant's arguments in support of the far older Latin proverb Fiat iustitia, pereat mundus — "Do what is right though the world should
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“If the truth shall kill them, let them die.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Generally attributed to Kant on social media, this is actually from a quotation by Ayn Rand paraphrasing Kant. Cited in Judgment Day: My Years with Ayn Rand (1989) by Nathaniel Branden.
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“Have patience awhile; slanders are not long-lived. Truth is the child of time; erelong she shall appear to vindicate thee.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: This quote has been misattributed to Kant since the late 19th century , but it is actually from The Balm of Gilead by Joseph Hall (1646), the section "Comfort from the short life of slander" .
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“Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.”
This is declared to be "an old Kantian maxim" in General Systems Vol. 7-8 (1962), p. 11, by the Society for the Advancement of General Systems Theory, but may simply be a paraphrase or summation of Kantian ideas. Kant's treatment of the transcendental logic in the First Critique contains a portion, of which this quote may be an ambiguously worded paraphrase. Kant, claiming that both reason and the senses are essential to the formation of our understanding of the world, writes: "Without sensibility no object would be given to us, and without understanding none would be thought. Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind (A51/B75)". (Disputed.)