Immanuel Kant, German Philosopher
Kant miniature by Vernet, 1795. Immanuel Kant (April 22, 1724 - February 12, 1804) was a German philosopher who researched, lectured and wrote on philosophy and anthropology during the Enlightenment at the end of the 18th century. His major work, the Critique of Pure Reason (1781), aimed to unite reason with experience to move beyond what he took to be failures of traditional philosophy and metaphysics. He published other important works on ethics, religion, law, aesthetics, astronomy, and history. He aimed to resolve disputes between empirical and rationalist approaches. The former asserted that all knowledge comes through experience; the latter maintained that reason and innate ideas were prior. He argued that experience is purely subjective without first being processed by pure reason. He believed that using reason without applying it to experience only leads to theoretical illusions. The free and proper exercise of reason by the individual was a theme both of the Enlightenment, and of Kant's approaches to the various problems of philosophy. His ideas influenced many thinkers in Germany during his lifetime. He settled and moved philosophy beyond the debate between the rationalists and empiricists. He also lectured on anthropology for over 25 years. His Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View was published in 1798. His health, long poor, took a turn for the worse and he died in 1804 at the age of 79, uttering "Es ist gut" (It is good) before expiring.
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