Immanuel Kant: Life, Context, and Philosophy
Immanuel Kant, a pivotal author, was born in Prussia. His life and intellectual context are deeply rooted in the 18th-century Enlightenment. Prussia, at the time, was a collection of small states that would eventually become a powerful German nation under Frederick II, a representative of “enlightened despotism.” His successor, Frederick William, hindered the spread of Enlightenment ideas through religious and educational censorship. Kant himself faced restrictions, particularly in teaching and writing about religious matters. However, Kant became a fundamental author in the fight against tradition and authority, advocating for autonomous reason and freedom. He famously expressed this as the need to overcome the state of being “underage children.”
Kant’s Enlightenment Thought
Kant, as an Enlightenment thinker, believed that autonomous reason, in opposition to dogmatism, could lead to human renewal through self-criticism. Enlightenment thinkers trusted in the power of education and knowledge as instruments for moral renewal. Kant adopted the motto “Sapere aude” (Dare to know), expressing the need for thought free from dogmatic conformity and imbued with a critical spirit.
Kant’s Critical Philosophy
Kant’s “critical philosophy” was a response to this need. His philosophical framework analyzed the possibilities of knowledge, a central question in modern philosophy. Two main philosophical currents of the time were continental rationalism and British empiricism.
Rationalism vs. Empiricism
Rationalism (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Wolff) defended reason as the sole source of knowledge, independent of experience. Empiricism (Locke, Hume, and Berkeley) stated that experience was the only source of knowledge. Kant rejected both rationalist dogmatism and empiricist skepticism. He proposed a synthesis, admitting that experience is the necessary starting point for knowledge, as empiricism affirmed, but that not all elements of our knowledge come from it, as rationalists conceded.
Kant also recognized the importance of scientific knowledge, particularly influenced by Newton’s physics. He was influenced by:
- The rationalist philosopher Wolff, under whom Kant began his training.
- Newton’s work, for which Kant had great admiration, taking Newton’s physics as a model for knowledge.
- Rousseau, who influenced Kant’s notion of the original pact and the possibility of a naturally good human will.
- Hume, whose critique of causality awakened Kant from his “dogmatic slumber.”
(The previous four points are essential.)
Kant was also influenced by Pietism, a strict Lutheran interpretation of morality based on duty, which would play a significant role in Kant’s ethics.
Kant’s Posthumous Impact
Kant’s philosophy has had a profound impact, paving the way for new philosophical developments such as:
- German Idealism, with figures like Fichte and Hegel.
- Marxist philosophy, which focused on eliminating alienation.
- Positivism and neo-positivism, which sought a criterion for distinguishing scientific and metaphysical knowledge.
- Phenomenology, which aimed to find a rigorous and universally valid form of knowledge.
Kant’s influence extends to ethics and dialogic approaches.
Kant’s Theory of Knowledge
Kant analyzed scientific knowledge, questioning its certainty and conditions of possibility. He sought to determine if metaphysics could meet these conditions. He argued that scientific knowledge is necessary and universal, requiring synthetic a priori judgments. Science is built through synthetic a priori judgments, using sensibility (space and time) in mathematics and categories in physics. Scientific knowledge starts with experience, applying space, time, and categories, which are a priori elements provided by the subject. These elements are the conditions that enable all knowledge.
Kant concluded that metaphysics errs by applying categories to concepts like the soul, world, and God, which are not sensible realities. Therefore, metaphysics cannot be a scientific form of knowledge. Kant’s theory is called transcendental idealism because it explains knowledge not in terms of things in themselves, which are unknowable, but from the perspective of the conditions that make knowledge possible.
Kant’s Ethics
Regarding the practical use of reason, Kant’s ethics seek universal and a priori principles of morality based on free action. The goodness or badness of an action lies solely in the intention of the subject, guided by goodwill. An action is guided by goodwill when it is done out of respect for duty, without regard to other conditions or interests. Duty is defined by Kant as the necessity of an action out of respect for the law.
The Categorical Imperative
Moral duty is expressed through imperatives or mandates. Kant rejects hypothetical imperatives as a posteriori and conditional, claiming that the moral imperative must be categorical and universal. He offered several formulations of the categorical imperative. The first is: “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”
Another formulation of the categorical imperative is: “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.” This highlights the obligation to respect human beings because, as rational beings, they have absolute value: they are ends in themselves, never to be used as mere instruments.
In his Critique of Practical Reason, Kant proposes access to the realm of the noumenal through postulates: freedom, the immortality of the soul, and God. These are the presuppositions for the possibility of morality, opening the way for rational belief.