Immanuel Kant: Philosophy, Critiques, and Influence
Immanuel Kant: Life and Key Writings
Immanuel Kant was born in Königsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia) in 1724 and died in the same city in 1804. He studied theology and science and devoted himself to teaching. A lifelong scholar, he lived for books, writing on topics ranging from cosmology to treatises on customs, yet he famously never left his hometown.
His most important works include:
- Critique of Pure Reason (1781)
- Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)
- Critique of Practical Reason (1788)
- Critique of Judgment (1793)
Synthesizing Rationalism and Empiricism
Kant’s philosophy represents a monumental synthesis of the two dominant philosophical currents of the 17th-18th centuries: rationalism and empiricism. Both movements located the origin of knowledge within the subject’s consciousness, but differed significantly on the sources and limits of that knowledge.
Rationalist Foundations
Rationalism emphasized reason as the primary source of knowledge. Key features included:
- Recognizing the universal value and necessity of scientific laws.
- Positing reason as the most important source of scientific knowledge.
- Taking mathematics and physical science as models, extending their methods to other fields.
- Valuing intuitive knowledge and grounding deduction in intuition.
- Accepting the existence of innate ideas (or structures).
- Using ‘clear’ and ‘distinct’ ideas as the criterion of truth.
Empiricist Foundations
Empiricism, arising primarily in the British Isles, maintained that experience is the only source of knowledge. Key features included:
- Rejecting the concept of innate ideas.
- Asserting that knowledge cannot transcend the limits of experience.
- Using empirical verification as the criterion of truth.
Limits of Empirical Knowledge
According to empiricism, since knowledge is limited by experience, metaphysical questions about entities like God lack sense. Empirical or experimental sciences, based directly on sensory experience, are considered to hold the highest scientific status.
Hume’s Influence and Kant’s Critique
As Kant’s philosophy synthesizes these traditions, he was profoundly influenced by the empiricist David Hume. This influence is evident in Kant’s central epistemological question: What can I know?
The Scope of Human Knowledge
Following Hume, Kant questioned the possibility of certain knowledge about God, the soul, and the world (as traditionally conceived in metaphysics). He meticulously examined Hume’s arguments, particularly concerning causality and induction.
A Priori Judgments and Science
Kant engaged deeply with Hume’s point that experience never provides universal certainty (information about all cases) and that occurrences in consciousness are contingent. This led Kant to investigate how universal and necessary judgments, essential for science, are possible. He wondered if a judgment’s universality and necessity imply it must be a priori (independent of experience). This concern about the foundation of science, particularly the possibility of synthetic a priori judgments, was later echoed by 20th-century analytic philosophy and neopositivism.
Critique of Traditional Metaphysics
While influenced by rationalism (adopting twelve categories of understanding, though as innate structures rather than Descartes’ innate ideas), Kant fundamentally critiqued traditional metaphysics. He argued against treating concepts like God, the soul, and the world as if they were objects of possible sense experience. Later, Hegel’s absolute idealism would question whether Kant’s categories could indeed apply to the noumenon (the thing-in-itself).
Kantian Ethics: Duty and Reception
Kant developed a deontological ethical system centered on the concept of duty derived from reason.
Moral Law vs. Relativism
Kant’s ethics, based on the universalizable Categorical Imperative, stands in contrast to views where moral duty changes between individuals and societies (such as Sophistry). His absolutist stance faced challenges from the axiological relativism prominent in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Challenges from Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism, particularly through John Stuart Mill, questioned the stark, potentially antithetical relationship Kant posited between acting from duty and achieving happiness. Mill and others explored whether promoting the happiness of others could itself be a moral duty.
Kant’s Political Thought
Kant’s political philosophy operates within the framework of liberal contractualism.
Social Contract Theory
He explored the idea of a social contract grounded in reason and individual rights as a basis for legitimate political authority and perpetual peace.
Influence and Marxist Critique
This aspect of Kant’s thought proved highly fertile, significantly influencing later political philosophers like John Rawls. However, it also attracted criticism, notably from Karl Marx, who argued that the notion of a social contract was often an ideological facade contradicting the actual power dynamics and exploitation within society.