Immanuel Kant
Philosopher · 1724-1804 · Philosophy, stage 3: Meet the thinkers
Argued that moral duty comes from reason itself, not from consequences, and that the mind actively shapes the reality we experience.
Overview
Immanuel Kant spent nearly his entire life in Konigsberg, and his mature work reorganized both epistemology and ethics around the idea that the mind is not a passive recorder of an independent reality but an active participant in shaping experience. In the Critique of Pure Reason, he argues that concepts like space, time, and causality are not learned from experience but are structures the mind itself imposes on whatever it perceives, which is how he tries to answer rationalist and empiricist objections at once. In ethics, his categorical imperative grounds moral duty in reason rather than in consequences or feelings: an action is right if the rule behind it could be willed as a universal law. New readers usually start with the much shorter Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals before attempting the dense Critique of Pure Reason.
Where to start reading
The Critique of Pure Reason 1781
Kant's major work on epistemology and metaphysics, arguing that the mind actively structures experience through built-in concepts like space, time, and causality.
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals 1785
A short, foundational text laying out the categorical imperative and the idea that moral worth comes from acting out of duty according to reason.
Critique of Practical Reason 1788
Kant's second critique, extending his ethical theory and addressing the relationship between morality, freedom, and reason.
Part of
Sources
- Immanuel Kant Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Kant Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
