102,863
edits
Changes
Created page with "Image:lighterstill.jpg right|frame '''Immanuel Kant''' (1724-1804) is one of the most influential philosophers in the [htt..."
[[Image:lighterstill.jpg]]
[[Image:Immanuel_Kant_(painted_portrait).jpeg|right|frame]]
'''Immanuel Kant''' (1724-1804) is one of the most influential philosophers in the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_philosophy history of Western philosophy]. His contributions to [[metaphysics]], [[epistemology]], [[ethics]], and [[aesthetics]] have had a profound impact on almost every philosophical movement that followed him. This article focuses on his metaphysics and epistemology in one of his most important works, ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critique_of_Pure_Reason The Critique of Pure Reason]''. A large part of Kant’s work addresses the question “What can we know?” The answer, if it can be stated simply, is that our [[knowledge]] is constrained to [[mathematics]] and the science of the natural, empirical world. It is impossible, Kant argues, to extend knowledge to the supersensible realm of speculative metaphysics. The reason that knowledge has these constraints, Kant argues, is that the [[mind]] plays an active role in constituting the features of [[experience]] and limiting the mind’s access only to the empirical realm of [[space and time]].
Kant responded to his predecessors by arguing against the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricists Empiricists] that the mind is not a blank slate that is written upon by the empirical world, and by rejecting the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalists Rationalists]’ notion that pure, a priori knowledge of a mind-independent world was possible. [[Reason]] itself is structured with forms of experience and categories that give a phenomenal and logical structure to any possible object of empirical experience. These categories cannot be circumvented to get at a mind-independent world, but they are necessary for experience of spatio-temporal objects with their causal [[behavior]] and logical properties. These two theses constitute Kant’s famous [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_idealism transcendental idealism] and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empirical_realism empirical realism].
Kant’s contributions to ethics have been just as substantial, if not more so, than his work in metaphysics and epistemology. He is the most important proponent in philosophical history of deontological, or [[duty]] based, ethics. In Kant’s view, the sole feature that gives an action [[moral]] worth is not the outcome that is achieved by the action, but the [[motive]] that is behind the action. And the only motive that can endow an act with moral [[value]], he argues, is one that arises from universal principles discovered by reason. The [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_Imperative categorical imperative] is Kant’s famous statement of this duty: “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” [https://iep.utm.edu/kantmeta/ IEP]
[[Category: Philosophy]]
[[Image:Immanuel_Kant_(painted_portrait).jpeg|right|frame]]
'''Immanuel Kant''' (1724-1804) is one of the most influential philosophers in the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_philosophy history of Western philosophy]. His contributions to [[metaphysics]], [[epistemology]], [[ethics]], and [[aesthetics]] have had a profound impact on almost every philosophical movement that followed him. This article focuses on his metaphysics and epistemology in one of his most important works, ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critique_of_Pure_Reason The Critique of Pure Reason]''. A large part of Kant’s work addresses the question “What can we know?” The answer, if it can be stated simply, is that our [[knowledge]] is constrained to [[mathematics]] and the science of the natural, empirical world. It is impossible, Kant argues, to extend knowledge to the supersensible realm of speculative metaphysics. The reason that knowledge has these constraints, Kant argues, is that the [[mind]] plays an active role in constituting the features of [[experience]] and limiting the mind’s access only to the empirical realm of [[space and time]].
Kant responded to his predecessors by arguing against the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricists Empiricists] that the mind is not a blank slate that is written upon by the empirical world, and by rejecting the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalists Rationalists]’ notion that pure, a priori knowledge of a mind-independent world was possible. [[Reason]] itself is structured with forms of experience and categories that give a phenomenal and logical structure to any possible object of empirical experience. These categories cannot be circumvented to get at a mind-independent world, but they are necessary for experience of spatio-temporal objects with their causal [[behavior]] and logical properties. These two theses constitute Kant’s famous [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_idealism transcendental idealism] and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empirical_realism empirical realism].
Kant’s contributions to ethics have been just as substantial, if not more so, than his work in metaphysics and epistemology. He is the most important proponent in philosophical history of deontological, or [[duty]] based, ethics. In Kant’s view, the sole feature that gives an action [[moral]] worth is not the outcome that is achieved by the action, but the [[motive]] that is behind the action. And the only motive that can endow an act with moral [[value]], he argues, is one that arises from universal principles discovered by reason. The [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_Imperative categorical imperative] is Kant’s famous statement of this duty: “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” [https://iep.utm.edu/kantmeta/ IEP]
[[Category: Philosophy]]