Kant, Immanuel

An eighteenth-century German philosopher ; one of the leading philosophers of modern times. His views are called the Critical Philosophy , and his three best-known works are Critique of Pure Reason , Critique of Practical Reason , and Critique of Judgment . Kant was troubled because metaphysics had not arrived at acceptable answers on important concerns, particularly God (whether there is one), the soul (whether it lives on after death), and the world as a whole (whether people can act freely in the world, or whether its laws determine all their actions). He maintained that the first step in getting any answers in these areas was to investigate the limits of human understanding and reasoning; this investigation was what he called a critique.

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Notes

Kant held that we cannot know a thing-in-itself as it is, but only as our mind constitutes it. He asserted that while no one can understand God, the soul, or the world in the way we understand things in nature, we must believe in God, in immortality, and in free will .

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Example Sentences

I quote Immanuel Kant in my preface, defining enlightenment as mankind coming out of its self-imposed immaturity.

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What begins as a literary family drama turns slowly into a heady horror story, part Stephen King and part Immanuel Kant.

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According to Immanuel Kant, a genius could be understood as someone whose work was both "original and exemplary."

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This majestic conception was first advanced, in modern times at least, by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant.

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His name was Immanuel Kant; and the Kantian philosophy is weel kent as something originating wi' him.

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In the eighteenth century even Immanuel Kant's ideal ethics had—so far as can be seen—a similar origin.

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Immanuel Kant was, we admit, the most potent amongst all known intellects for functions of pure abstraction.

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I am speaking of one whose very name possesses an exorcising power: I speak of Immanuel Kant.

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