Kant

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) was a German philosopher from Königsberg (now Kaliningrad). A central figure of the Enlightenment, he sought to reconcile empiricism and rationalism and to ground knowledge, morality, and aesthetics in a unified critical project. His influence spans epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and political philosophy.

Kant’s key idea is transcendental idealism: our experience of the world is shaped by the mind’s structures, yet we can know appearances (phenomena) while things‑in‑themselves (noumena) remain inaccessible. In the Critique of Pure Reason (1781; 1787), he argued that space, time, and categories are a priori conditions for experience, enabling synthetic knowledge about the world.

In ethics, he argued that action should be governed by the Categorical Imperative—act only on maxims that could be universal law. He stressed autonomy, the intrinsic worth of rational agents, and the idea of the Kingdom of Ends, where persons are treated as ends in themselves. His Moral philosophy emphasizes rational duty over contingent desires.

Kant also advanced the Critiques of Practical Reason (1788) and Judgment (1790) and wrote Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics. His critical method shaped later German idealism and modern analytic philosophy, and his claims about the limits of reason continue to influence discussions in epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics.