Immanuel Kant
1724–1804 2 entries
Biography
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher, one of the central figures of modern philosophy. He was born in Königsberg in East Prussia, studied at its university and taught there for more than four decades, and he is said never to have travelled far from the city. His daily walk was so regular that, according to legend, his neighbours set their clocks by it. In 1781, at the age of fifty-seven, he published the Critique of Pure Reason, which asks what reason can know and where its limits lie.
It was followed by the Critique of Practical Reason and the Critique of Judgement, on morality and on beauty. In his ethics he set out the categorical imperative: act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. In his essay Perpetual Peace he proposed a federation of free states to put an end to war. He died in his native city in 1804, and his tomb stands beside its cathedral.
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