Immanuel Kant is a German philosopher, professor at Königsberg University, an honorary foreign member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, the founder of classical German philosophy and "criticism". In terms of scale of activity, it is equated with Plato and Aristotle. Let's take a closer look at the life of Immanuel Kant and the main ideas of his developments.
Childhood
The future philosopher was born on April 22, 1724 in Koenigsberg (now Kaliningrad), in a large family. In all his life, he did not leave his native city further than 120 kilometers. Kant grew up in an environment in which the ideas of pietism had a special place. His father was a saddle maker and from childhood taught children to work. Mother tried to take care of their education. From the first years of his life, Kant had poor he alth. In the process of studying at school, he was able to learn the Latin language. Subsequently, all four dissertations of the scientist will be written in Latin.
Higher education
In 1740, Immanuel Kant entered the Albertina University. Of the teachers, M. Knutzen had a special influence on him, who introduced the ambitious young man to the achievementsmodern, at that time, science. In 1747, the difficult financial situation led to the fact that Kant was forced to go to the suburbs of Koenigsberg in order to get a job there as a home teacher in the family of a landowner.
Work activity
Returning to his native city in 1755, Immanuel Kant completed his studies at the university and defended his master's thesis en titled "On Fire". During the following year, he defended two more dissertations, which gave him the right to lecture as first an assistant professor, and then a professor. However, Kant then refused the title of professor and became an extraordinary (one who receives money from students, and not from management) assistant professor. In this format, the scientist worked until 1770, until he nevertheless became an ordinary professor at the department of logic and metaphysics of his native university.
Surprisingly, as a teacher, Kant lectured on a wide range of subjects, from mathematics to anthropology. In 1796, he stopped lecturing, and four years later he left the university altogether due to poor he alth. At home, Kant continued to work until his death.
Lifestyle
The way of life of Immanuel Kant and his habits deserve close attention, which began to manifest themselves especially since 1784, when the philosopher bought his own house. Every day, Martin Lampe, a retired soldier who acted as a servant in Kant's house, woke up the scientist. Waking up, Kant drank several cups of tea, smoked his pipe, and began preparing for lectures. After the lectures, it was time for dinner, at which the scientist was usually accompanied by several guests. Lunch often dragged on for 2-3 hours and was always accompanied by a lively conversation on various topics. The only thing the scientist did not want to talk about at that time was philosophy. After dinner, Kant went for a daily walk around the city, which later became legendary. Before going to bed, the philosopher liked to look at the cathedral, the building of which was clearly visible from the window of his bedroom.
To make a smart choice, you must first know what you can do without.
All his conscious life, Immanuel Kant carefully monitored his own he alth and professed a system of hygienic prescriptions, which he personally developed on the basis of long-term self-observation and self-hypnosis.
The main postulates of this system:
- Keep your head, feet and chest cool.
- Sleep less, as the bed is a "nest of diseases." The scientist was sure that you need to sleep only at night, deep and short sleep. When sleep did not come, he tried to induce it by repeating the word "Cicero" in his mind.
- Move more, take care of yourself, walk no matter the weather.
Kant was not married, although he did not have any prejudices regarding the opposite sex. According to the scientist, when he wanted to start a family, there was no such possibility, and when the opportunity appeared, the desire was already gone.
In the philosophical views of the scientist, the influence of H. Wolf, J. J. Rousseau, A. G. Baumgarten, D. Hume and other thinkers. Bamgarten's Wolffian textbook became the basis for Kant's lectures on metaphysics. As the philosopher himself admitted, the writings of Rousseau weaned him from arrogance. And Hume's achievements "awakened" the German scientist from his "dogmatic sleep".
Pre-critical philosophy
There are two periods in the work of Immanuel Kant: pre-critical and critical. During the first period, the scientist gradually moved away from the ideas of Wolf's metaphysics. The second period was the time when Kant formulated questions about the definition of metaphysics as a science and about the creation of new landmarks of philosophy by him.
Among the research of the pre-critical period, the cosmogonic developments of the philosopher, which he outlined in his work “The General Natural History and Theory of the Sky” (1755), are of particular interest. In his theory, Immanuel Kant argued that the formation of planets can be explained by assuming the existence of matter, endowed with forces of repulsion and attraction, while relying on the postulates of Newtonian physics.
In the pre-critical period, the scientist also paid much attention to the study of spaces. In 1756, in a dissertation en titled "Physical Methodology", he wrote that space, being a continuous dynamic environment, is created by the interaction of simple discrete substances and has a relative character.
The central teaching of Immanuel Kant of this period was expounded in a 1763 work en titled "The Only Possible Evidence for the Existence of God."Having criticized all the hitherto known proofs of the existence of God, Kant put forward a personal "ontological" argument, which was based on the recognition of the necessity of some kind of primordial existence and its identification with divine power.
Transition to critical philosophy
Kant's transition to criticism was gradual. This process began with the fact that the scientist revised his views on space and time. In the late 1760s, Kant recognized space and time as independent of things, subjective forms of human receptivity. Things, in the form in which they exist by themselves, the scientist called "noumena". The result of these studies was consolidated by Kant in his work “On the Forms and Principles of the Sensibly Perceived and Intelligible World” (1770).
The next turning point was the "awakening" of the scientist from the "dogmatic sleep", which occurred in 1771 after Kant's acquaintance with the developments of D. Hume. Against the background of pondering the threat of a complete empiricization of philosophy, Kant formulated the main question of the new critical teaching. It sounded like this: “How are a priori synthetic knowledge possible?” The philosopher was puzzled by the solution of this question until 1781, when the work "Critique of Pure Reason" saw the light. Over the next 5 years, three more books by Immanuel Kant were published. The second and third Critiques culminated in this period: the Critique of Practical Reason (1788) and the Critique of Judgment (1790). The philosopher did not stop there and in the 1800s he published several more important works supplementing the previous ones.
System of Critical Philosophy
Kant's criticism consists of theoretical and practical components. The connecting link between them is the philosopher's doctrine of objective and subjective expediency. The main question of criticism is: "What is a person?" The study of human essence is carried out at two levels: transcendental (identification of a priori signs of humanity) and empirical (a person is considered in the form in which he exists in society).
The Doctrine of Mind
Kant perceives "dialectic" as a doctrine that not only helps to criticize traditional metaphysics. It makes it possible to comprehend the highest degree of human cognitive ability - the mind. According to the scientist, reason is the ability to think the unconditional. It grows out of reason (which acts as a source of rules) and brings it to its unconditional concept. Those concepts to which no object can be given by experience, the scientist calls "ideas of pure reason".
Our knowledge begins with perception, goes into understanding, and ends with cause. Nothing is more important than reason.
Practical philosophy
Kant's practical philosophy is based on the doctrine of the moral law, which is a "fact of pure reason". He associates morality with unconditional duty. He believes that its laws stem from the mind, that is, the ability to think the unconditional. Since universal prescriptions can determine the will to act, they can be considered practical.
Social Philosophy
Questions of creativity, according to Kant, are not limited to the field of art. He talked about the possibility of people creating a whole artificial world, which the philosopher considered the world of culture. Kant discussed the development of culture and civilization in his later works. He saw the progress of human society in the natural competition of people and their desire to assert themselves. At the same time, according to the scientist, the history of mankind is a movement towards the full recognition of the value and freedom of the individual and "eternal peace".
Society, a tendency to communicate distinguish people apart, then a person feels in demand when he is most fully realized. Using natural inclinations, you can get unique masterpieces that he will never create alone, without society.
Departure
The great philosopher Immanuel Kant died on February 12, 1804. Thanks to a tough regime, he, despite all his ailments, survived many acquaintances and comrades.
Influence on subsequent philosophy
Kant's developments had a huge impact on the subsequent development of thought. He became the founder of the so-called German classical philosophy, which was later represented by the scale systems of Schelling, Hegel and Fichte. Immanuel Kant also had a great influence on the development of Schopenhauer's scientific views. In addition, his ideas influenced the romantic movement. In the second half of the 19th century neo-Kantianism had great authority. And in the 20th century, Kant's influence was recognized by leading exponentsexistentialism, the phenomenological school, analytical philosophy and philosophical anthropology.
Interesting facts from the life of a scientist
As you can see from the biography of Immanuel Kant, he was quite an interesting and outstanding personality. Consider some amazing facts from his life:
- The philosopher refuted 5 proofs of the existence of God, which for a long time enjoyed absolute authority, and offered his own, which to this day no one has been able to refute.
- Kant ate only at lunch, and he replaced other meals with tea or coffee. He got up strictly at 5 o'clock, and hung up at 22 o'clock.
- Despite his highly moral way of thinking, Kant was a supporter of anti-Semitism.
- The philosopher's height is only 157 cm, which, for example, is 9 cm less than that of Pushkin.
- When Hitler came to power, the Nazis proudly called Kant a true Aryan.
- Kant knew how to dress with taste, although he considered fashion a vain affair.
- According to the stories of students, the philosopher, when lecturing, often focused his eyes on one of the listeners. One day he fixed his eyes on a student whose clothes were missing a button. This problem immediately took away all the teacher's attention, he became confused and absent-minded.
- Kant had three older and seven younger brothers and sisters. Of these, only four survived, while the rest died in early childhood.
- Near the house of Immanuel Kant, whose biography was the subject of our review, there was a city prison. ATHere the prisoners were forced to sing spiritual chants daily. The philosopher was so fed up with the vocals of the criminals that he turned to the burgomaster with a request to stop this practice.
- Quotes by Immanuel Kant have always been very popular. The most popular of them is “Have the courage to use your own mind! “That is the motto of the Enlightenment.” Some of them are also given in the review.
