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Immanuel
Kant
Born: April 24, 1724 -
Kaliningrad, Russia
Died: February 2, 1804
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Famous For:
Kant was a professor of
logic and metaphysics who was very unorthodox in his ideas on
religion. He based his view on rationalism over
revelation. This prompted King Frederick William II of Prussia
to forbid Kant from teaching religious subjects. Kant complied
until the king died 5 years later.
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Humanist Idea:
In Kant's key
piece called the Critique of Pure Reason(1781),he examines
the bases of human knowledge. In it he specifies two modes of
thinking: analytic and synthetic. To Kant an analytic mode of
thinking is determined by a proposition in which the truth is
self-evident for the reverse would be self-contradictory. The
synthetic mode of thinking is determined by a proposition that
results from ones experiences.
He goes further to add two other types of
propositions: empirical and a priori. An empirical proposition
depends entirely on one perception through the senses. A
priori propositions are not perceived through the senses but are
fundamental propositions. Kant considered all objects of the
material world as "fundamentally unknowable from the viewpoint
of reason." These objects are "merely raw material
from which sensations are formed."
Kant says that theoretical reason makes it
possible to cognize what is as well as practically determining
what ought to be. He believed that "Human reason is by
it's nature is architectonic." "Reason thinks of all
cognitions as belonging to a unified and organized system.
Reason is our faculty of making inferences and of identifying the
grounds behind every truth."
If the statement "Tom is a man"
is true and "all men are mortal" is true, then one can
infer that the statement "Tom is mortal" is true.
This set of references can be continued using reason, to provide
higher and higher levels of generality to explain the way things
are. We do this by connecting each state with the
previous state and the state that follows according to a rule.
Combining these into a hierarchy can provide us with a conception of
the whole system of nature.
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Noted Sayings:
Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and
awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to
them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me."
(Critique of Practical Reason (1788))
"Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make
ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of
happiness." (Critique of Practical Reason (1788))
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