Immanuel Kant

 Immanuel Kant

YouTube link to the lecture: Immanuel Kant

Life

18th c. philosopher

Born in Prussia

Family: father, a saddler; mother, an uneducated woman, noted for her remarkable character and intelligence.

Religious influence: Pietist branch of the Lutheran Church. Stress on inner life. Kant confining himself to his own village.

Senility and death

Works

Three Critiques – of Pure Reason, of Practical Reason, of Judgement

What is Enlightenment?

Kant and The Enlightenment

A spokesman of the French intellectual dynamism. (“What is Enlightenment?”)

But was against the extravagant claims made on behalf of reason: advocated the idea that there are realms of reality that are opaque to reason; they are illuminated by flashes of insight.

(Did not undermine the role of reason; but objected to the denial of the orders of reality which could not be verified by reason. We should not restrict knowledge to the testimony of the senses.)

Kant’s respect for Hume: Kant has remarked that Hume woke him up from ‘dogmatic slumber’.

Kant’s Philosophy

Was against bigotry, dogmatism, despotism

Urged that society should be open to new ideas

Man should be liberated from intellectual dependence of others, which halts the progress of mankind. Even a priest should articulate his independent views freely.

Kant and the other Thinkers

Kant was critical of many thinkers, including skeptics like Hume, dogmatists – both idealists (who question the meaningful participation of the individual in this physical world) and materialists (who deny man’s independence of the world of sense).

Kant’s Attempt to Resolve the Philosophical Conflict

His primary interest: resolve the tension in the philosophical depiction of man. He trusted in the idea: “the starry heavens above me; the moral law within me”. A gaze at the heavens destroys his sense of importance as an animal creature; but reflections upon the moral law within me raises his worth – he is ‘an intelligence’ independent of the whole world of sense … reaching into the infinite.” Kant tries to find a general ground where the fundamentals of the clashing views could meet.

‘a priori’ Concepts

Kant’s belief in the ‘a priori’ concepts: certain preconditions are necessary for the possibility of experience: substance, causality, space, time etc. Reception of sense data is accompanied by self-conscious application of concepts. Experience is impossible except under the conditions required for conceptual judgement and self-consciousness.

Kant’s Contribution to Romanticism

Unified the notions of a transcendent realm of freedom, with the natural world (governed by mechanical laws). Artistic genius could have intimation of this higher order of reality. 

Prepared by Jacob Eapen Kunnath

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