Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) was an influential German philosopher whose ‘Critique of Pure Reason’ (1781) sought to unite reason with experience and move philosophy on from the debate between rationalists and empiricists.
He is credited with changing Western thought with his examinations of reason and the nature of reality. A central concept of Kant’s philosophy was the “categorical imperative” – evaluating motivations for action.
Kant’s comprehensive and profound thinking on aesthetics, ethics and knowledge has had an immense impact on all subsequent philosophy.
Key point:
Kant reasoned that to be truly enlightened, we must all have the freedom and courage to use our own intellect.
This is witty:
I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief.
p.s.
The roots of modern liberal international relations theory can be traced back to Immanuel Kant’s essay Perpetual Peace (1795). In that essay Kant provided three “definitive conditions” for perpetual peace, each of which became a dominant strain of post–World War II liberal IR theory. Neoliberal institutionalism emphasises the importance of international institutions (Kant’s ‘federation of free states’) in maintaining peace. Commercial liberalism stressing the importance of economic interdependence and free trade (Kant’s ‘universal hospitality’) in maintaining peace. Democracy, which argues that democracies rarely, if ever, go to war with each other, and thus an executive accountable to the people or the parliament is important to maintain peace (Kant’s call for all states to have ‘republican constitutions’).
— A related post: Common Goodness
— All things political: Politics etc.
Anna Bidoonism 