Immanuel Kant
"Act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world." Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher in the strictest sense. He took an early interest in science and religion but eventually turned his focus to philosophy. He published several works but it wasn't until the age of 46 that Kant announced a transformation and gave credit for this to the philosopher David Hume, who he said "awoke me from my dogmatic slumber". Upon this transformation, Kant went into isolation for over a decade and did not produce a single work. He eventually re-emerged with his groundbreaking Critique of Pure Reason which, although it was first ignored, is now considered by many to be the single greatest contribution in the history of philosophy. |
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Kant gained popularity for his work in later years when he also published an essay entitled "Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?" and was then brought to public awareness by Karl Reinhold, an Austrian philosopher who published the work "Letters on the Kantian Philosophy". In it, he explained how Kant provided a valuable alternative to people who disagreed with atheism but who did not want to blindly follow the religious morality provided by the Church. Kant boldly asserted that, because of the limitations of reason, no one could really know for sure if there was a God or an afterlife. More importantly, he said, no one could really know for sure if there wasn't a God or an afterlife. He eventually laid out the rest of his philosophy in subsequent works entitled Critique of Practical Reason, Critique of Judgment and Metaphysic of Morals in 1797. His most famous theory is the "Categorical Imperative" which says that there is one moral law which is universally valid and from which all other morals can therefore be tested. It's third and final formulation reads as follows; "Therefore, every rational being must so act as if he were, through his maxim, always a legislating member in the universal kingdom of ends." "I was a lamb and of the holy flock that Dominic leads out along the way where fattening is good, unless they stray." "Beside me on the right is one who was my brother and my master, Albert of cologne, and I am Thomas of Aquinas." Today, "St. Thomas Aquinas "is considered to be one of the greatest theologians who ever lived and many institutions are named after him. References
Kant, Immanuel, (2008), Critique of Pure Reason, Penguin Classics; Revised edition |