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Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant was an 18th-century philosopher from Königsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). He's regarded as one of the most influential thinkers of modern Europe & of the late Enlightenment. His most important work is The Critique of Pure Reason, an investigation of reason itself. It encompasses an attack on traditional metaphysics & epistemology, & highlights his own contribution to these areas. Other main works of his maturity are The Critique of Practical Reason, which is about ethics, & The Critique of Judgment, about esthetics & teleology.

Pursuing metaphysics involves asking questions about the ultimate nature of reality. Kant suggested that metaphysics can be reformed thru epistemology. He suggested that by understanding the sources & limits of human knowledge we can ask fruitful metaphysical questions. He asked if an object can be known to have certain properties prior to the experience of that object. He concluded that all objects that the mind can think about must conform to its manner of thought. Therefore if the mind can think only in terms of causality–which he concluded that it does–then we can know prior to experiencing them that all objects we experience must either be a cause or an effect. However, it follows from this that it's possible that there are objects of such a nature that the mind cannot think of them, & so the principle of causality, for instance, cannot be applied outside experience: hence we cannot know, for example, whether the world always existed or if it had a cause. So the grand questions of speculative metaphysics are off limits, but the sciences are firmly grounded in laws of the mind. Kant believed himself to be creating a compromise between the empiricists & the rationalists. The empiricists believed that knowledge is acquired thru experience alone, but the rationalists maintained that such knowledge is open to Cartesian doubt and that reason alone provides us with knowledge. Kant argues, however, that using reason without applying it to experience will only lead to illusions, while experience will be purely subjective without first being subsumed under pure reason. Kant’s thought was very influential in Germany during his lifetime, moving philosophy beyond the debate between the rationalists & empiricists. The philosophers Fichte, Schelling, Hegel and Schopenhauer saw themselves as correcting and expanding Kant's system, thus bringing about various forms of German Idealism. Kant continues to be a major influence on philosophy to this day, influencing both Analytic and Continental philosophy.


“Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.”
Immanuel Kant
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“act as if the maxim of your action were to become by your will a general law of nature.”
Immanuel Kant
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“Give me matter and i will build a world out of it.”
Immanuel Kant
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“Il difetto di giudizio è propriamente quello che si chiama stupidità, difetto cui non c'è modo di arrecare rimedio. Una testa ottusa o limitata, alla quale non manchi altro che un conveniente grado di intelletto […], si può ben armare mediante l'insegnamento fino a farne magari un dotto. Ma, poiché in tal caso di solito avviene che sia sempre in difetto di giudizio […], non è raro il caso di uomini assai dotti, i quali nell'uso della loro scienza lasciano spesso scorgere quel tal difetto, che non si lascia mai correggere.”
Immanuel Kant
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“Obra como si la máxima de tu acción pudiera ser erigida, por tu voluntad, en ley universal de la naturaleza”
Immanuel Kant
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“Skepticism is thus a resting-place for human reason, where it can reflect upon its dogmatic wanderings and make survey of the region in which it finds itself, so that for the future it may be able to choose its path with more certainty. But it is no dwelling-place for permanent settlement. Such can be obtained only through perfect certainty in our knowledge, alike of the objects themselves and of the limits within which all our knowledge of objects is enclosed.”
Immanuel Kant
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“A good will is good not because of what it effects, or accomplishes, not because of its fitness to attain some intended end, but good just by its willing, i.e. in itself; and, considered by itself, it is to be esteemed beyond compare much higher than anything that could ever be brought about by it in favor of some inclinations, and indeed, if you will, the sum of all inclinations. Even if by some particular disfavor of fate, or by the scanty endowment of a stepmotherly nature, this will should entirely lack the capacity to carry through its purpose; if despite its greatest striving it should still accomplish nothing, and only the good will were to remain (not of course, as a mere wish, but as the summoning of all means that are within our control); then, like a jewel, it would still shine by itself, as something that has full worth in itself".”
Immanuel Kant
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“For if we regard space and time as properties that must, as regards their possibility, be found in things in themselves, [...] then we really cannot blame the good Bishop Berkeley for degrading bodies to mere illusion. Nay, even our own existence, which would thus be made dependent on the self-subsistent reality of a non-entity such as time, would, along with this time, be changed into mere illusion - an absurdity of which hitherto no one has been guilty.”
Immanuel Kant
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“Enlightenment is man's release from his self incurred tutelage.Tutelage is man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. " Have courage to use your own reason" that's the motto of enlightenment .”
Immanuel Kant
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“Human beings are never to be treated as a means but always as ends.”
Immanuel Kant
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“By a lie a man throws away and as it were annihilates his dignity as a man”
Immanuel Kant
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“What might be said of things in themselves, separated from all relationship to our senses, remains for us absolutely unknown”
Immanuel Kant
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“True politics cannot take a single step without first paying homage to morals, and while politics itself is a difficult art, its combination with morals is no art at all; for morals cuts the Gordian knot which politics cannot solve as soon as the two are in conflict.”
Immanuel Kant
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“Dare to know! Have the courage to use your own intelligence!”
Immanuel Kant
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“Man, and in general every rational being, exists as an end in himself, not merely as a means for arbitrary use by this or that will: he must in all his actions, whether they are directed to himself or to other rational beings, always be viewed at the same time as an end.”
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“The first impression of the writings of Mr. J. J. Rousseau received by a knowledgeable reader, who is reading for something more than vanity or to kill time, is that he is encountering a lucidity of mind, a noble impulse of genius and a sensitive soul of such a high level that perhaps never an author of whatever epoch or of whatever people has been able to possess in combination. The impression that immediately follows is bewilderment over the strange and contradictory opinions, which so oppose those which are in general circulation that one can easily come to the suspicion that the author, by virtue of his extraordinary talent, wishes to show off only the force of his bewitching wit and through the magic of rhetoric make himself something apart who through captivating novelties stands out among all rivals at wit.”
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“All false art, all vain wisdom, lasts its time but finally destroys itself, and its highest culture is also the epoch of its decay.”
Immanuel Kant
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“There is something splendid about innocence; but what is bad about it, in turn, is that it cannot protect itself very well and is easily seduced.”
Immanuel Kant
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“Simply to acquiesce in skepticism can never suffice to overcome the restlessness of reason.”
Immanuel Kant
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“Phantasie ist unser guter Genius oder unser Dämon.”
Immanuel Kant
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“It is of great consequence to have previously determined the concept that one wants to elucidate through observation before questioning experience about it; for one finds in experience what one needs only if one knows in advance what to look for.”
Immanuel Kant
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“All rational knowledge is either material, and concerns some objects, or formal, and is occupied only with the form of understanding and reason itself and with the universal rules of thinking, without regard to distinctions among objects. formal philosophy is called logic. Material philosophy, however, which has to do with definite object objects and the laws to which they are subject, is divided into two parts. This is because these laws are either laws of nature or laws of freedom. The science of the former is called physics, and that of the latter ethics. The former is also called theory of nature and the latter theory of morals.”
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“How then is perfection to be sought? Wherein lies our hope? In education, and in nothing else.”
Immanuel Kant
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“Beauty presents an indeterminate concept of Understanding, the sublime an indeterminate concept of Reason.”
Immanuel Kant
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“One age cannot bind itself, and thus conspire, to place a succeeding one in a condition whereby it would be impossible for the later age to expand its knowledge (particularly where it is so very important), to rid itself of errors, and generally to increase its enlightenment. That would be a crime against human nature, whose essential destiny lies precisely in such progress; subsequent generations are thus completely justified in dismissing such agreements as unauthorized and criminal. The criterion of everything that can be agreed upon as a law by a people lies in this question: Can a people impose such a law on itself?”
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“...new prejudices will serve as well as old ones to harness the great unthinking masses.For this enlightenment, however, nothing is required but freedom, and indeed the most harmless among all the things to which this term can properly be applied. It is the freedom to make public use of one's reason at every point. But I hear on all sides, 'Do not argue!' The Officer says: 'Do not argue but drill!' The tax collector: 'Do not argue but pay!' The cleric: 'Do not argue but believe!' Only one prince in the world says, 'Argue as much as you will, and about what you will, but obey!' Everywhere there is restriction on freedom.”
Immanuel Kant
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“Denken zonder ervaring is leeg, maar ervaring zonder denken is blind.”
Immanuel Kant
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“A categorical imperative would be one which represented an action as objectively necessary in itself, without reference to any other purpose.”
Immanuel Kant
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“Settle, for sure and universally, what conduct will promote the happiness of a rational being.”
Immanuel Kant
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“Two things fill my mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the reflection dwells on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”
Immanuel Kant
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“[Standing armies] constantly threaten other nations with war by giving the appearance that they are prepared for it, which goads nations into competing with one another in the number of men under arms, and this practice knows no bounds. And since the costs related to maintaining peace will in this way finally become greater than those of a short war, standing armies are the cause of wars of aggression that are intended to end burdensome expenditures. Moreover, paying men to kill or be killed appears to use them as mere machines and tools in the hands of another (the nation), which is inconsistent with the rights of humanity.”
Immanuel Kant
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“Enlightenment is man's exodus from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is the inability to use one's understanding without the guidance of another person..'Dare to Know'(sapere aude) Have the courage to use your own understanding;this is the motto of the Enlightenment.”
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“As nature has uncovered from under this hard shell the seed for which she most tenderly cares - the propensity and vocation to free thinking - this gradually works back upon the character of the people, who thereby gradually become capable of managing freedom; finally, it affects the principles of government, which finds it to its advantage to treat men, who are now more than machines, in accordance with their dignity.”
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“But, above all, it will confer an inestimable benefit on morality and religion, by showing that all the objections urged against them may be silenced for ever by the Socratic method, that is to say, by proving the ignorance of the objector.”
Immanuel Kant
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“Without man and his potential for moral progress, the whole of reality would be a mere wilderness, a thing in vain, and have no final purpose.”
Immanuel Kant
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“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”
Immanuel Kant
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“High towers, and metaphysically-great men resembling them, round both of which there is commonly much wind, are not for me. My place is the fruitful bathos, the bottom-land, of experience; and the word transcendental, does not signify something passing beyond all experience, but something that indeed precedes it a priori, but that is intended simply to make cognition of experience possible.”
Immanuel Kant
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“Les esprits qui ont le sentiment du sublime sont entraînés insensiblement vers les sentiments élevés de l’amitié, du mépris du monde, de l’éternité, par le calme et le silence d’une soirée d’été, alors que la lumière tremblante des étoiles perce les ombres de la nuit, et que la lune solitaire paraît à l’horizon. Le jour brillant inspire l’ardeur du travail et le sentiment de la joie. Le sublime émeut, le beau charme.”
Immanuel Kant
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“In all judgements by which we describe anything as beautiful, we allow no one to be of another opinion.”
Immanuel Kant
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“Have patience awhile; slanders are not long-lived. Truth is the child of time; erelong she shall appear to vindicate thee.”
Immanuel Kant
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“Faulheit und Feigheit sind die Ursachen, warum ein so großer Teil der Menschen, nachdem sie die Natur längst von fremder Leitung frei gesprochen, dennoch gerne zeitlebens unmündig bleiben; und warum es anderen so leicht wird, sich zu deren Vormündern aufzuwerfen.”
Immanuel Kant
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“It is the Land of Truth (enchanted name!), surrounded by a wide and stormy ocean, the true home of illusion, where many a fog bank and ice, that soon melts away, tempt us to believe in new lands, while constantly deceiving the adventurous mariner with vain hopes, and involving him in adventures which he can never leave, yet never bring to an end.”
Immanuel Kant
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“Así, pues, el valor de todos los objetos que podemos obtener por medio de nuestras acciones es siempre condicionado. Los seres cuya existencia no descansa en nuestra voluntad, sino en la naturaleza, tienen, empero, si son seres irracionales, un valor meramente relativo, como medios, y por eso se llaman cosas; en cambio, los seres racionales llámanse personas porque su naturaleza los distingue ya como fines en sí mismos, esto es, como algo que no puede ser usado meramente como medio, y, por tanto, limita en ese sentido todo capricho (y es un objeto del respeto). Estos no son, pues, meros fines subjetivos, cuya existencia, como efecto de nuestra acción, tiene un valor para nosotros, sino que son fines objetivos, esto es, cosas cuya existencia es en sí misma un fin, y un fin tal, que en su lugar no puede ponerse ningún otro fin para el cual debieran ellas servir de medios, porque sin esto no hubiera posibilidad de hallar en parte alguna nada con valor absoluto; mas si todo valor fuere condicionado y, por tanto, contingente, no podría encontrarse para la razón ningún principio práctico supremo.”
Immanuel Kant
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“But although all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it arises from experience.”
Immanuel Kant
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“An age cannot bind itself and ordain to put the succeeding one into such a condition that it cannot extend its (at best very occasional) knowledge , purify itself of errors, and progress in general enlightenment. That would be a crime against human nature, the proper destination of which lies precisely in this progress and the descendants would be fully justified in rejecting those decrees as having been made in an unwarranted and malicious manner.The touchstone of everything that can be concluded as a law for a people lies in the question whether the people could have imposed such a law on itself.”
Immanuel Kant
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“Space and time are the framework within which the mind is constrained to construct its experience of reality.”
Immanuel Kant
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“Look closely. The beautiful may be small.”
Immanuel Kant
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“In every department of physical science there is only so much science, properly so-called, as there is mathematics.”
Immanuel Kant
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“From the crooked timber of humanity, never was a straight thing made.”
Immanuel Kant
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“An action, to have moral worth, must be done from duty.”
Immanuel Kant
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