Immanuel Kant

1724-1804 · German · Epistemology, Ethics, Metaphysics, Political Philosophy, Aesthetics

Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and the more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above and the moral law within.

Immanuel Kant spent his entire life in the Prussian town of Königsberg, never traveling more than a few miles from it, and kept a routine so exact that neighbors were said to set their clocks by his afternoon walk. He labored fifteen years as an unsalaried lecturer, then fell into a "silent decade" of near-total publishing silence — until 1781, when the Critique of Pure Reason broke open one of the most disruptive ideas in the history of thought: that we never experience reality as it is in itself. The mind actively shapes the raw data of the senses, imposing space, time, and causality on…

Topics Immanuel Kant addresses

• transcendental idealism
• the Copernican turn
• phenomena and noumena
• things-in-themselves
• the synthetic a priori
• the categories of the understanding
• the transcendental deduction
• the antinomies of pure reason
• the categorical imperative
• universalizability
• the humanity formulation
• the kingdom of ends
• autonomy of the will
• acting from duty
• moral worth
• the good will
• the highest good
• the postulates of practical reason
• radical evil
• the murderer at the door
• the doctrine of right
• the social contract
• republican government
• the prohibition on revolution

Questions to put to Immanuel Kant

The Critical Project and Transcendental Idealism

• What do you mean by the Copernican turn in philosophy?
• What's the difference between phenomena and things-in-themselves?
• How can we have synthetic a priori knowledge?
• Why can't we know things-in-themselves?
• What are the categories of the understanding and where do they come from?

The Categorical Imperative and Moral Law

• What is the categorical imperative?
• Why must morality be grounded in reason rather than consequences or feelings?
• What's the difference between acting from duty and merely acting in conformity with duty?
• How are the three formulations of the categorical imperative equivalent?
• What do you mean by autonomy of the will?

The Duty of Veracity and the Murderer at the Door

• Why do you think there's no right to lie even to a murderer asking after a hidden friend?
• How can telling the truth to the murderer be the right thing to do?
• What happens to the institution of truth-telling if we allow exceptions?
• Doesn't your position make you responsible for the friend's death if the murderer finds them?
• How do you respond to Benjamin Constant's objection?

Politics, Revolution, and Perpetual Peace

• Why do you deny subjects any right of revolution against an unjust ruler?
• How can you forbid revolution but still express enthusiasm for the French Revolution?
• What is perpetual peace and how would we achieve it?
• What's the difference between the public and private use of reason?
• What does cosmopolitan right mean for you?

Religion, Radical Evil, and the Highest Good

• What do you mean by religion within the boundaries of mere reason?
• What is radical evil and how does it fit with your view of human rationality?
• What are the postulates of practical reason and why do we need them?
• How do you understand the highest good?
• Why did the Prussian authorities censor your Religion essay?

Race and the Scope of Moral Community

• How do you defend the racial hierarchy in your anthropological writings?
• Did your views on race change between the 1770s and the 1790s?
• How is the racial typology compatible with your claim that all rational beings are ends in themselves?
• What role does race play in your account of human nature?
• How should we understand cosmopolitan right in light of your writings on race?

Converse with Immanuel Kant on Simposeum. Replies are grounded in Immanuel Kant's own writing, cited to the page.