INSPIRATIONS AND INFLUENCERS (True Influencers, not the social media talentless attention seekers)
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804)
This month’s influencer Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), was a German philosopher whose ideas profoundly influenced modern Western philosophical thought. He was also a major influence on two of our previous German influencers, namely Arthur Schopenhauer and Freidrich Nietzsche. Kant’s philosophy sought to reconcile rationalism and empiricism, arguing that the human mind actively shapes our experience of the world, while the true nature of reality lies beyond direct human understanding. As well as his influence upon Epistemology and Metaphysics, he has also exerted a strong influence on moral and political philosophy.
Immanuel Kant was born April 22, 1724 in Königsberg, near the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, which is today called Kaliningrad and is part of Russia, but during Kant’s lifetime Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia. Although it was remote from other German cities it was a major commercial center, an important military port, and a relatively cosmopolitan university town. Kant was born into an artisan family of modest means, he attended the Collegium Fridericianum, an evangelical Lutheran school and Kant’s emphasis on reason and autonomy, rather than emotion and dependence on either authority or grace, may in part reflect his youthful reaction against his religious schooling. Kant studied at the University of Königsberg after which he spent six years as a private tutor to young children outside Königsberg before returning to teach at the university for four decades where he taught philosophy until his retirement from teaching in 1796 at the age of seventy-two.
Kant began publishing his work in 1749 when he was in his mid twenties and did so for a couple of decades before reading the work of the Scottish philosopher David Hume, and in particular Hume’s work on causality.
Hume argued that we never actually observe causation in the physical world. Instead of seeing a "necessary connection" between events, we merely see one event constantly follow another. Our belief in cause and effect is simply a mental habit formed through repeated experience, not rational proof. We assume the future will resemble the past because that is what we are accustomed to, however, there is no logical or empirical guarantee that the sun will rise tomorrow just because it did yesterday.
Kant stated that Hume’s attack on traditional metaphysics—particularly his skepticism regarding cause and effect—disrupted his unquestioning reliance on rationalist philosophy:
“I freely admit that it was the remembrance of David Hume which, many years ago, first interrupted my dogmatic slumber and gave my investigations in the field of speculative philosophy a completely different direction.”
Kant spent a decade working on his response to Hume, and the result was the first of his major philosophical works, the Critique of Pure Reason which was published in 1881 and investigated the limits and scope of human knowledge. Kant synthesized rationalism and empiricism by arguing that while all knowledge begins with experience, the mind actively structures sensory data using innate cognitive frameworks, meaning we can never know "things-in-themselves". Kant adopted Hume's boundary lines but used them to create a new "transcendental" framework, mapping out exactly what pure reason can and cannot know.
In the case of reason Hume had argued that “reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions” and that reason alone is inert—it cannot motivate action or generate desires. Instead, passions (desires, emotions, and urges) motivate us, and reason simply serves as a tool to figure out how to achieve those goals.
Kant’s moral philosophy contrary to Hume’s is driven by duty and reason, not consequences or religious dogma. Hume had argued that reason is subservient to emotion, making morality a matter of sentiment rather than logical deduction. Kant fundamentally disagreed with this subjectivism. He developed his deontological framework—emphasizing objective duty—to counter Hume's sentimentalist approach, though he retained an appreciation for the natural inclinations of human feeling in motivating moral action.
Kant’s moral imperative—the Categorical Imperative—states that you should only act on principles that you would want to become a universal law. Morality is based on pure reason and absolute duties, meaning an action is only ethical if it is logically consistent and treats all people with inherent dignity. In Kantian ethics, consequences do not matter. Even if lying gets you out of trouble, it is strictly forbidden because it fails the universal law test and strips others of their autonomy.
“If you punish a child for being naughty, and reward him for being good, he will do right merely for the sake of the reward; and when he goes out into the world and finds that goodness is not always rewarded, nor wickedness always punished, he will grow into a man who only thinks about how he may get on in the world, and does right or wrong according as he finds advantage to himself.”
Kant believed human beings possess free will and the capacity to give themselves moral law, rendering humans morally significant. Although he proved we cannot scientifically prove concepts like God, freedom, or the immortality of the soul, he argued that we must postulate (assume) their existence to make sense of our moral duty and the pursuit of the highest good.
“Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.” (Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals)
The Critique of Pure Reason (1781) Kant’s first great work, and this was followed by Critique of Practical Reason (1788), his primary work on ethics, where he outlines his concept of pure practical reason and the categorical imperative. Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790) connects the first two critiques by exploring teleology (purpose in nature) and philosophical aesthetics (the sublime and the beautiful).
Immanuel Kant fundamentally revolutionized Western thought and his influence on later philosophical movements is vast and enduring. By bridging Cartesian rationalism and Humean empiricism, he created "transcendental idealism"—proving that human minds actively structure our perception of reality. His ideas continue to shape modern frameworks in almost every discipline. The Categorical Imperative which dictates treating humanity as an end rather than a means, directly shaped the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
As well as the aforementioned influence on Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, Kant’s work gave rise to German Idealism that was developed by Hegel and Marx, and later laid the groundwork for phenomenology and existentialism. Practically, his idea of universal laws laid the intellectual groundwork for international organizations like the International Criminal Court. Kant's political writings inspired 20th-century theorists like John Rawls and his foundational work on modern justice and social contracts.
“It is not necessary that whilst I live I live happily; but it is necessary that so long as I live I should live honourably.” (Immanuel Kant)