Immanuel Kant

 The standard edition of Kant’s works in German is the Prussian

Academy Edition, Kants gesammelte Schriften. ed. Königlich Preußischen
Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin: Georg Reimer, subsequently
Walter de Gruyter, 1910 -- ). References to this work are given in the
form Ak followed by the volume number and the page number.

Current Definitive Scholarly English Translation of The

Critique of Pure Reason:
 Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Pure Reason, Guyer and Wood
trans., (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998),
ISBN: 0-521-65729-6.
 Immanuel Kant:
Recommended Secondary
Texts
Recommended Biography
Kuehn, Manfred, Kant: A Biography, (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2001).
Commentaries on The Critique of Pure Reason
Adorno, Theodor W., Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, T.
Tiedemann, edit, Livingstone, trans. (Stanford: Stanford U.
Press, 2001)
Bird, Graham, The Revolutionary Kant, (Chicago and La Salle,
IL: Open Court, 2006) [879 pages]
Gardner, Sebastian, Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason,
(London/New York: Routledge, 1999).
 Immanuel Kant:
Recommended Secondary
Texts
Kant Dictionary
Caygill, Howard, A Kant Dictionary, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995)

Excellent and Influential Secondary Text on Kant’s Life and

Philosophy as a Whole

Cassirer, Ernst, Kant’s Life and Thought, Haden translation,

(New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1981)
Immanuel Kant’s
Early
Years
1724-1774
 Immanuel Kant
(Born 22 April 1724 -- died 12 February
1804, two months before his eightieth
birthday.)
“On April 22 of this year [1724] Immanuel Kant was born in
Königsberg.
He was baptized ‘Emanuel.’ Later change dit to ‘Immanuel,’

“He was uncommonly proud of it, commenting on its meaning

even in his old age”1
1. Kuehn, Manfred, Kant: A Biography, (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2001), p. 26.
 Immanuel Kant
Early Years
Kant’s father was a harness-maker who died when Kant was
22. His mother, Anna Regina, died when Kant was 13.

She seems to have been the first to have recognized his

intellectual gifts.

Königsberg, where Kant resided, was the second largest city in

Prussia.

Kant went to school at the Collegium Fridericianum, a private

Pietist foundation between 1732 and 1740, (He was 8 to 16)
Map of Prussia before 1905
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA
 Immanuel Kant
Early Years
The Collegium Fridericianum was a Pietist school where Kant was a student
from the time he was eight years old until he was fifteen.
“The ideal of the old Latin and academic school still reigned, especially in
Prussia, and the aim of its instruction was almost exclusively directed
toward the knowledge and skillful use of Latin. Even in Pomerania in 1690,
an old ecclesiastical order dating from 1535 that expressly forbade the use of
the German language during classes had been reinvoked: ‘The preceptors
shall on all occasions address the pupils in Latin and not in German, as that
is frivolous and in children scandalous and disgraceful.’”1

1. Cassirer, Ernst, Kant’s Life and Thought, trans./ J. Haden, (New Haven/London:
Yale University Press, 1981), p. 14.
 Kant’s Pietistic Background

Pietism was founded in Germany by Philipp Jakob Spener

(1635-1705) The Pietists regarded Christian faith not as a set of
doctrinal propositions but as a living relationship with God.

The institution of the Lutheran church was considered less

important than “the church invisible”, whose membership in
principle included the whole of humanity.

A contemporary of Kant’s at the Collegium Fridericianum,

David Ruhnken, who became a teacher of philosophy at the
University of Leiden, spoke of the “pedantic and gloomy
discipline of fanatics” which dominated the organization of the
school.”
 Kant’s Reaction to his
Pietistic Background
Kant’s reaction: “As rector of the University of Konigsberg, he
was always ‘indisposed’ when his official participation in
religious observances was required.’
Kant’s one inspiring teacher at the Fridericianum was the
Latin Master, Heydenreich who introduced him to a life-long
love of Latin literature. Of Heydenreich’s other colleagues,
Kant was later to comment:

“These men could not blow into a fire any spark that lay in us
for philosophy or mathematics,” and his friend is said to have
answered: “But they were very good at blowing it out.”1
1. Kuehn, Manfred, Kant: A Biography, (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2001), p. 50.
 Kant Enrolls at
University of Königsberg
1740-1744
Kant enrolled as a theology student.
He became interested primarily in
courses in mathematics and physics. He
was given access to the library of his
professor and studied intensively
Newton and Leibniz.
Reconciling Newton’s and Leibniz’s a
posteriori and a priori approaches to
natural science remained a overriding
problem to be answered to his
satisfaction finally only by The Critique
of Pure Reason, published some thirty
 Kant Manages as a
Family Tutor
1746-1755
Kant was employed as a family tutor by
three families. The resultant social
milieu enables him to refine his social
manners. He was introduced to
influential quarters of East Prussian
society. One tutoring position took him
to Arnsdorf, some sixty miles from
Königsberg. This is the farthest away he
would ever travel from Königsberg in
his lifetime.
 Kant’s Biographer, Manfred Kuehn,
Means to Dispelled Some Myths about
Kant’s Social Life as a Young Man
“Kant was a very attractive man: ‘His hair
was blond, the color of his face fresh, and his
checks showed even in old age a health blush.’
His eyes were particularly arresting. As one
contemporary exclaimed: ‘From where do I
take the words to describe to you his eye!
Kant’s eye was as if it had been formed of
heavenly ether from which the deep look of
the mind, whose fiery beam was occluded by a
light clouds, visibly shown forth’ . . .
“Yet at 5 feet 2 inches (1.57 meters) tall, and of slender build, he was neither
athletic nor an imposing figure. His chest was somewhat sunken, which made
breathing difficult, and he could not endure heavy physical exertion.”1

1. Kuehn, Manfred, Kant: A Biography, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

2001), p. 115-6.
 “When Heilsberg [Kant’s friend and
contemporary biographer, 1726-1806]
says that Kant was ‘no great devotee
(Verehrer) of the female sex,’ he did not
mean that Kant looked down on women
or that he was a misogynist, but rather
that he was not someone for whom sexual
exploits were important as a means of
proving himself. ‘He felt marriage to be a
desire and to be a necessity,’ but never
took the final step.
Once there was ‘a well brought up and beautiful; widow from
somewhere else, who visited other relatives.’ Kant did not deny
that she woman with whom he would have loved to share his
life; but ‘he calculated income and expenses and delayed the
decision from on day to the next”1
1. Kuehn, Manfred, Kant: A Biography, (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2001), p. 117.
 Kant Becomes a Privat-
docent or non-paid
university Lecturer at the
University of Königsberg.
(1755-1770)
Aided financially by a relative, Kant was able to complete his University
degree at the University of Königsberg. To qualify and justify his position,
he wrote three dissertations. The topics were respectively fire, the first
principles of metaphysical knowledge and the advantages to natural
philosophy of a metaphysics connected with geometry.
Kant fame as a lecturer began to spread. As is hardly suspected by The
Critique of Pure Reason, Kant’s lecturing style was witty and popular.
He illustrated his topics from works of English and French literature, books
of travel and geography.
 Kant Finally Obtains a
Professorship at the
University of Königsberg
1770-1797
Kant had failed twice to gain a professorship at the University
of Königsberg. Finally in 1770 he obtained the chair of Logic
and Metaphysics. His inaugural dissertation to this post was
On the Form and Principle of the Sensible and Intelligible
World. In 1781 he published the first edition of The Critique of
Pure Reason. In 1785 he published the Fundamental Principles
of the Metaphysics of Morals. In 1788, he published The
Critique of Practical Reason in 1788 and in 1790 The Critique of
Judgment.
 Kant’s Fame as a philosopher
and even as a sage, or perhaps
an oracle spreads widely
1790-1797
By the 1790s Kant’s ‘critical philosophy’ was widely taught in
most every German university. Students would journey to
Königsberg as a temple of philosophy. Kant was asked to give
his opinion on all sorts of questions, as if he had universal
knowledge. He was asked for example to determine whether to
vaccinate or not. During this period the legend of Kant taking a
walk, at the ‘Philosophers Walk,’ named after him, with such a
regular punctuality that people could set their watches by his
walk was promulgated. He later was quoted as saying he missed
this walk only once, with the publication of Rousseau’s Emile.
The work so absorbed him that for several days he stayed at
home.
 Kant’s Old Age
1797-1804

Kant retired from the university in 1797. He began a long

manuscript on the conflict of faculties at the University. This
work in particular considered the role of theology in a
University. Kant worked on this manuscript until his death.
Kant’s last years consisted in a sad decline in his intellectual
and physical capacities. Perhaps it would correspond in modern
pathological terms – this is the instructor's opinion -- to
Alzheimer's disease. In any case, Cassirer brings evidence to the
view that Kant, regardless of the decline of his intellectual
acumen, demonstrated a sense of moral sensibility and good-
heartedness to the end.
The Project of Kant’s Philosophy
 Kant’s philosophical project can be
formulated in three questions:
 1. What can I know? The Answer is the
content of “Critique of pure Reason” [Kritik
der reinen Vernunft]
 2. What should I do? The Answer is the
content of “Critique of practical Reason”
[Kritik der praktischen Vernunft]
 3. What can I hope? The Answer is the
content of “Critique of Judgment” [Kritik
der Urteilkraft]
The Project of Kant’s Philosophy
 Kant’s philosophical project can be
formulated in three questions:
 1. What can I know? The Answer is the
content of “Critique of pure Reason” [Kritik
der reinen Vernunft]
 2. What should I do? The Answer is the
content of “Critique of practical Reason”
[Kritik der praktischen Vernunft]
 3. What can I hope? The Answer is the
content of “Critique of Judgment” [Kritik
der Urteilkraft]