Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant is one of the 16 books that is part of the SSRC Philosophers Series called “Free Thinkers.” The series is an attempt to present the teachings of many of the great philosophers throughout history in a way that average readers without academic backgrounds can easily understand. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) was one of the preeminent thinkers of the German and European Age of Enlightenment and a central figure in modern philosophy. He was the embodiment of a lover of wisdom who made it his life’s work to seek truth in all matters. He called himself “the servant of an exacting mistress – truth.”Kant sought answers to the deepest questions of life, such as how human beings understand the laws that structure our experience, the fundamental truths about ourselves and the world in which we live, and our relationships with each other. How does our reason give rise to a moral law that makes us worthy human beings – and provide the basis for our belief in God, freedom, and immortality? He attempted to create nothing less than a unified metaphysical theory to encompass all knowledge. He sought a method through which humans could achieve greater intellectual certainty in all matters related to the world of their experience. He is best known for his Categorical Imperatives, universal principles that guide rational analysis. He probed all these questions in his best-known work, the Critique of Pure Reason.