Kant flipped philosophy: the mind shapes the world it experiences
Immanuel Kant proposed his own Copernican revolution. Instead of asking how the mind copies reality, he argued that objects must conform to the mind: space and time are built-in forms through which we experience everything. The price is steep. We know only appearances, never things as they are in themselves.
Kant was born in 1724 in Königsberg, then in East Prussia and today Russia's Kaliningrad. His father, Johann Georg, made harnesses; Kant believed the family descended from Scots called Cant, a claim genealogists have never confirmed. Christened Emanuel, he respelled his name once he had studied Hebrew. Six of the nine Kant children survived to adulthood, raised in a Pietist household that prized devotion and humility, and his schooling was harsh, heavy on Latin and religion rather than science.
He entered the University of Königsberg at 16 and never really left it professionally. His teacher Martin Knutzen introduced him to Newton's mathematical physics and steered him away from both Leibniz's pre-established harmony, which Knutzen mocked as a pillow for lazy minds, and from idealism, the view that reality is purely mental. Kant's later transcendental idealism grew partly in reaction against that older idealism.
Progress was slow. His father's death in 1746 interrupted his studies, and he spent years as a private tutor outside the city before returning in 1754. During the Russian occupation in the Seven Years' War, lucrative tutoring for Russian officers eased his finances, though a 1758 petition to Empress Elizabeth for a chair in logic and metaphysics failed. His first philosophical work had appeared in 1749.
The Critique of Pure Reason, first published in 1781, aimed to rescue both knowledge and morality from scepticism and determinism. Kant located morality in reason, through a categorical imperative binding every rational agent, and hoped a federation of republics could secure perpetual peace. His habits became legendary: neighbours supposedly timed their watches by his walks. He considered marriage twice but hesitated too long both times, while remaining a sociable and popular teacher. He died in 1804.
Source: Immanuel Kant
