Who Was Immanuel Kant?
Immanuel Kant wrote philosophical treatises during the Enlightenment that dealt with logic, empirical evidence, sensory input, and epistemology, or how we learn what we know. We can situate his thoughts in an era interested in the scientific method, religion and metaphysics, ethical societies, and rivaling belief systems. Kant responded to Empiricists and Rationalists by asserting his thesis that everything we believe must be filtered through our senses and mind. Thus, truth is determined by how we understand and orient knowledge of an object, regardless of what other “independent” characteristics the object might possess. During his long life, from 1724-1804, Immanuel Kant made numerous contributions to modern philosophy, developing what he called “transcendental idealism.” He spent his entire life in his birthplace of East Prussia, working at the local university, reading contemporary Enlightenment philosophers, and writing treatises in German. He commented on everything from the exi
