Biography
German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) attempted to show universal principles of thought applicable to all times and places. He is widely remembered for synthesizing two seemingly opposite philosophical views, rationalists and empiricists. Rationalists include Descartes and believe knowledge comes from some irrefutable intellect. Empiricists, like Locke, believed the mind was a blank slate. Kant claimed rational thought imposed empiricist worldly experience to create knowledge. Kant also applied this synthesis to moral questions, and he believed rationality is the source of morality.
Influential Works
Critique of Pure Reason by Publication Date: 2008A seminal text of modern philosophy, Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (1781) made history by bringing together two opposing schools of thought: rationalism, which grounds all our knowledge in reason, and empiricism, which traces all our knowledge to experience. Published here in a lucid reworking of Max Muller's classic translation, the Critique is a profound investigation into the nature of human reason, establishing its truth, falsities, illusions, and reality. The text is enhanced by introductions and notes by Marcus Weigel.
Critique of the Power of Judgment by Publication Date: 2001This entirely new translation of Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment follows the principles and high standards of all other volumes in The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant. This volume includes for the first time the first draft of Kant's introduction to the work; the only English edition notes to the many differences between the first (1790) and second (1793) editions of the work; and relevant passages in Kant's anthropology lectures where he elaborated on his aesthetic views.
