Immanuel Kant the ability to form concepts. Kant: biography life ideas philosophy: immanuel kant

German Immanuel Kant

German philosopher, founder of German classical philosophy

short biography

The largest German scientist, philosopher, founder of German classical philosophy, a man whose works had a huge impact on the development of philosophical thought in the 18th and subsequent centuries.

In 1724, on April 22, Immanuel was born in Prussian Konigsberg. His whole biography will be connected with this city; if Kant left its limits, then for a short distance and not for long. The future great philosopher was born into a poor, large family; his father was a simple craftsman. Immanuel's talent was noticed by the doctor of theology Franz Schulz and helped him become a student at the prestigious Friedrichs Collegium gymnasium.

In 1740, Immanuel Kant became a student at the Albertina University of Koenigsberg, but the death of his father prevented him from completely unlearning. For 10 years, Kant, providing financial support for his family, has been working as a home teacher in different families, having left his native Koenigsberg. Difficult everyday circumstances do not prevent him from engaging in scientific activities. So, in 1747-1750. Kant's attention was focused on his own cosmogonic theory of the origin of the solar system from the original nebula, the relevance of which has not been lost to this day.

In 1755 he returned to Konigsberg. Kant finally managed not only to complete his university education, but also, having defended several dissertations, to receive a doctorate degree and the right to engage in teaching activities as an assistant professor and professor. Within the walls of his alma mater, he worked for four decades. Until 1770, Kant worked as an extraordinary associate professor, after that he was an ordinary professor in the department of logic and metaphysics. Philosophical, physical, mathematical and other disciplines Immanuel Kant taught students until 1796.

The year 1770 also became a milestone in his scientific biography: he divides his work into the so-called. subcritical and critical periods. In the second, a number of fundamental works were written, which not only enjoyed great success, but also allowed Kant to enter the circle of outstanding thinkers of the century. The field of epistemology includes his work Critique of Pure Reason (1781), ethics - Critique of Practical Reason (1788). In 1790, the essay "Critique of the Faculty of Judgment" touching on issues of aesthetics was published. Kant's worldview as a philosopher was formed to a certain extent thanks to the study of the writings of Hume and a number of other thinkers.

In turn, the influence of the works of Immanuel Kant himself on the subsequent development of philosophical thought is difficult to overestimate. German classical philosophy, of which he was the founder, later included major philosophical systems developed by Fichte, Schelling, Hegel. The romantic movement experienced the impact of Kant's teachings. Schopenhauer's philosophy also shows the influence of his ideas. In the second half of the XIX century. “neo-Kantianism” was very relevant; in the 20th century, Kant’s philosophical heritage influenced, in particular, existentialism, the phenomenological school, etc.

In 1796, Immanuel Kant stopped lecturing, in 1801 he retired from the university, but did not stop his scientific activity until 1803. The thinker could never boast of iron health and found a way out in a clear daily routine, strict adherence to his own system, good habits, which surprised even pedantic Germans. Kant never connected his life with any of the women, although he had nothing against the fair sex. Regularity and accuracy helped him live longer than many of his peers. He died in his native Konigsberg on February 12, 1804; they buried him in the professorial crypt of the city cathedral.

Biography from Wikipedia

Born into a poor family of a saddle maker. Immanuel had been in poor health since childhood. His mother tried to give her son the highest quality education. She encouraged curiosity and fantasy in her son. Until the end of his life, Kant remembered his mother with great love and gratitude. The father instilled in his son a love of work. Under the care of the doctor of theology F. A. Schulz, who noticed talent in him, he graduated from the prestigious Friedrichs-Collegium gymnasium (de: Collegium Fridericianum), and then in 1740 he entered the University of Königsberg. There were 4 faculties - theological, legal, medical and philosophical. It is not known exactly which faculty Kant chose. Information about this has not been preserved. Biographers differ in their assumptions. Kant's interest in philosophy was awakened by Professor Martin Knutzen. Knutzen was a pietist and Wolfian, fascinated by English natural history. It was he who inspired Kant to write a work on physics.

Kant began this work in his fourth year of study. This work progressed slowly. The young Kant had little knowledge and skills. He was poor. His mother had died by then, and his father could barely make ends meet. Kant worked part-time with lessons; in addition, rich classmates tried to help him. Pastor Schultz and a maternal relative, Uncle Richter, also helped him. There is evidence that it was Richter who took on most of the costs of publishing Kant's debut work, Thoughts on the True Evaluation of Living Forces. Kant wrote it for 3 years and printed it for 4 years. The work was fully printed only in 1749. Kant's work has elicited various responses; there was a lot of criticism among them.

Due to the death of his father, he fails to complete his studies and, in order to feed his family, he becomes a home teacher in Yudshen (now Veselovka) for 10 years. It was at this time, in the years 1747-1755, that he developed and published his cosmogonic hypothesis of the origin of the solar system from the original nebula.

In 1755, Kant defended his dissertation and received a doctorate, which gives him the right to teach at the university. For him, forty years of teaching began.

During the Seven Years' War from 1758 to 1762, Koenigsberg was under the jurisdiction of the Russian government, which was reflected in the business correspondence of the philosopher. In particular, in 1758 he addressed an application for the position of an ordinary professor to Empress Elizabeth Petrovna. Unfortunately, the letter never reached her, but was lost in the governor's office. The issue of the department was resolved in favor of another applicant - on the grounds that he was older both in years and in teaching experience.

The period of domination of the Russian Empire over East Prussia was the least productive in Kant's work: for all the years, only a few essays on earthquakes came out from the philosopher's pen, but immediately after its completion, Kant published a whole series of works.

During the several years that the Russian troops were in Königsberg, Kant kept several young nobles in his apartment as boarders and became acquainted with many Russian officers, among whom there were many thinking people. One of the officers' circles suggested that the philosopher give lectures on physics and physical geography (Immanuel Kant, after being refused, was very intensively engaged in private lessons: he even taught fortification and pyrotechnics).

Kant's natural-science and philosophical researches are supplemented by "political science" opuses; thus, in his treatise Towards Perpetual Peace, he for the first time prescribed the cultural and philosophical foundations for the future unification of Europe into a family of enlightened peoples.

Since 1770, it has been customary to count the "critical" period in Kant's work. This year, at the age of 46, he was appointed professor of logic and metaphysics at Königsberg University, where until 1797 he taught an extensive cycle of disciplines - philosophical, mathematical, physical.

The plan long conceived as to how the field of pure philosophy was to be cultivated consisted of three tasks:

• what can i know? (metaphysics);
• what should I do? (morality);
• what can I hope for? (religion);

finally, this was to be followed by the fourth task - what is a man? (anthropology, on which I have been lecturing for more than twenty years).

During this period, Kant wrote fundamental philosophical works that brought the scientist a reputation as one of the outstanding thinkers of the 18th century and had a huge impact on the further development of world philosophical thought:

• "Critique of Pure Reason" (1781) - epistemology (epistemology)
• "Critique of Practical Reason" (1788) - ethics
• "Critique of the Faculty of Judgment" (1790) - aesthetics

Being in poor health, Kant subjected his life to a harsh regimen, which allowed him to outlive all his friends. His accuracy in following the routine became a byword even among punctual Germans and gave rise to many sayings and anecdotes. He was not married. He said that when he wanted to have a wife, he could not support her, and when he already could, he did not want to. However, he was not a misogynist either, he willingly talked with women, he was a pleasant secular conversationalist. In his old age he was cared for by one of his sisters.

There is an opinion that Kant sometimes showed anti-Semite phobia.

Kant wrote: “Sapere aude! Have the courage to use your own mind! - this is ... the motto of the Enlightenment.

Kant was buried at the eastern corner of the north side of the Königsberg Cathedral in the professorial crypt, a chapel was erected over his grave. In 1924, on the 200th anniversary of Kant, the chapel was replaced with a new structure, in the form of an open columned hall, strikingly different in style from the cathedral itself.

Stages of scientific activity

Kant went through two stages in his philosophical development: "pre-critical" and "critical". (These concepts are defined by the philosopher's Critique of Pure Reason, 1781; Critique of Practical Reason, 1788; Critique of Judgment, 1790).

Stage I (until 1770) - Kant developed the questions that had been posed by previous philosophical thought. In addition, during this period, the philosopher was engaged in natural science problems:

• developed a cosmogonic hypothesis of the origin of the solar system from a giant primordial gaseous nebula (General Natural History and Theory of the Sky, 1755);
• outlined the idea of ​​a genealogical classification of the animal world, that is, the distribution of various classes of animals in the order of their possible origin;
• put forward the idea of ​​the natural origin of human races;
• studied the role of ebbs and flows on our planet.

Stage II (begins in 1770 or 1780s) - deals with issues of epistemology (the process of cognition), reflects on the metaphysical (general philosophical) problems of being, cognition, man, morality, state and law, aesthetics.

Philosophy

Epistemology

Kant rejected the dogmatic method of cognition and believed that instead it should be based on the method of critical philosophizing, the essence of which lies in the study of the mind itself, the boundaries that a person can reach with the mind, and the study of individual ways of human cognition.

Kant's main philosophical work is the Critique of Pure Reason. The original problem for Kant is the question "How is pure knowledge possible?". First of all, this concerns the possibility of pure mathematics and pure natural science ("pure" means "non-empirical", a priori, or inexperienced). Kant formulated this question in terms of a distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments - "How are synthetic judgments a priori possible?" By "synthetic" judgments, Kant understood judgments with an increment of content in comparison with the content of the concepts included in the judgment. Kant distinguished these judgments from analytical judgments that reveal the meaning of concepts. Analytic and synthetic judgments differ in whether the content of the predicate of the judgment follows from the content of its subject (such are analytic judgments) or, on the contrary, is added to it "from the outside" (such are synthetic judgments). The term "a priori" means "out of experience", as opposed to the term "a posteriori" - "from experience".

Analytic judgments are always a priori: experience is not needed for them, so there are no a posteriori analytic judgments. Accordingly, experimental (a posteriori) judgments are always synthetic, since their predicates draw content from experience that was not in the subject of the judgment. Concerning a priori synthetic judgments, then, according to Kant, they are part of mathematics and natural science. Due to their a priori nature, these judgments contain universal and necessary knowledge, that is, such that it is impossible to extract from experience; thanks to syntheticity, such judgments give an increase in knowledge.

Kant, following Hume, agrees that if our knowledge begins with experience, then its connection - universality and necessity - is not from it. However, if Hume draws the skeptical conclusion from this that the connection of experience is just a habit, then Kant refers this connection to the necessary a priori activity of the mind (in the broad sense). The revelation of this activity of the mind in relation to experience, Kant calls transcendental research. “I call transcendental ... knowledge that deals not so much with objects as with the types of our knowledge of objects ...”, writes Kant.

Kant did not share the boundless faith in the powers of the human mind, calling this faith dogmatism. Kant, according to him, made the Copernican revolution in philosophy, by being the first to point out that in order to justify the possibility of knowledge, one should proceed from the fact that not our cognitive abilities correspond to the world, but the world must conform to our abilities, so that knowledge could take place at all. In other words, our consciousness does not just passively comprehend the world as it really is (dogmatism), but, rather, on the contrary, the world conforms to the possibilities of our knowledge, namely: the mind is an active participant in the formation of the world itself, given to us in experience. Experience is essentially a synthesis of that sensory content (“matter”) that is given by the world (things in themselves) and that subjective form in which this matter (sensations) is comprehended by consciousness. A single synthetic whole of matter and form Kant calls experience, which by necessity becomes something only subjective. That is why Kant distinguishes the world as it is in itself (that is, outside the formative activity of the mind) - a thing-in-itself, and the world as it is given in the phenomenon, that is, in experience.

In experience, two levels of shaping (activity) of the subject are distinguished. First, these are a priori forms of feeling (sensory contemplation) - space (external feeling) and time (internal feeling). In contemplation, sensory data (matter) are realized by us in the forms of space and time, and thus the experience of feeling becomes something necessary and universal. This is a sensory synthesis. To the question of how pure, that is, theoretical, mathematics is possible, Kant answers: it is possible as an a priori science on the basis of pure contemplations of space and time. Pure contemplation (representation) of space is the basis of geometry (three-dimensionality: for example, the relative position of points and lines and other figures), a pure representation of time is the basis of arithmetic (the number series implies the presence of an account, and the condition for the account is time).

Secondly, thanks to the categories of the understanding, the givens of contemplation are connected. This is a mental synthesis. Reason, according to Kant, deals with a priori categories, which are "forms of thought". The path to synthesized knowledge lies through the synthesis of sensations and their a priori forms - space and time - with a priori categories of reason. “Without sensibility, not a single object would be given to us, and without reason, not a single one could be thought” (Kant). Cognition is achieved by combining intuitions and concepts (categories) and is an a priori ordering of phenomena, expressed in the construction of objects based on sensations.

• Quantity categories
  • Unity
  • Lots of
  • Wholeness
• Quality categories
  • Reality
  • Negation
  • Limitation
• Categories of relationship
  • Substance and belonging
  • Cause and investigation
  • Interaction
• Categories of modality
  • Possibility and impossibility
  • Existence and non-existence
  • Necessity and chance

The sensory material of cognition, ordered through the a priori mechanisms of contemplation and reason, becomes what Kant calls experience. On the basis of sensations (which can be expressed by statements like “this is yellow” or “this is sweet”), which are formed through time and space, as well as through a priori categories of reason, judgments of perception arise: “the stone is warm”, “the sun is round”, then - “the sun shone, and then the stone became warm”, and further - developed judgments of experience, in which the observed objects and processes are brought under the category of causality: “the sun caused the stone to heat up”, etc. Kant's concept of experience coincides with the concept of nature: “ …nature and possible experience is exactly the same" representation i think which must be able to accompany all other representations and be the same in every consciousness. As I. S. Narsky writes, transcendental apperception Kant is “the principle of constancy and systemic organization of the action of categories, arising from the unity of the one who applies them, reasoning"I". (...) It is common to ... empirical "I" and in this sense, the objective logical structure of their consciousness, ensuring the internal unity of experience, science and nature.

Much space is devoted in the Critique to how representations are subsumed under the concepts of the understanding (categories). Here the decisive role is played by the ability of judgment, imagination and rational categorical schematism. According to Kant, there must be a mediating link between intuitions and categories, thanks to which abstract concepts, which are categories, are able to organize sensory data, turning them into law-like experience, that is, into nature. The intermediary between thinking and sensibility in Kant is productive power of the imagination. This ability creates a scheme of time as "a pure image of all sense objects in general." Thanks to the scheme of time, there exists, for example, the scheme of "multiplicity" - a number as a successive attachment of units to each other; the scheme of "reality" - the existence of an object in time; the scheme of "substantiality" - the stability of a real object in time; scheme of "existence" - the presence of an object at a certain time; the scheme of "necessity" - the presence of a certain object at all times. By the productive power of the imagination, the subject, according to Kant, generates the foundations of pure natural science (they are also the most general laws of nature). According to Kant, pure natural science is the result of a priori categorical synthesis.

Knowledge is given by synthesis of categories and observations. Kant showed for the first time that our knowledge of the world is not a passive reflection of reality; according to Kant, it arises due to the active creative activity of the unconscious productive power of the imagination.

Finally, having described the empirical application of reason (that is, its application in experience), Kant asks the question of the possibility of a pure application of reason (reason, according to Kant, is the lowest level of reason, the use of which is limited to the sphere of experience). Here a new question arises: "How is metaphysics possible?". As a result of the study of pure reason, Kant shows that reason, when it tries to get unambiguous and conclusive answers to philosophical questions proper, inevitably plunges itself into contradictions; this means that the mind cannot have a transcendent application that would allow it to achieve theoretical knowledge about things in themselves, because, seeking to go beyond the limits of experience, it "gets entangled" in paralogisms and antinomies (contradictions, each of whose statements is equally justified); reason in the narrow sense - as opposed to reason operating with categories - can only have a regulatory meaning: to be a regulator of the movement of thought towards the goals of systematic unity, to give a system of principles that any knowledge must satisfy.

Kant argues that the solution of antinomies "can never be found in experience ...".

Kant considers the solution of the first two antinomies to be the identification of a situation in which "the question itself does not make sense." Kant argues, as I. S. Narsky writes, “that the properties of ‘beginning’, ‘boundary’, ‘simplicity’ and ‘complexity’ are not applicable to the world of things in themselves outside of time and space, and the world of phenomena is never given to us in in its entirety precisely as an integral “world”, while the empiricism of the fragments of the phenomenal world cannot be invested in these characteristics ... ". As regards the third and fourth antinomies, the dispute in them, according to Kant, is "settled" if one recognizes the truth of their antitheses for phenomena and assumes the (regulative) truth of their theses for things in themselves. Thus, the existence of antinomies, according to Kant, is one of the proofs of the correctness of his transcendental idealism, which contrasted the world of things in themselves and the world of appearances.

According to Kant, any future metaphysics that wants to be a science must take into account the implications of his critique of pure reason.

Ethics and the problem of religion

In the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant expounds the theory of ethics. Practical reason in Kant's teaching is the only source of principles of moral behavior; it is the mind growing into the will. Ethics of Kant is autonomous and a priori, it is aimed at what is due, and not at what exists. Its autonomy means the independence of moral principles from non-moral arguments and grounds. The reference point for Kantian ethics is not the actual actions of people, but the norms arising from the "pure" moral will. This is ethics debt. In the apriorism of duty, Kant seeks the source of the universality of moral norms.

Categorical imperative

Imperative - a rule that contains "objective coercion to act." Moral law - coercion, the need to act contrary to empirical influences. So, it takes the form of a coercive command - an imperative.

Hypothetical imperatives(relative or conditional imperatives) say that actions are effective in achieving certain goals (for example, pleasure or success).

The principles of morality go back to one supreme principle - categorical imperative, prescribing actions that are good in themselves, objectively, without regard to any goal other than morality itself (for example, the requirement of honesty). The categorical imperative says:

• « act only in accordance with such a maxim, guided by which you can at the same time wish it to become a universal law"[options: "always act in such a way that the maxim (principle) of your behavior can become a universal law (act as you would wish everyone to act)"];
• « act in such a way that you always treat humanity, both in your own person and in the person of everyone else, as an end, and never treat it only as a means"[wording option: "treat humanity in your own person (as well as in the person of any other) always as an end and never - only as a means"];
• « principle the will of every person will, with all its maxims establishing universal laws”: one should “do everything from the maxim of one’s will as such, which could also have itself as an object as a will that establishes universal laws.”

These are three different ways of representing the same law, and each of them combines the other two.

The existence of man "has in itself the highest goal ..."; “... only morality and humanity, insofar as it is capable of it, have dignity,” writes Kant.

Duty is the necessity of action out of respect for the moral law.

In ethical teaching, a person is considered from two points of view:

• man as a phenomenon;
• man as a thing in itself.

The behavior of the former is determined solely by external circumstances and is subject to a hypothetical imperative. The behavior of the second must obey the categorical imperative, the highest a priori moral principle. Thus, behavior can be determined by both practical interests and moral principles. Two tendencies arise: the pursuit of happiness (the satisfaction of certain material needs) and the pursuit of virtue. These strivings can contradict each other, and thus the “antinomy of practical reason” arises.

As conditions for the applicability of the categorical imperative in the world of phenomena, Kant puts forward three postulates of practical reason. The first postulate requires the complete autonomy of the human will, its freedom. Kant expresses this postulate with the formula: "You must, therefore you can." Recognizing that without the hope of happiness, people would not have had enough spiritual strength to fulfill their duty in spite of internal and external obstacles, Kant puts forward the second postulate: “there must be immortality human soul." Thus, Kant resolves the antinomy of striving for happiness and striving for virtue by transferring the hopes of the individual to the supra-empirical world. For the first and second postulates, a guarantor is needed, and only God can be it, which means that he must exist- such is the third postulate of practical reason.

The autonomy of Kant's ethics means the dependence of religion on ethics. According to Kant, "religion is no different from morality in its content."

The doctrine of law and the state

The state is an association of many people subject to legal laws.

In the doctrine of law, Kant developed the ideas of the French Enlightenment: the need to destroy all forms of personal dependence, the assertion of personal freedom and equality before the law. Kant derived legal laws from moral ones. Kant recognized the right to freely express his opinion, but with a caveat: "argue as much as you like and about anything, just obey."

State structures cannot be immutable and change when they are no longer necessary. And only the republic is durable (the law is independent and does not depend on any individual).

In the doctrine of relations between states, Kant opposes the unjust state of these relations, against the dominance of strong law in international relations. He advocates the creation of an equal union of peoples. Kant believed that such a union brings humanity closer to the realization of the idea of ​​eternal peace.

The doctrine of expediency. Aesthetics

As a connecting link between the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant creates the Critique of Judgment, which focuses on the concept of expediency. Subjective expediency, according to Kant, is present in the aesthetic ability of judgment, objective - in teleological. The first is expressed in the harmony of the aesthetic object.

In aesthetics, Kant distinguishes between two types of aesthetic ideas - the beautiful and the sublime. The aesthetic is what one likes about an idea, regardless of its presence. Beauty is perfection associated with form. In Kant, the beautiful acts as a "symbol of the morally good." The Sublime is the perfection associated with infinity in force (dynamically sublime) or in space (mathematical sublime). An example of a dynamically sublime is a storm. An example of the mathematically sublime is mountains. A genius is a person capable of embodying aesthetic ideas.

The teleological ability of judgment is connected with the concept of a living organism as a manifestation of expediency in nature.

About a human

Kant's views on man are reflected in the book Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798). Its main part consists of three sections in accordance with the three abilities of a person: knowledge, feeling of pleasure and displeasure, the ability to desire.

Man is “the most important thing in the world”, since he has self-consciousness.

Man is the highest value, it is a personality. Self-consciousness of a person gives rise to egoism as a natural property of a person. A person does not manifest it only when he considers his "I" not as the whole world, but only as part of it. It is necessary to curb egoism, to control the spiritual manifestations of the personality with the mind.

A person can have unconscious ideas - "dark". In darkness, the process of the birth of creative ideas can take place, which a person can know only at the level of sensations.

From the sexual feeling (passion) the mind is clouded. But in a person, a moral and cultural norm is imposed on feelings and desires.

Such a concept as genius was subjected to Kant's analysis. "The talent for invention is called genius."

Memory

• In 1935, the International Astronomical Union named a crater on the visible side of the Moon after Immanuel Kant.

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IMMANUEL KANT
(1724-1804)

German philosopher, founder of German classical philosophy. In 1747-1755 he developed a cosmogonic hypothesis of the origin of the solar system from the original nebula ("General Natural History and Theory of the Sky", 1755). Founder of "critical philosophy" ("Critique of Pure Reason", 1781; "Critique of Practical Reason", 1788; "Critique of Judgment", 1790). The central principle of Kant's ethics, based on the concept of duty, is the categorical imperative. Kant's doctrine of antinomies played an important role in the development of dialectics.

At five o'clock in the morning on April 22, 1724, a son was born in the family of the Konigsberg saddler John Georg Kant. According to the old Prussian calendar, it was St. Emmanuel's day, and the boy was given a biblical name, meaning "God is with us." Kant believed that his ancestors were from Scotland. But the philosopher was wrong: his great-grandfather Richard Kant was of Baltic blood. The mother of the future philosopher Anna Regina is the daughter of a saddler, originally from Nuremberg.

The boy grew up on the outskirts of the city among small handicraft and merchant people, in an atmosphere of work, honesty, puritanical rigor. In the family, he was the fourth child. In total, Anna Regina gave birth to nine children. Of these, five survived. Immanuel Kant had three sisters and a younger brother, Johann Heinrich.

On the advice of pastor Franz Albert Schulz, who among his parishioners visited Master Kant's family, eight-year-old Immanuel was sent to the Friedrich College, a state gymnasium, of which Schultz himself was appointed director. Here the future philosopher spent eight years. He studied at the Latin department. The main subjects were Latin and theology. Parents wanted their offspring to become a pastor, but the boy, carried away by the talented lessons of the Latin teacher Heidenreich, dreamed of devoting himself to literature. The desire to become a priest was beaten off by the monastic order that reigned in the "collegium of Friedrich". The school was pietistic, morals were strict. Poor health interfered with Immanuel's studies, but quick wits, a good memory, and diligence helped out. For a number of years he was the first student, he graduated from school second.

In the autumn of 1740, sixteen-year-old Immanuel Kant entered the university. During his studies at the university, he was greatly influenced by Professor Martin Knutzen. A pietist and Wolfian, Knutzen showed great interest in the progress of English natural science. From him Kant first learned about Newton's discoveries. In the fourth year of his university studies, Kant began to write an independent essay on physics. Work progressed slowly. It was not only the lack of skills and lack of knowledge that affected, but also the need in which Studiozus Kant lived. The mother was no longer alive (she died relatively young, when Immanuel was thirteen years old), the father could barely make ends meet. Immanuel interrupted by lessons. Wealthy classmates fed them; in difficult times, they had to borrow clothes and shoes for a while. They say that he consoled himself with aphorisms "I strive to subordinate things to myself, and not myself to things", "Do not give in to trouble, but stand up to it boldly."

Sometimes he was helped by Pastor Schultz, more often by a maternal relative, a successful shoemaker. There is evidence that it was Uncle Richter who took upon himself a significant part of the costs of publishing Kant's firstborn - the work "Thoughts on the true assessment of living forces." Kant wrote it for three years, and printed it for four years. The last sheets left the printing house only in 1749.

Kant studied at the university for almost seven years. In 1747, without defending his master's thesis, he left his native city and tried himself as a home teacher. Immanuel went through a good school of everyday experience, got accustomed to people, got acquainted with the customs in various strata of society. Returning to Königsberg, Kant brought back a voluminous manuscript on astronomy, originally entitled "Cosmogony, or an Attempt to Explain the Origin of the Universe, the Formation of Celestial Bodies, and the Causes of Their Motion by the General Laws of Matter Motion in Accordance with Newton's Theory." He came to the correct conclusion that the rotation of the Earth is slowing down, which is caused by tidal friction of the waters of the oceans.

At the end of the summer of 1754, Kant published the article "The question of whether the Earth is aging from a physical point of view." The process of aging of the Earth causes no doubts in Kant. Everything that exists arises, improves, then goes towards death. The earth is no exception. These works preceded the cosmogonic treatise. Its final title was "The General Natural History and Theory of the Sky, or An Attempt to Interpret the Structure and Mechanical Origin of the Whole Universe from Newton's Principles".

The treatise was published anonymously in the spring of 1755 with a dedication to King Frederick II. The book was not lucky, its publisher went bankrupt, the warehouse was sealed, and the circulation did not keep up with the spring fair. Nevertheless, the book sold out, the anonymity of the author was revealed, and an approving review appeared in one of the Hamburg periodicals.

In the autumn of 1755, Kant received the title of Privatdozent, that is, a freelance teacher, whose work was paid by the students themselves. There were not enough audiences, so many taught at home. Kant lived at that time with Professor Kipke. For the first lecture, there were more listeners than the hall could accommodate, students stood on the stairs and in the hallway. Kant was at a loss, for the first hour he spoke completely incomprehensibly, and only after a break did he regain his composure. Thus began his 41-year teaching career.

During his first university winter, he read logic, metaphysics, natural science, and mathematics. Then physical geography, ethics and mechanics were added to them. In his master's years, Kant had to teach 4-6 subjects at the same time. In the second half of the 1750s, he wrote almost nothing; teaching absorbed all the time. But a comfortable existence was provided. Privatdozent hired a servant - retired soldier Martin Lampe.

Kant's special pride was the course of physical geography. Kant was one of the first to teach geography as an independent discipline. Without leaving his office, Kant traveled around the world, crossed the seas, overcame deserts. "I drew from all sources, found a lot of all kinds of information, looked through the most thorough descriptions of individual countries." Kant created an impressive for those times, a generalized description of the earth's surface, flora and fauna, the kingdom of minerals and the life of the peoples inhabiting the four continents of Asia, Africa, Europe, America. Kant discovered the mechanism of formation of trade winds and monsoons. It was Kant's geographical works that were taken into account in the first place when he was elected a member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

At the same time, he developed an interest in philosophy. Kant's first philosophical work was his dissertation, "A New Elucidation of the First Principles of Metaphysical Cognition," which explores the principle of sufficient reason established by Leibniz. In general, he defends the Leibnizian-Wolfian point of view. Although Kant has already begun to depart from it in some essential details, he is looking for a compromise, this time between the metaphysics of Leibniz-Wolf and Newton's physics.

Soon the Seven Years' War began. The city was occupied by Russian troops for almost five years, the inhabitants, including Kant, swore allegiance to the Russian crown in writing, and only Peter III in 1762 officially freed them from Russian citizenship. A. T. Bolotov, later a well-known memoirist and agronomist, supervised science at the University of Königsberg. However, he did not appreciate Kant, which, perhaps, was the reason for such a slow promotion of the latter in the service.

1762 was a turning point in the life of the thinker. It is generally accepted that acquaintance with the novel "Emile" by Jean-Jacques Rousseau played the most important role in Kant's new searches. The Frenchman's paradoxes helped him to look into the recesses of the human soul. Kant owed the books of Rousseau, first of all, the liberation from a number of prejudices of the armchair scientist, a kind of democratization of thinking. "... I despised the mob, who knew nothing. Rousseau corrected me. The indicated blinding superiority disappears, I learn to respect people" It was not just a change of views, it was a moral renewal, a revolution in life attitudes.

Kant had to work hard, but he also knew how to relax. After classes Master Kant willingly spent time with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, played billiards, and played cards in the evening. Sometimes he returned home after midnight, and once, by his own admission, he was so drunk that he could not independently find a passage to Magistersky Lane, where he happened to live in the 1760s. In any case, he had to get up early in the morning, he lectured. In addition, poor health made me think about a stricter regime.

In addition to the physical weakness that tormented him from early childhood, over the years was added a kind of mental illness, which Kant called hypochondria. The philosopher described the symptoms of this disease in one of his works: a hypochondriac is enveloped in a kind of "melancholic fog, as a result of which it seems to him that he is overcome by all the diseases that he has heard anything about. Therefore, he most willingly talks about his ill health, greedily pounces on medical books and everywhere finds symptoms of his illness. Society has a beneficial effect on the hypochondriac, here a good mood and a good appetite come to him. Perhaps that is why Kant never dined alone and generally liked to be in public.

He was willingly invited to visit, and he never shied away from invitations. An intelligent and lively conversationalist, Kant was the soul of society. In any company, he kept himself on an equal footing, easily, naturally, resourcefully. The philosopher valued friendship (put it above love, believing that it includes love, but also requires respect).

Kant's close friend was Joseph Green, an English merchant who permanently lived in Konigsberg. Green taught punctuality to his learned friend, who in his youth was not yet as pedantic as in his old age.

Kant remained a bachelor. Psychoanalysts explain Kant's celibacy as a cult of the mother, which slowed down other female attachments. The philosopher himself explained it differently: "When I could need a woman, I was not able to feed her, and when I was able to feed her, I could no longer need her." And if we compare this confession with another one “A man cannot enjoy life without a woman, and a woman cannot satisfy her needs apart from a man,” it becomes clear that celibacy was forced and did not bring joy in adulthood. A certain Louise Rebecca Fritz, in her declining years, assured that the philosopher Kant was once in love with her. According to biographers, this was in the 1760s. Without naming names, Borovsky, in whose eyes a significant part of Kant's life passed, claims that his teacher loved twice and intended to marry twice.

Kant was short (157 centimeters) and frail in build. The art of a tailor and hairdresser helped him to hide the flaws in his appearance. Kant treated fashion condescendingly, called it a matter of vanity, but said "It is better to be a fool in fashion than a fool out of fashion." In the memory of his contemporaries, Kant was preserved not only as a "little master", but also as a "gallant master".

In 1764, Kant was forty years old. He was already famous, appreciated and respected. His lectures were a success, the audience was always full, and he entrusted some of the courses to his students. Books sold well, and "Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime" brought him fame as a fashionable author.

But he still remained a privatdozent who did not receive a penny from the university. Master Kant even had to sell his books. In February 1766, the philosopher, without leaving teaching at the university, began to work as an assistant librarian in the royal castle.

The library took up little time, now it was open only on Wednesdays and Saturdays from one in the afternoon to four. But the librarian's salary was also low - 62 thalers a year. Kant still had to think about additional earnings. At one time he was in charge of a private mineralogical collection.

In 1770, by decree of the king, Kant was appointed ordinary professor of logic and metaphysics. The philosopher defends his fourth dissertation. In the 1770s, acquaintance with the work of Hume awakened Kant from his "dogmatic sleep". Let us recall that, according to Hume, sensory experience cannot give us universal and necessary knowledge. And this means that on the basis of empirical data it is impossible to erect the edifice of theoretical science. But then how is scientific knowledge possible at all? In search of an answer to this question, Kant turns to the methodology of scientific knowledge. In Kant's time, metaphysics was concerned with the study of the world as a whole, the soul and God. Metaphysics relied on formal logic, the foundations of which were laid by Aristotle. But already Kant's predecessor, the German philosopher Leibniz, showed that, using this logic, metaphysics comes to mutually exclusive conclusions about the world as a whole, for example, to the conclusion that it is finite and infinite at the same time. Starting from the contradictions that Leibniz-Wolf's metaphysics exposed in Germany, Kant draws his conclusion: metaphysics is generally impossible as a rigorous science.

Kant saw the main defect of metaphysics in the fact that it is dogmatic, since it absolutely uncritically accepts the implicit premise that knowledge of the world as a whole is possible, and at the same time does not explore our cognitive capabilities in any way. Although it is precisely this task, Kant believes, that philosophy must first of all solve. And Kant calls such a philosophy, in contrast to dogmatic metaphysics, critical philosophy. It was a revolution in philosophy, equal in scale to the French Revolution. Kant himself compared it to the Copernican upheaval in astronomy.

Thus, the "critical" period in Kant's work begins in the 1770s. At this time, his famous Critics were created. Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason, and Critique of Judgment. Kant's critique of metaphysics led to a revision of what and how philosophy should study. And above all, she discovered the emptiness of the logic used by traditional metaphysics. Kant saw the disadvantage of such formal logic in the fact that it does not allow obtaining new knowledge, but only transforms existing knowledge. This is the logic of analysis, not the logic of synthesis.

In 1774 pedagogy began to be taught at the University of Königsberg. The new subject was read, changing each other, by seven professors of the Faculty of Philosophy. Kant's turn came in the winter of 1776. As a textbook, Kant used Basedow's book, introducing his own corrections and additions to it, as usual. As a result, an independent work "On Pedagogy" appeared, published shortly before the death of the philosopher by his student Rink. "Two human inventions can be considered the most difficult: the art of managing and the art of educating," wrote Kant. But society is based on them. "A man can become a man only through education. He is what education makes of him."

In 1777 Minister Zedlitz offered Professor Kant to take a chair in Halle. But got rejected. Then the minister offered a salary of 800 thalers (Kant's salary was 236 thalers) and the title of court adviser.

The philosopher stood his ground. He did not need any big money, no fame, no court ranks. Any change in lifestyle frightened him. Moving to a foreign city could only hurt the work. He wrote the Critique of Pure Reason.

Kant worked on it in the spring and summer of 1780. Large pieces were ready for a long time, so everything was completed within five months. He knew the weaknesses of the book, mainly stylistic, but he no longer had the strength to rewrite it, and besides, he was eager to present his offspring to the public.

In the "Critique of Pure Reason" Kant made changes to the content of the concepts of "metaphysics" and "theory of knowledge". Metaphysics for him is the same as for the "dogmatist philosophers", especially the school of Wolf - the science of the absolute, but within the boundaries of human reason. The theory of knowledge is a border guard that opposes the passage through the boundaries of the knowable, blaming it on pure reason, striving for knowledge. For knowledge, according to Kant, rests entirely on experience, on sensory perception. Only the senses give us information about the actual external world. But if all our knowledge begins with experience, then it still does not follow entirely from it. Rather, it is formed with the help of already given in the knowing mind before and independently of any experience, that is, a priori, forms of contemplation of space and time and mental, or rational, forms of categories, the purpose of which Kant called transcendental.

The publication of the Critique of Pure Reason did not become a sensation. The book was read with difficulty, without arousing interest. All this had a depressing effect on the philosopher. Wishing to clarify, Kant writes "Prolegomena to any future metaphysics" (1883). But this time they did not understand him.

Salvation came in the person of Johann Schulz, who came out with the popularization of Kant's teachings. His review turned into a book entitled An Explanatory Exposition of the Critique of Pure Reason. It was a conscientious commentary on Kant's theory of knowledge.

"Kantian fever" engulfed the German universities. In some places the authorities got worried. In Marburg, the local landgrave forbade the teaching of Kant's philosophy until it was found out whether it undermined the foundations of human knowledge.

In the meantime, Kant was elected rector of the university (he was in this position for a year), and the Berlin Academy of Sciences included him among its members (this is already for life).

In 1788, the Critique of Practical Reason was published. Kant's independent ethics of duty, set forth in this book and representing a significant achievement of philosophy, became the basis for the following reasoning: although the mind is incapable of knowing objects purely a priori, that is, without experience, it can nevertheless determine the will of a person and his practical behavior. At the same time, it turns out that, as a person, a person is below the laws of nature, is under the influence of the outside world, he is not free. According to his "cognizing" character, that is, as an individual, he is free and follows only his practical reason. The moral law to which he follows is the categorical imperative, which is formulated as follows: "Act in such a way that the maxim of your will may at any time become the principle of universal legislation." More specifically: it is not the pursuit of happiness, aimed at achieving external benefits, not love or sympathy that makes an act moral, but only respect for the moral law and following the duty. This ethics of duty gives not theoretical, but practical confidence in the freedom of a moral act, in the immortality of a morally acting person, since in this life he has no right to a reward for his morality, gives confidence in God as the guarantor of morality and the reward for it. These three beliefs Kant calls the "practical postulates" of God, freedom and immortality.

Of course, the philosopher himself was not always and not in everything guided by the prescriptions of the categorical imperative. He was petty (especially in old age), eccentric, impatient, stingy (even when material well-being came), pedantic (although he was aware that pedantry is evil, "painful formalism", and scolded pedants), did not tolerate objections. Life forced him to compromise, and he sometimes cunning and adapting. But in general, his behavior corresponded to the ideal of an internally free personality, which he outlined in his ethical works. There was a goal of life, there was a conscious duty, there was the ability to control one's desires and passions, even one's own body. There was character. There was kindness.

Nature endows a person with temperament, he develops character himself. Trying to gradually become better, Kant believed, is a waste of work. Character is created at once, by means of an explosion, a moral revolution. People feel the need for moral renewal only in adulthood; Kant survived it on the threshold of forty years. Financial independence came later.

In 1784, Kant bought his own house - two-story, eight-room. His savings have long ago exceeded 20 gold pieces, which were put aside for a rainy day. Now he could easily shell out 5,500 guilders for the property of the widow of the artist Becker (once created his portrait). At a quarter to five in the morning, Lampe's servant appeared in the professor's bedroom. Kant made his way to his study, where he drank two cups of weak tea and smoked his only pipe of the day. (Tolstoy was mistaken in attributing to Kant an unbridled passion for tobacco, saying that if he had not smoked so much, the Critique of Pure Reason probably would not have been written "in such needlessly incomprehensible language").

The philosopher loved coffee, but tried not to drink it, considering it harmful. Lectures usually began at seven o'clock, as a rule, he read logic and physical geography in the summer, metaphysics and anthropology in the winter. After class, the professor sat down in his office again. At a quarter to one, friends invited to dinner appeared in the house. Exactly at one o'clock, Lampe appeared on the threshold of the office and uttered the sacramental formula "Soup on the table." Dinner was the only meal the philosopher permitted himself.

Fairly dense, with good wine (Kant did not recognize beer), it lasted up to four or five hours. His favorite dish was fresh cod. The philosopher spent the afternoon on his feet. During the life of Green (who died in 1786). Kant used to visit him, and they dozed in armchairs; now he considered sleep in the middle of the day harmful and did not even sit down so as not to doze off. It was time for the legendary walk.

The Koenigsbergers are accustomed to seeing their celebrity taking a walk with a quiet step at the same time along the route of the "philosophical path". Returning home, the philosopher gave orders for the household. He devoted the evening hours to light reading (newspapers, magazines, fiction), the thoughts that arose at the same time were put down on paper. At ten o'clock Kant went to bed.

A regular way of life, observance of the hygienic rules prescribed for oneself pursued one goal - maintaining health. Kant did not trust drugs, he considered them poison for his weak nervous system. Kant's hygiene program is simple

1) Keep your head, legs and chest cold. Wash feet in ice water ("lest the blood vessels away from the heart weaken")

2) Less sleep "Bed nest diseases." Sleep only at night, short and deep sleep. If sleep does not come by itself, one must be able to call it. The word "Cicero" had a magical hypnotic effect on Kant, repeating it to himself, he scattered his thoughts and quickly fell asleep.

3) Move more, serve yourself, walk in any weather.

With regard to nutrition, Kant recommends first of all to abandon liquid food and, if possible, limit drinking. How many times do you eat during the day? We already know one amazing answer from Kant!

The old philosopher-bachelor assured that unmarried or early widowed men "retain a youthful appearance longer", and family faces "bear the seal of the yoke", which makes it possible to assume the longevity of the former compared to the latter.

In the late 1780s, Kant began to look for new ways to create a philosophical system. For in philosophy he valued systematicity above all else, and was himself a great systematist. The general contours of the doctrine were formed long ago. But the system didn't exist yet. Of course, the two first "Critiques" are connected in a certain way, the same concept is developed in them. But the achieved unity between theoretical and practical reason seemed to him insufficient. Some important mediating link was missing.

Kant's system of philosophy was formed only after he discovered a kind of "third world" between nature and freedom - the world of beauty. When Kant created the Critique of Pure Reason, he believed that aesthetic problems could not be comprehended from generally valid positions. The principles of beauty are empirical in nature and, therefore, cannot serve to establish the universal laws of the universal principle of spiritual activity, namely "feelings of pleasure and displeasure."

Now Kant's philosophical system takes on clearer contours. He sees it as consisting of three parts in accordance with the three abilities of the human psyche - cognitive, evaluative ("feeling of pleasure") and volitional ("ability of desire"). The Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Practical Reason set out the first and third parts of the philosophical system, theoretical and practical.

The second, central, Kant still calls teleology - the doctrine of expediency. Then teleology will give way to aesthetics - the doctrine of beauty. Kant intended to finish the conceived work by the spring of 1788. But the work got delayed again. It took another two springs and two summers before the manuscript went to the printers. The treatise was called "Critique of the faculty of judgment."

After Frederick II, the throne was inherited by his nephew Friedrich Wilhelm II. Unlike his uncle, a free-thinking despot, a determined administrator, commander and patron of sciences, the current king was a weak-willed, narrow-minded, prone to mysticism. Initially, Kant's relationship with the new king was favorable for the philosopher. It was the time of his first rectorship, when Friedrich Wilhelm II arrived in Konigsberg to take the oath. The head of the university was invited to the royal castle, on behalf of the professors and students, Kant welcomed the monarch and was treated kindly by him. (The philosopher refused to participate in the solemn divine service, citing illness).

In the year of his second rectorship (1788), Kant opened a celebratory meeting on the occasion of the royal jubilee. The King authorized the admission of Kant to the Academy of Sciences without any introduction from Koenigsberg. Berlin significantly increased his salary, which now amounted to 720 thalers.

In July 1794, Kant was elected to the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, and already in October he received a reprimand from the king, but no one (except the philosopher himself) found out about this. The royal decree was not made public, it came as a private letter. Friedrich-Wilhelm wrote to Kant that he abused his philosophy to distort and humiliate some of the main and basic provisions of Holy Scripture and the Christian faith.

They demanded an immediate response from Kant, and he answered, observing all the necessary humble formulas of a loyal subject addressing his monarch, - he did not repent, but, on the contrary, resolutely rejected the accusations against him on all counts. It was not in Kant's rules to renounce his views, it was beyond his power to resist. On a piece of paper that had turned up by chance, he formulated the only possible tactic. "Renunciation of inner conviction is low, but silence in a case like this is the duty of a subject, if everything you say must be true, then it is not necessary to publicly express the whole truth."

Kant continued to develop ethical problems. Several works are dedicated to them: "Fundamentals of the Metaphysics of Morals" (1785), "Critique of Practical Reason" (1788), "Metaphysics of Morals" (1797), "On the Primordial Evil in Human Nature" (1792), "On the Saying "maybe this is true in theory, but unsuitable for practice" (1793), "Religion within the limits of reason alone" (1793).

In his Metaphysics of Morals, he presented a whole range of human moral duties. He considered very important the duties of a person in relation to himself, which included taking care of his health and his life. He considered suicide as a vice, undermining a person's health through drunkenness and gluttony. The virtues included truthfulness, honesty, sincerity, conscientiousness, self-esteem. It was said that one should not become a slave of a person, allow others to violate their rights with impunity, allow servility, etc.

In 1795, the Treaty of Basel was concluded between France and Prussia, which ended the war, but maintained a state of hostility between the countries. Kant responded to these events with the famous treatise Toward Perpetual Peace, in which theoretical thoroughness was organically combined with political topicality and was expressed in an ironic form. None of Kant's writings evoked such immediate and lively responses.

The first edition of the treatise "Towards Perpetual Peace" was literally snatched up. This work was the last work of Kant.

Having reached the age of 75, Kant began to weaken rapidly. At first the physical, then the mental forces left him more and more. Back in 1797, Kant stopped lecturing, since 1798 he did not accept any more invitations and gathered only his closest friends at home.

Since 1799, he was forced to give up even walking. Despite this, Kant tried to write: "The system of pure philosophy in its entirety," but Kant's strength was already exhausted.

In 1803, Kant wrote down on a memorial sheet the biblical words "A man's life lasts 70 years, many 80". He was 79 years old at the time.

In October 1803, Kant had a seizure. Since then, his strength was rapidly fading away, he could no longer sign his name, he forgot the most ordinary words.

* * *
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The origins of philosophical thought must be sought in antiquity...
The philosophy of modern times arose through a break with scholasticism. The symbols of this break are Bacon and Descartes. The rulers of the thoughts of the new era - Spinoza, Locke, Berkeley, Hume ...
In the 18th century, an ideological, as well as a philosophical and scientific direction appeared - "Enlightenment". Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot and other prominent enlighteners advocated a social contract between the people and the state in order to ensure the right to security, freedom, prosperity and happiness ... Representatives of the German classics - Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Feuerbach - for the first time realize that man does not live in the world of nature, but in the world of culture. The 19th century is the century of philosophers and revolutionaries. Thinkers appeared who not only explained the world, but also wished to change it. For example, Marx. In the same century, European irrationalists appeared - Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Bergson ... Schopenhauer and Nietzsche are the founders of nihilism, the philosophy of negation, which had many followers and successors. Finally, in the 20th century, among all the currents of world thought, one can distinguish existentialism - Heidegger, Jaspers, Sartre ... The starting point of existentialism is the philosophy of Kierkegaard ...
Russian philosophy, according to Berdyaev, begins with the philosophical letters of Chaadaev. The first representative of Russian philosophy known in the West, Vl. Solovyov. The religious philosopher Lev Shestov was close to existentialism. The most revered Russian philosopher in the West is Nikolai Berdyaev.
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Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was a German scientist and philosopher. Kant is considered the founder of German classical idealism. The hometown of I. Kant is Koenigsberg. Here he studied and subsequently worked. From 1755 to 1770 Kant had the title of assistant professor, and in the period from 1770 to 1796 he was a university professor.

Even before 1770, Immanuel Kant created the "nebular" cosmogonic hypothesis. This hypothesis substantiated the origin and evolution of the planetary system in accordance with the principle of the original "nebula". At the same time, the philosopher suggested that there is a Grand Universe of galaxies, and it is located outside our Galaxy.

In addition, Kant developed the doctrine of deceleration, which is the result of tidal friction. The latter takes place as a result of the daily rotation of the Earth.

The scientist also thought about the relativity of rest and motion. All these research works in some way influenced the formation of dialectics. Immanuel Kant is considered the founder of "transcendental" ("critical") idealism. The following works of Kant are devoted to this issue:
. "Critique of Pure Reason" - 1781;
. "Critique of Practical Reason" - 1788;
. "Critique of the faculty of judgment" - 1790, etc.

Immanuel Kant revises the concept of "faith" (which still remains in his teaching) and fills it with a new philosophical meaning (which differs significantly from the theological). According to the philosopher, faith in its old sense led people astray and forced them to obey superstitions, etc.

Destroying the postulates of religion, Kant nevertheless remains a sincere Christian - he believes in a God who would not restrict human freedom. Immanuel Kant considers a person as a moral subject, and the issues of ethics in the teachings of this philosopher become central.

Immanuel Kant is the founder of "critical" idealism. The transition to such views took place in 1770. As early as 1781, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason saw the light of day. This book was followed by a Critique of Practical Reason (published in 1788) and a Critique of Judgment (published in 1790). These works contained the essence of the "critical" theory of knowledge, the doctrine of the expediency of nature, as well as arguments about aesthetics and ethics. The philosopher is trying to substantiate the fact that it is necessary to reveal the boundaries of human cognitive abilities and explore the forms of cognition. Without such preliminary work it is not possible to construct a system of speculative philosophy. The latter concept in Kant's time was synonymous with the concept of "metaphysics". This kind of research work leads the German scientist to agnosticism. He stands up for the fact that our knowledge cannot perceive the nature of things, how these things exist in themselves. Moreover, according to Kant, this impossibility is fundamental. Moreover, human knowledge applies only to "appearances," that is, the way in which human experience makes it possible to discover these very things. Developing his teaching, Kant says that only natural science and mathematics contain reliable theoretical knowledge, which, according to the philosopher, is due to the presence in the human mind of "a priori" forms of sensory contemplation. The philosopher believes that initially in the human mind there is a desire for unconditional knowledge, which cannot be eradicated by anything. This feature is associated with the highest ethical demands. All this leads to the fact that the human mind tries to find a solution to issues related to the boundaries of the world, the processes that take place in it, the existence of God, the presence of indivisible elements of the world, etc. Immanuel Kant believed that judgments opposing each other (such as: atoms exist and there are no indivisible particles, the world is unlimited or has limits, etc.) can be substantiated with absolutely equal evidence. It follows from this that the mind, as it were, bifurcates in contradictions, that is, it is antinomic in nature. However, Kant is sure that such contradictions are only apparent, and the solution to such a riddle lies in the limitation of knowledge in favor of faith. Thus, emphasis is placed on the distinction between "things in themselves" and "appearances". At the same time, "things in themselves" must be recognized as unknowable. It turns out that a person is both free and not free at the same time. Free, because it is the subject of the unknowable supersensible world. It is not free, because in fact it is a being in the world of phenomena.

Immanuel Kant was a sincere Christian. The philosopher was extremely uncompromisingly related to atheism. But Kant is also recognized as one of the destroyers and critics of the religious worldview. In the philosophical teaching of this man there is no place for faith, which can replace knowledge, and Kant criticizes all kinds of faith. He says that faith comes from the human need to reduce the boundaries of the uncertain in the world around him. Faith is needed in order to neutralize the feeling that a person's life is not guaranteed. Thus, the German philosopher comes into some kind of conflict with theological teaching. However, Immanuel Kant, criticizing many religious postulates, destroyed religion as its sincere adherent (no matter how paradoxical it may sound). He presented the religious consciousness with moral demands that were beyond his strength, and at the same time came out with a passionate defense of God. Such a God, faith in which would not take away a person's moral dignity and would not limit his freedom. Kant draws attention to the fact that faith is mainly a kind of prudence. That is why over the years it has led to the blind obedience of the people to the leaders, the existence of various superstitions, the emergence of religious movements, from which we can conclude that the inner conviction in something, in fact, was a craven faith in revelation. Despite all of the above, the German philosopher still retains the category of "faith" in the development of his theory. However, in his teaching he advocates a different understanding of faith. He fills this concept with a philosophical and psychological meaning, different from the theological interpretation. In his works, Kant asks certain questions. The Critique of Pure Reason raises the question of what a person can know. The Critique of Practical Reason asks what a person should do. And, finally, "Religion within the limits of reason alone" asks what a person can actually hope for. Thus, the last of the questions above outlines the actual problem of faith in the form in which it was presented within the philosophy of Kant. It turns out that this philosopher would have taken a consistent (and quite logical) step in his teaching. If I would completely exclude the concept of "faith", replacing it with another concept - "hope". How is hope different from faith? The main difference is that hope is never an inner animation. It does not define a choice and does not precede any action. Moreover, hopes are, in principle, excusable. Indeed, in this case, it is often about consolation. However, a critical and wary attitude towards oneself is necessary if hope is the motivating force of the act being performed.

General laws are the basis of absolutely all judgments of the natural sciences. These laws are not only general, but necessary. Kant developed the doctrine of the epistemological conditions of the possibility of natural science. The subjects of the natural sciences, of course, differ from each other. However, a person can obtain scientific knowledge about them only if all natural phenomena and objects are conceived by the mind only as derivatives of the following three laws. The first is the law of conservation of substance. The second is the law of causality. The third is the law of interaction of substances. Kant emphasizes the fact that the above laws belong rather to the human mind than to nature. The knowledge of man directly builds the object. Of course, this is not about the fact that it gives him being (gives birth to an object). Human knowledge gives the object the form of universal and necessary knowledge, that is, precisely the one under which it can be known. Thus, the philosopher comes to the conclusion that the things of nature conform to the forms of the mind, and not vice versa. In connection with this circumstance, Immanuel Kant says that it is impossible to know things by themselves, since nothing constitutes their definition. Kant treats the concept of reason in a special way. Reason is the capacity for inference - this definition is given by ordinary logic. In the philosophical justification of reason, Kant considers this ability as something whose immediate result is the emergence of "ideas". The idea is a concept of the unconditional, therefore its object cannot be perceived in the course of experience using the senses. After all, everything that a person receives by experience is conditioned. Immanuel Kant identifies three ideas formed by the mind. The first idea is the idea of ​​the soul. All conditioned mental phenomena constitute an unconditional totality. The second idea is the idea of ​​the world. There are infinitely many causes of conditioned phenomena. All of them in an unconditional totality constitute the essence of the idea of ​​the world. The third idea is the idea of ​​God. Its essence is that all conditioned phenomena occur for one unconditional reason. Kant believed that the natural sciences are possible only when they talk about the conditioned phenomena that occur in the world. At the same time, a philosophical science based on the fact that the world is an unconditional whole is impossible. Thus, the philosopher refuted the fact that the existence of God has some theoretical evidence, moreover, he justifies that the basis of this kind of evidence is a logical error. According to Kant, this comes from the fact that the very concept of God is the basis for the theoretical proof of his existence. The German philosopher says that a concept can by no means serve as proof of what it signifies. Only by experience can any existence be discovered, at the same time it is necessary to believe in the existence of God. The moral consciousness of a person (his "practical" mind) just requires such faith, moreover, without faith in God, the moral order in the world cannot exist. Immanuel Kant criticizes the "ideas" of reason.

Metaphysics is a theoretical science. Kant rejected this understanding of metaphysics, but believed that it was an important part of philosophy. However, its meaning was reduced by Kant to a "critique" of reason. The need for a transition to practical reason from theoretical reason was emphasized.

Kant's epistemology sets itself the task of transforming metaphysics into real science. The philosopher speaks of the need to find a way for such a transformation. And before that, it is necessary to find out why the old metaphysics failed. Thus, according to Kant, the task of epistemology is twofold. There are two criteria - necessity and universality. They are satisfied not only by mathematical conclusions, but also, as Kant believes, by the conclusions of natural science. The philosopher thoroughly studied modern natural science. Kant included not only intellect, but also sensuality in the field of his epistemological research. All this gave his epistemological research a global character. The German philosopher reasoned as follows. Due to the fact that up to a certain point metaphysics developed poorly, then any person, in principle, can doubt the possibilities of this science. In the "Critique of Pure Reason" the following question is concretized: "Is metaphysics as a science possible?". If the answer is yes, then another question arises: "How can metaphysics become a true science?" Kant criticizes the old metaphysics based on the knowledge of God, the soul and freedom. At the same time, the philosopher confirms the fact of the possibility of knowing nature.

Ethics is at the center of Immanuel Kant's thinking. As mentioned earlier, this German philosopher separated questions of practical reason from questions of theoretical reason, with practical reason being a broader concept. Questions of practical reason involve finding out what a person should do. The problems of ethics are highlighted in such important works by Kant as "Metaphysics of Morals", "Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals", "Critique of Practical Reason", etc. Every person is capable of moral actions. At the same time, he fulfills his duty on a voluntary basis. This fact confirms the reality of freedom, so if you find a law denoting it, then on its basis it is possible to build a new type of metaphysics. And the German philosopher finds the required law. This is a categorical imperative. Its essence lies in the fact that the actions of any person should be reduced to ensuring that his will is capable of being the basis of universal legislation. Thus, Kant expresses a law that can be applied to every rational being. This circumstance testifies to the breadth of practical reason. According to Kant, the law of the categorical imperative also acquires such a connotation. A person should not be a means, but an end (like humanity as a whole). Having received such a formulation of this law, the German philosopher declares that a person believes in God because he is a moral being, and is not a moral being because he believes in God. Kant says that it is inappropriate to talk about human obligations to God. In the same way, one should not derive religious principles for building a state.

Morality in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant is a way to achieve the desired result. This is not true. In this understanding, morality is nothing more than a pragmatic task, the ability to achieve the designated goal effectively. It cannot be argued that such principles cannot be separated from human life, in this regard, the German philosopher calls them conditional imperatives. However, such rules do not address the problem of the direct determination of the goal, but only state the availability of means for its implementation. Moreover, not every goal is inherently moral, and immoral means can be used to achieve a good goal, including (even if they are effective). Morality does not always coincide with expediency at the same time; it is morality that condemns some goals and recognizes others.

The absolute limit of each person, according to Kant, is set by moral laws. They define the boundary, after crossing which a person can lose his dignity. Kant understands that often everything on earth happens not according to these same moral laws. In this regard, the philosopher discusses two questions. The first relates directly to the laws of morality. The second proceeds from how these principles are realized in human life (in experience). Thus, the philosophy of morality is divided into two aspects - a priori and empirical parts. The first is morality itself. Kant calls it the metaphysics of morality. The second part is practical anthropology or empirical ethics. The metaphysics of morality, according to Kant, precedes practical anthropology. To determine the moral law, it is necessary to identify the absolute law, since it is absolute necessity that is inherent in the moral law. Immanuel Kant, answering the question about the choice of the absolute beginning, says that such is the good will. We are talking about pure and unconditional will, which is characterized by practical necessity and there are no extraneous influences. If there is no pure good will behind health, courage, etc., then it is by no means possible to declare that these qualities (like many others) have an unconditional value. For example, self-control can develop into composure if there is no good will behind it, which is not influenced by any external motives.

Only a rational being is characterized by the possession of will. Will is practical reason. The German philosopher believes that the purpose of the mind is to control the human will. The mind to some extent prevents the state of serene contentment. The experience of non-rational beings (that is, animals) testifies that the instinct copes well with such a task as, for example, self-preservation. Moreover, the skeptics of ancient times took reason as the basis of all human suffering. It is difficult to contradict the German scientist in the sense that ordinary people (who succumb to the action of natural instinct) are much more likely to enjoy life and feel happy. In simpler terms: the one who lives easier lives happier. Thus, it is unlikely that reason is given to man only in order to identify the means for happiness, rather, it is necessary for the search for good will directly. The existence of pure good will in the absence of reason is impossible. This is due to the fact that it does not include any empirical elements in its concept. From all of the above, we can conclude that the central place in the philosophy of I. Kant belongs to the identification of good will and reason.

The way of transformation of the world is connected with the actions of subjects. According to Kant, the basis for the implementation of these actions is morality and freedom. The history of human actions form the history of all mankind. Social problems can be solved through moral aspects. People's relationships must be built according to the law of the categorical imperative, which is the main moral law. The social action of the subject is the essence of Kant's practical philosophy. Will becomes a law for a person under the influence of freedom. Will, formed according to the laws of morality, and free will for the German philosopher are identical concepts.

The concepts of "laws" and "maxims" occupy an important place in the moral teachings of Immanuel Kant. The law reflects the expression of significance for each person. Maxims are principles of the will that are subjective, that is, applicable to some single person or group of people. Kant divides imperatives into hypothetical and categorical. The first are executed only under certain conditions. The latter are always required. In the case when it comes to morality, then only one supreme law should be characteristic of it - this is the categorical imperative.

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Immanuel Kant: biography

He was born on April 22 (zodiac sign Taurus) 1724 in Konigsberg (Kaliningrad), where his grandfather emigrated from Scotland. At that time it was a very cosmopolitan city. Kant's parents were devout Lutherans of modest means.

Immanuel was the fourth child in the family. He grew up with his younger brother, older sister and two younger sisters in a working-class neighborhood in the suburbs of Königsberg among laborers, small shopkeepers and craftsmen. Like his father, he was not in good health.

In 1737 his mother died. The boy stood out among his peers, especially in the study of Greek and Latin. Already at the age of 13, the young man showed signs of his legendary perseverance; he was single-minded in his teaching.

In 1740, at the age of 16, he entered the University of Königsberg. Here he met talented professors who opened the world of philosophical and scientific thought to the young scientist.

About the modest life of the great scientist

In the next 7 years, Immanuel not only deepened the study of mathematics, he also continued his passion for the methodology of various sciences. In 1746, his father died, and Kant realized that he could not complete his studies, since he had no funds.

He leaves his native city (in 1747) and begins to teach children from wealthy families of Yudshen (now the village of Veselovka). The young scientist also devoted most of his time to working on his dissertation. In 1755 he received the degree of Privatdozent.

The position of freelance assistant professor, which he held for the next fifteen years, was not profitable. The scientist was forced to live on the little money that students paid him. In the end, he was forced to work as an assistant librarian for several hours a week in the library of the royal castle.

Kant could only afford a small room with modest living conditions. After lecturing on geography, mineralogy, physics, pedagogy, anthropology and philosophy, he enjoyed reading newspapers over a cup of coffee.

Sometimes he rested, playing billiards or cards, occasionally drinking one or two beers with friends. In the evening, Kant returned to his room to his table, chair, bed, and a few selected books. The only thing that adorned its walls was a portrait of the French theorist J.-J. Rousseau.

Philosophy of Immanuel Kant

Kant's judgments during this early period of his life were shaped by the provocative ideas of Rousseau and the rationalism of Leibniz. But he was also deeply moved by the achievements of the scientist and theologian. At that time, Newton's work had just begun to be studied at the University of Königsberg.

Soon the scientist publishes several books and many essays on metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, logic and other sciences, including astronomy. Kant used Newton's principles in his hypothesis of the primordial nebula, which best explained the origin of the universe and has not lost its relevance to this day.

In 1764 - Kant published his "Study of the degree of clarity of the principles of natural theology and morality." He views religious worship as "idolatry". He is sure that religion as a state institution corrupts people and breeds hypocrisy.

The work testifies that Kant understood the limits of the rationalistic: in particular, he began to feel the inconsistencies of the logical demonstrations performed by such rationalists as Wolf, who assumed that making a false proposition necessarily implied that the proposition that was debatable to him must be true.

Kant's premonitions indicate that even in the early period of his work he was already moving towards a dialectical understanding of truth, which would later become his method of thinking.

Kant became a very famous teacher. He was a popular professor among students, not only because his lively teaching method included provocative ideas, but also because of his humor. The effectiveness of his teaching and the stable reputation of an interesting author attracted many students to Koenigsberg.

Alma mater

In 1770 (when Kant was 46 years old) his alma mater accepted him as a full member of the faculty: he was confirmed professor of logic and metaphysics. He continued to work at the University of Königsberg for the next 27 years, in 1786 he became its rector.

Königsber University

At the age of 57, the philosopher completed his greatest work, Critical Analysis of Pure Reason. His work is dialectical and subtle; on the one hand, this makes "pure reason" the subject of critical analysis, and on the other hand, it is the use of "pure reason" for development in accordance with requests.

Kant's basic idea is that the mind plays an active role in structuring reality. The mind gives the structure of the objects as they must conform to the structure of the mind in order to be perceived first.

Kant rejects the ideas of dogmatic metaphysicians-rationalists (Spinoza, Leibniz) and the skepticism of empiricists (Locke, Berkeley, Hume). He uses an unusual method of analyzing judgments and methodologies.

Kant divided his philosophy into 4 parts (questions):

1. What can I know? (metaphysics).
2. What should I do? (morality).
3. What can I hope for (religion).
4. What is a person? (anthropology).

last years of life

The philosopher Immanuel Kant is undoubtedly one of the most famous thinkers in the world. For example, in his monumental Critique of Pure Reason, he showed how the cognitive powers of the mind can be used to define the limits of those same powers.

His life is of interest to neurologists for several reasons: he had a specific personality type; he suffered from a headache; died with dementia. Kant was a man of legendary calmness and pedantry.

For example, his morning walks always took place at the same time. Residents said they could check their watches when he passed by.

He always walked the same route and even walked the same number of steps. He suffered from headaches, which were probably migraines. It has long been believed that people with an obsessive personality type often suffer from migraines. And in the last years of his life, Kant showed clear signs of dementia.

Various causes have been considered, such as vascular dementia or a slowly growing tumor such as a frontal meningioma. Because he had impaired cognitive function, the presence of hallucinations and recurring loss of consciousness.

The philosopher never married. His name can be found in the famous list Kant died on February 12, 1804. He was 79 years old. Many geniuses had symptoms of the mentally ill.

Immanuel Kant: short biography and philosophy (video):

MOSCOW, April 22 - RIA Novosti. The 290th anniversary of the birth of the philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is celebrated on Tuesday.

Below is a biographical note.

The founder of German classical philosophy, Immanuel Kant, was born on April 22, 1724 in the suburb of Koenigsberg (now Kaliningrad) Vorder Vorstadt in a poor family of a saddler (a saddler is a manufacturer of eyecups for horses that are put on them to limit the field of view). At baptism, Kant received the name Emanuel, but later he himself changed it to Immanuel, considering it the most suitable for himself. The family belonged to one of the areas of Protestantism - pietism, which preached personal piety and the strictest observance of moral rules.

From 1732 to 1740, Kant studied at one of the best schools in Koenigsberg - the Latin Friedrichs-Collegium (Collegium Fridericianum).

The house in the Kaliningrad region where Kant lived and worked will be restoredGovernor of the Kaliningrad Region Nikolai Tsukanov instructed to complete the development of a concept for the development of the territory in the village of Veselovka, associated with the name of the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant, within two weeks, the regional government said in a statement.

In 1740 he entered the University of Königsberg. There is no exact data on which faculty Kant studied at. Most researchers of his biography agree that he should have studied at the theological faculty. However, judging by the list of subjects he studied, the future philosopher preferred mathematics, natural sciences and philosophy. For the entire period of study, he attended only one theological course.

In the summer of 1746, Kant presented to the Faculty of Philosophy his first scientific work - "Thoughts for a true assessment of living forces", dedicated to the formula for momentum. The work was published in 1747 with the money of Kant's uncle, the shoemaker Richter.

In 1746, due to the difficult financial situation, Kant was forced to leave the university without passing the final exams and without defending his dissertation for a master's degree. For several years he worked as a home teacher on estates in the vicinity of Koenigsberg.

In August 1754, Immanuel Kant returned to Konigsberg. In April 1755, he defended his thesis "On Fire" for a master's degree. In June 1755 he was awarded his doctorate for his dissertation "A New Elucidation of the First Principles of Metaphysical Knowledge", which was his first philosophical work. He received the title of Privatdozent of Philosophy, which gave him the right to teach at the university, without, however, receiving a salary from the university.

In 1756, Kant defended his thesis "Physical Monadology" and received the post of ordinary professor. In the same year, he petitioned the king for the post of professor of logic and metaphysics, but was refused. Only in 1770 did Kant receive a permanent position as professor of these subjects.

Kant lectured not only on philosophy, but also on mathematics, physics, geography, and anthropology.

In the development of Kant's philosophical views, two qualitatively different periods are distinguished: the early, or "pre-critical", which lasted until 1770, and the subsequent, "critical", when he created his own philosophical system, which he called "critical philosophy".

The early Kant was an inconsistent supporter of natural-scientific materialism, which he tried to combine with the ideas of Gottfried Leibniz and his follower Christian Wolff. His most significant work of this period is the "General natural history and theory of the sky" of 1755), in which the author puts forward a hypothesis about the origin of the solar system (and similarly about the origin of the entire universe). Kant's cosmogonic hypothesis showed the scientific significance of the historical view of nature.

Another treatise of this period, also important for the history of dialectics, is An Attempt to Introduce the Concept of Negative Quantities into Philosophy (1763), in which a distinction is made between real and logical contradiction.

From 1771, a "critical" period began in the work of the philosopher. Since that time, Kant's scientific activity has been devoted to three main topics: epistemology, ethics and aesthetics, combined with the doctrine of expediency in nature. Each of these topics corresponded to a fundamental work: Critique of Pure Reason (1781), Critique of Practical Reason (1788), Critique of Judgment (1790) and a number of other works.

In his main work, The Critique of Pure Reason, Kant tried to substantiate the unknowability of the essence of things ("things in themselves"). From Kant's point of view, our knowledge is determined not so much by the external material world as by the general laws and methods of our mind. With this formulation of the question, the philosopher laid the foundation for a new philosophical problem - the theory of knowledge.

Twice, in 1786 and 1788, Kant was elected rector of the University of Königsberg. In the summer of 1796, he gave his last lectures at the university, but he left his place on the university staff only in 1801.

Immanuel Kant subordinated his life to a strict schedule, thanks to which he lived a long life, despite his naturally poor health; On February 12, 1804, the scientist died at his home. His last word was "Gut".

Kant was not married, although, according to biographers, he had this intention several times.

Kant was buried at the eastern corner of the north side of the Königsberg Cathedral in the professorial crypt, a chapel was erected over his grave. In 1809, the crypt was demolished due to dilapidation, and in its place a walking gallery was built, which was called "Stoa Kantiana" and existed until 1880. In 1924, according to the project of the architect Friedrich Lars, the Kant memorial was restored and acquired a modern look.

The monument to Immanuel Kant was cast in bronze in Berlin by Karl Gladenbeck according to the design of Christian Daniel Rauch in 1857, but was installed opposite the philosopher's house in Königsberg only in 1864, since the money collected by the inhabitants of the city was not enough. In 1885, in connection with the redevelopment of the city, the monument was moved to the university building. In 1944, the sculpture was hidden from the bombings in the estate of Countess Marion Denhoff, but was subsequently lost. In the early 1990s, Countess Denhoff donated a large sum to restore the monument.

A new bronze statue of Kant, cast in Berlin by the sculptor Harald Haacke according to an old miniature model, was installed on June 27, 1992 in Kaliningrad in front of the university building. The burial place and the monument to Kant are objects of the cultural heritage of modern Kaliningrad.