Immanuel Kant

The historian of philosophy Frederick Copleston has described Kant’s life as ‘singularly uneventful and devoid of dramatic incident’. Immanuel Kant was born in 1724 in Konigsberg, East Prussia, (now Russia) on the Baltic Sea. Kant’s father (who immigrated from Scotland and changed the family name from Cant to Kant) was a saddler. The family was large, poor and religious. They were Pietists, (something like Prussian Puritans) and the continuous round of prayers, religious instruction and observances is no doubt why Kant in his adult years never attended public worship except on extraordinary occasions. On the other hand he embraced to the end the ethical principles of his early religious upbringing.


In 1740, he entered the University of Konigsberg where he drank in a broad survey of many fields: metaphysics, physics, algebra, geometry, psychology, astronomy, and logic. At the conclusion of the studies he earned a sparse livelihood by becoming a tutor to the Prussian gentry. It was during this time that he was introduced to high society, though he soon withdrew into the ivory tower of academic life. In 1755, he took what we would call a doctoral degree and became a lecturer at the university. In 1770, he was made professor. He taught and published first in science, anticipating Laplace’s nebular hypothesis concerning the origin of the Universe and early theories of evolution. But he turned gradually to metaphysics. His lectures were said to be lively and even humorous – though one would never guess this from most of his writings.

In 1781, at the ripe age of 57, he published the monumental Critique of Pure Reason. This was followed by the Critique of Practical Reason and the Critique of Judgment. According to the German writer Herder, ‘Kant spoke the profoundest language that ever came from the lips of man’. Profound perhaps, but perhaps also the most exasperating. He gave the manuscript of his first Critique to a colleague, Marcus Hertz. Hertz returned it half-read, with the explanation: ‘If I finish it, I’m afraid I shall go mad!’

Kant lectured at the University for over 40 years. In all this time he never  travelled more than 60 miles from Konigsberg, and for 40 years he did not spend so much as a single night outside the city. Kant was a small man (about five feet tall), extremely frail, and somewhat distorted in his frame. He was meticulous about his health, verging on the neurotic. His daily routine was extremely fixed, beginning every morning at 4:55. It’s is reported that his daily walk was so regular that he strolled for exactly one hour, eight times up and down the Linden Allee (which came to be nicknamed ‘The Philosopher’s Walk”) and so punctual that’s the townspeople set their clocks by it. He never married, and was, in fact, something of a misogynist. He died in senile dementia on February 12, 1804.

Kant’s most important philosophical works include: Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason, Critique of Judgment, Prelegomena to any Future Metaphysics, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Metaphysical First Principles of Natural Science, Religion within the Bounds of Reason Alone, and On Perpetual Peace.

Kant's death mask

Taken from: Questions that Matter, an Invitation to Philosophy, by Ed L. Miller, 1993, McGraw Hill