If you’re thinking about the five key texts for an understanding of Kant, this has got to be one of them. This is the one book on the list that is a complete no-brainer. The book is his first Critique, the Critique of Pure Reason (1781). You could genuinely spend a lifetime delving into the meaning of various sentences and arguments. We’re going to begin with a book that is notoriously difficult to understand. If you want to get a sense of Kant the man and of his life, the thing to do is to read his philosophical works rather than consult a biography. He was a confirmed bachelor and was devoted to philosophy. He was born in Königsberg, lived all of his life in Königsberg, and-famously-never travelled very far from Königsberg. The biography is fascinating because of the light that it casts on his philosophical work, the actual composition of that work, and the various processes that he went through as he was producing his books but there’s not much in the way of an external story to sustain people’s interest. Kant didn’t have a very interesting life. (I am referring to Manfred Kuehn’s biography, simply entitled Kant: A Biography.) For most people this would not be a particularly inspiring read. There’s one that came out not very long ago-about fifteen years ago-which I personally found an interesting read, but that’s because I have this special keen interest in Kant. In your Five Books selection you haven’t included a biography. But, yes, we ordinarily think of him as a great German philosopher. The town itself now goes under the name of Kaliningrad, which is part of Russia. But, historically, that’s not quite accurate is it? He’s usually thought of as a German philosopher, and he wrote in German. You can see why: this was an injunction to have the courage of our own convictions, the courage of our own resources, and in particular the resources of our rational faculty. The motto of the Enlightenment was ‘dare to be wise’ and this was a motto that was very dear to Kant’s heart. He was responsible for many of the main ideas that we associate with the Enlightenment, and, in particular, the idea that we should trust to no authority except our own reason, that on all the most fundamental questions about life, including questions about how we should conduct our lives, the ultimate authority was what we could glean from the exercise of our own reason. He was a German philosopher who lived in the eighteenth century and was very much part of the Enlightenment. That’s controversial, obviously, and other people would have different views, but in my opinion he is the all-time great. The first thing that I want to say about Immanuel Kant is that he was the greatest philosopher of all time. Foreign Policy & International RelationsĬould you begin by saying a little bit about who Kant was?.

Immanuel kant book