Immanuel kant life after death

In the majority of his philosophical works, Kant was not very preoccupied with the concrete manifestations of political freedom. He developed instead a notion of freedom as "autonomy," the idea that that we should obey a law based on reason that we give to ourselves. Kant was impressed by the progress of modern science Copernicus, Galileo, Newton.

Immanuel kant contribution to philosophy

As a result, he found the endless and seemingly insolvable metaphysical debates of his time about God, freedom, and immortality unbearable. He became convinced that if philosophy was to take its place among the sciences, it would have to proceed more critically. It would have to start from scratch and systematically investigate its own possibilities.

In his moral philosophy, Kant explains how reason can guide us to find morality in our actions. Hume and other empiricists of his time advocated the idea that our experience could help us to understand the grounds for moral activity, often in "moral sentiments.

What is immanuel kant known for

Kant aimed for a moral philosophy founded on reason. This premise led him to the bold statement in the first sentence of Section I, where he claims that the only thing that can be called good without limitation or qualification is the good will. Kant looked for goodness not in an object of our will but in the will itself. As Kant considered anything outside of the subject as dependent on empirical aspects, while he thought that our will can be guided by reason.

The imperative must therefore be categorical, an unconditional requirement that asserts its authority in all circumstances. The individual is guided by a law given through her own reason and proves to be truly autonomous in the Kantian sense. In the Groundwork, he shows how the use of reason can become the antidote to this nonage in the realm of morality.