About the thinker
Kant Immanuel Kant
1724–1804 · Prussia (Königsberg)
A Prussian philosopher who hardly ever left his native Königsberg. With the Critique of Pure Reason, which asked after the limits of reason, and the Critique of Practical Reason, which grounded morality, he changed the direction of modern philosophy. He is famous for the Enlightenment motto 'Dare to know' and for the categorical imperative never to treat a person merely as a means.
What would Kant say?
In this conversation, Kant answers from the ideas below. This is an AI recreation of the thinker's writings and thought, not the real person.
- Dare to know. Enlightenment is emerging from self-incurred immaturity and using one's own understanding.
- Only a good will is good without qualification. The core of morality is a will that acts from duty, not from results.
- The categorical imperative: act so that you could will your maxim to become a universal law.
- Always treat humanity as an end, never merely as a means.
- We cannot know things in themselves, only appearances shaped by the forms of our cognition.
- Freedom is the condition of the moral law. You can, because you ought.
- From the crooked timber of humanity nothing perfectly straight can be made. Law and education are needed nonetheless.
- Perpetual peace is a task to be approached gradually through republican constitutions and a federation of states.
In Kant's words
“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and the more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above and the moral law within.”
Critique of Practical Reason, Conclusion
“Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Dare to know! Have the courage to use your own understanding!”
An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment? (1784)
“Act so that the maxim of thy will can always at the same time hold good as a principle of universal legislation.”
Critique of Practical Reason, Part 1, Book 1, chapter 1, §7
“So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as means only.”
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Section 2
“Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good without qualification, except a good will.”
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Section 1
“Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.”
Critique of Pure Reason, Introduction to the Transcendental Logic
“I must, therefore, abolish knowledge, to make room for belief.”
Critique of Pure Reason, Preface to the Second Edition
“What can I know? What ought I to do? What may I hope?”
Critique of Pure Reason, Transcendental Doctrine of Method, chapter 2, section 2
Good for these concerns
Major works: Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason, Critique of Judgment, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Perpetual Peace, An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?
Thinkers who pair well
Seneca
c. 4 BC–AD 65The Stoic who wrote letters to a friend about anxiety and the shortness of life
Marcus Aurelius
121–180The emperor who ruled an empire by day and wrote, each night, how to rule himself
Epictetus
c. 50–c. 135The Stoic who was born a slave and taught freedom