Immanuel Kant Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ==Biography== Immanuel Kant was born on 22 April 1724 into a [[Prussia]]n German family of [[Lutheranism|Lutheran]] faith in [[Königsberg]], East Prussia (since 1946 the Russian city of [[Kaliningrad]]). His mother, Anna Regina Reuter (1697–1737), was born in Königsberg to a father from [[Nuremberg]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.koenigsberg-is-dead.de/I_Cosmopolis.html |title=Cosmopolis |publisher=Koenigsberg-is-dead.de |date=23 April 2001 |access-date=24 July 2009 |archive-date=22 March 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090322094741/http://www.koenigsberg-is-dead.de/I_Cosmopolis.html |url-status=live}}</ref> Her surname is sometimes erroneously given as Porter. Kant's father, Johann Georg Kant (1682–1746), was a German harness-maker from [[Klaipėda|Memel]], at the time Prussia's most northeastern city (now [[Klaipėda]], [[Lithuania]]). It is possible that the Kants got their name from the village of Kantvainiai (German: ''Kantwaggen'' – today part of [[Priekulė, Lithuania|Priekulė]]) and were of [[Kursenieki]] origin.<ref>R.K. Murray, "The Origin of Immanuel Kant's Family Name", ''Kantian Review'' '''13'''(1), March 2008, pp. 190–193.</ref><ref>Rosa Kohlheim, Volker Kohlheim, ''Duden – Familiennamen: Herkunft und Bedeutung von 20.000 Nachnamen'', Bibliographisches Institut & F.A. Brockhaus AG, Mannheim 2005, p. 365.</ref> Emanuel was baptized and later changed the spelling of his name to Immanuel after learning [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]].{{sfn|Kuehn|2001|p=26}} He was the fourth of nine children (six of whom reached adulthood).<ref>{{cite web |last=Haupt |first=Viktor |title=Rede des Bohnenkönigs – Von Petersburg bis Panama – Die Genealogie der Familie Kant |url=https://www.freunde-kants.com/kopie-von-kant-war-ostpreusse-1 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150925124214/http://www.freunde-kants.com/attachments/article/137/Bohnenrede%202015%20%28de%29.pdf |archive-date=25 September 2015 |website=freunde-kants.com |page=7 |language=de}}</ref> The Kant household stressed the [[Pietism|pietist]] values of religious devotion, humility, and a literal interpretation of the [[Bible]].<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |last1=Pasternack |first1=Lawrence |title=Kant's Philosophy of Religion |date=2020 |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2020/entries/kant-religion/ |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |edition=Spring 2020 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=2021-02-25 |last2=Fugate |first2=Courtney}}</ref> The young Immanuel's education was strict, punitive and disciplinary, and focused on Latin and religious instruction over mathematics and science.<ref>Kuehn 2001, p. 47.</ref> In his later years, Kant lived a strictly ordered life. It was said that neighbors would set their clocks by his daily walks. He never married but seems to have had a rewarding social life; he was a popular teacher as well as a modestly successful author, even before starting on his major philosophical works.{{sfn|Kuehn|2001|p=169}} ===Young scholar=== Kant showed a great aptitude for study at an early age. He first attended the [[Collegium Fridericianum]], from which he graduated at the end of the summer of 1740. In 1740, aged 16, he enrolled at the [[University of Königsberg]], where he would later remain for the rest of his professional life.<ref>''The American International Encyclopedia'' (New York: J.J. Little & Ives, 1954), Vol. IX.</ref> He studied the philosophy of [[Gottfried Leibniz]] and [[Christian Wolff (philosopher)|Christian Wolff]] under [[Martin Knutzen]] (Associate Professor of Logic and Metaphysics from 1734 until he died in 1751), a [[rationalism|rationalist]] who was also familiar with developments in British philosophy and science and introduced Kant to the new mathematical physics of [[Isaac Newton]]. Knutzen dissuaded Kant from the theory of [[pre-established harmony]], which he regarded as "the pillow for the lazy mind".<ref>{{cite book|title=What the Tortoise Taught Us: The Story of Philosophy|url=https://archive.org/details/whattortoisetaug00port|url-access=limited|last=Porter|first=Burton|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers|year=2010|page=[https://archive.org/details/whattortoisetaug00port/page/n145 133]}}</ref> He also dissuaded Kant from [[idealism]], the idea that reality is purely mental, which most philosophers in the 18th century regarded negatively. The theory of [[transcendental idealism]] that Kant later included in the ''[[Critique of Pure Reason]]'' was developed partially in opposition to traditional idealism. Kant had contacts with students, colleagues, friends and diners who frequented the local [[Masonic lodge]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/id/9c2c6b4d-7481-4e73-b443-bf29054680c2/497779.pdf|title=Die Freimaurer im Alten Preußen 1738–1806|language=de|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201119104900/https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/id/9c2c6b4d-7481-4e73-b443-bf29054680c2/497779.pdf|archive-date=November 19, 2020|url-status=live}}</ref> His father's stroke and subsequent death in 1746 interrupted his studies. Kant left Königsberg shortly after August 1748;{{sfn|Kuehn|2001|p=94}} he would return there in August 1754.{{sfn|Kuehn|2001|p=98}} He became a private tutor in the towns surrounding Königsberg, but continued his scholarly research. In 1749, he published his first philosophical work, ''[[Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces]]'' (written in 1745–1747).<ref>Eric Watkins (ed.), ''Immanuel Kant: Natural Science'', Cambridge University Press, 2012: [http://assets.cambridge.org/97805213/63945/excerpt/9780521363945_excerpt.pdf "Thoughts on the true estimation..."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160307213516/http://assets.cambridge.org/97805213/63945/excerpt/9780521363945_excerpt.pdf |date=7 March 2016 }}.</ref> ===Early work=== Kant is best known for his work in the philosophy of ethics and metaphysics, but he made significant contributions to other disciplines. In 1754, while contemplating on a prize question by the [[Prussian Academy of Sciences|Berlin Academy]] about the problem of Earth's rotation, he argued that the Moon's gravity would slow down Earth's spin and he also put forth the argument that gravity would eventually cause the Moon's [[tidal locking]] to [[orbital resonance|coincide]] with the Earth's rotation.{{efn|Kant himself seems to have found his contribution not significant enough that he published his arguments in a newspaper commentary on the prize question and did not submit them to the Academy: {{cite book|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.54018/page/n113/mode/2up|chapter=Whether the Earth has Undergone an Alteration of its Axial Rotation|title=Kant's Cosmogony|translator-last=Hastie|translator-first=William|location=Glasgow|publisher=James Maclehose|orig-date=1754|year=1900|pages=1–11|access-date=29 March 2022}}. The prize was instead awarded in 1756 to P. Frisi, who incorrectly argued against the slowing down of the spin.<ref>{{cite book |last=Schönfeld |first=Martin |title=The Philosophy of the Young Kant: The Precritical Project |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=84 |isbn=978-0-19-513218-2 |year=2000 }}</ref>}}<ref name="nebulous">{{cite book|last=Brush|first=Stephen G.|title=A History of Modern Planetary Physics: Nebulous Earth|year=2014|isbn=978-0-521-44171-1|page=[https://archive.org/details/historyofmodernp0000brus/page/7 7]|publisher=Cambridge University Press |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofmodernp0000brus/page/7}}</ref> The next year, he expanded this reasoning to the [[formation and evolution of the Solar System]] in his ''[[Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens]]''.<ref name="nebulous"/> In 1755, Kant received a license to lecture in the University of Königsberg and began lecturing on a variety of topics including mathematics, physics, logic, and metaphysics. In his 1756 essay on the theory of winds, Kant laid out an original insight into the [[Coriolis force]]. In 1756, Kant also published three papers on the [[1755 Lisbon earthquake]].<ref>See: * Kant, I. (1756a) [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.31951001073880s;view=1up;seq=448 "Von den Ursachen der Erderschütterungen bei Gelegenheit des Unglücks, welches die westliche Länder von Europa gegen das Ende des vorigen Jahres betroffen hat"] [On the causes of the earthquakes on the occasion of the disaster which affected the western countries of Europe towards the end of last year] In: Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences), ed.s (1902) ''Kant's gesammelte Schriften'' [Kant's collected writings] (in German) Berlin, Germany: G. Reimer. vol. 1, pp. 417–427. * Kant, I. (1756b) [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.31951001073880s;view=1up;seq=460 "Geschichte und Naturbeschreibung der merkwürdigsten Vorfälle des Erdbebens, welches an dem Ende des 1755sten Jahres einen großen Theil der Erde erschüttert hat"] [History and description of the nature of the most remarkable events of the earthquake which shook a large part of the Earth at the end of the year 1755], ibid. pp. 429–461. * Kant, I. (1756c) [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.31951001073880s;view=1up;seq=494 "Immanuel Kants fortgesetzte Betrachtung der seit einiger Zeit wahrgenommenen Erderschütterungen"] [Immanuel Kant's continued consideration of the earthquakes that were felt some time ago], ibid. pp. 463–472. * Amador, Filomena (2004) "The causes of 1755 Lisbon earthquake on Kant" In: Escribano Benito, J.J.; Español González, L.; Martínez García, M.A., ed.s. ''Actas VIII Congreso de la Sociedad Española de Historia de las Ciencias y de las Técnicas'' [Proceedings of the Eighth Congress of the Spanish Society of the History of the Sciences and Technology] (in English) Logroño, Spain: Sociedad Española de Historia de las Ciencias y de las Técnicas (Universidad de la Rioja), vol. 2, pp. 485–495.</ref> Kant's theory, which involved shifts in huge caverns filled with hot gases, though inaccurate, was one of the first systematic attempts to explain earthquakes in natural rather than supernatural terms. In 1757, Kant began lecturing on geography making him one of the first lecturers to explicitly teach geography as its own subject.<ref name="Richards-1974">{{Cite journal|last=Richards|first=Paul|date=1974|title=Kant's Geography and Mental Maps|journal=Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers|issue=61|pages=1–16|doi=10.2307/621596|jstor=621596}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Elden|first=Stuart|date=2009|title=Reassessing Kant's geography|journal=Journal of Historical Geography|language=en|volume=35|issue=1|pages=3–25|doi=10.1016/j.jhg.2008.06.001|url=http://dro.dur.ac.uk/6836/1/6836.pdf|access-date=27 September 2019|archive-date=1 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200801205430/http://dro.dur.ac.uk/6836/1/6836.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> Geography was one of Kant's most popular lecturing topics and, in 1802, a compilation by Friedrich Theodor Rink of Kant's lecturing notes, ''Physical Geography'', was released. After Kant became a professor in 1770, he expanded the topics of his lectures to include lectures on natural law, ethics, and anthropology, along with other topics.<ref name="Richards-1974" /> [[File:Kant wohnhaus 2.jpg|thumb|Kant's house in Königsberg in an 1842 painting]] In the ''Universal Natural History'', Kant laid out the [[nebular hypothesis]], in which he deduced that the [[Solar System]] had formed from a large cloud of gas, a [[nebula]]. Kant also correctly deduced that the [[Milky Way]] was a [[galaxy|large disk of stars]], which he theorized formed from a much larger spinning gas cloud. He further suggested that other distant "nebulae" might be other galaxies. These postulations opened new horizons for astronomy, for the first time extending it beyond the solar system to galactic and intergalactic realms.<ref>{{cite book|last=Gamow|first=George|title=One Two Three... Infinity|location=New York|publisher=Viking P.|date=1947|pages=300ff|title-link=One Two Three... Infinity}}</ref> From then on, Kant turned increasingly to philosophical issues, although he continued to write on the sciences throughout his life. In the early 1760s, Kant produced a series of important works in philosophy. ''[[The False Subtlety of the Four Syllogistic Figures]]'', a work in logic, was published in 1762. Two more works appeared the following year: ''Attempt to Introduce the Concept of Negative Magnitudes into Philosophy'' and ''[[The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God]]''. By 1764, Kant had become a notable popular author, and wrote ''[[Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime]]''; he was second to [[Moses Mendelssohn]] in a Berlin Academy prize competition with his ''Inquiry Concerning the Distinctness of the Principles of Natural Theology and Morality'' (often referred to as "The Prize Essay"). In 1766 Kant wrote a critical piece on [[Emanuel Swedenborg]]'s ''Dreams of a Spirit-Seer''. In 1770, Kant was appointed Full Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at the University of Königsberg. In defense of this appointment, Kant wrote his [[inaugural dissertation]] ''On the Form and Principles of the Sensible and the Intelligible World''{{efn|Since he had written his last [[habilitation thesis]] 14 years earlier, a new habilitation thesis was required (see S.J. McGrath, Joseph Carew (eds.), ''Rethinking German Idealism'', Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, p. 24).}} This work saw the emergence of several central themes of his mature work, including the distinction between the faculties of intellectual thought and sensible receptivity. To miss this distinction would mean to commit the error of [[subreption]], and, as he says in the last chapter of the dissertation, only in avoiding this error does metaphysics flourish. It is often claimed that Kant was a late developer, that he only became an important philosopher in his mid-50's after rejecting his earlier views. While it is true that Kant wrote his greatest works relatively late in life, there is a tendency to underestimate the value of his earlier works. Recent Kant scholarship has devoted more attention to these "pre-critical" writings and has recognized a degree of continuity with his mature work.<ref>Cf., for example, Susan Shell, ''The Embodiment of Reason'' (Chicago, 1996)</ref> ===Publication of ''The Critique of Pure Reason''=== {{Main|Critique of Pure Reason}} At age 46, Kant was an established scholar and an increasingly influential philosopher, and much was expected of him. In correspondence with his ex-student and friend [[Markus Herz]], Kant admitted that, in the inaugural dissertation, he had failed to account for the relation between our sensible and intellectual faculties.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Watkins|first=Erik|title=Kant's Critique of Pure Reason: Background Source Materials|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2009|isbn=978-0-521-78162-6|location=Cambridge, UK|pages=276}}</ref> He needed to explain how we combine what is known as sensory knowledge with the other type of knowledge—that is, reasoned knowledge—these two being related but having very different processes. [[File:Painting of David Hume.jpg|thumb|Portrait of philosopher [[David Hume]]]] Kant also credited [[David Hume]] with awakening him from a "dogmatic slumber" in which he had unquestioningly accepted the tenets of both religion and [[natural philosophy]].<ref name="Smith-1952">{{cite book|last=Smith|first=Homer W.|url=https://archive.org/details/manhisgods00smit|title=Man and His Gods|publisher=[[Grosset & Dunlap]]|year=1952|location=New York|page=[https://archive.org/details/manhisgods00smit/page/404 404]|author-link=Homer W. Smith|url-access=registration}}</ref><ref>Kant, ''PFM'' 4:260</ref> Hume, in his 1739 ''[[Treatise on Human Nature]]'', had argued that we only know the mind through a subjective, essentially illusory series of perceptions. Ideas such as [[causality]], [[morality]], and [[Object (philosophy)|objects]] are not evident in experience, so their reality may be questioned. Kant felt that reason could remove this skepticism, and he set himself to solving these problems. Although fond of company and conversation with others, Kant isolated himself, and resisted friends' attempts to bring him out of his isolation.{{efn|It has been noted that in 1778, in response to one of these offers by a former pupil, Kant wrote, "Any change makes me apprehensive, even if it offers the greatest promise of improving my condition, and I am persuaded by this natural instinct of mine that I must take heed if I wish that the threads which the Fates spin so thin and weak in my case to be spun to any length. My great thanks, to my well-wishers and friends, who think so kindly of me as to undertake my welfare, but at the same time a most humble request to protect me in my current condition from any disturbance."<ref>Christopher Kul-Want and Andrzej Klimowski, ''Introducing Kant'' (Cambridge: Icon Books, 2005).{{page needed|date=October 2011}} {{ISBN|978-1-84046-664-5}}</ref>}} When Kant emerged from his silence in 1781, the result was the ''Critique of Pure Reason''. Kant countered Hume's [[empiricism]] by claiming that some knowledge exists inherently in the mind, independent of experience.<ref name="Smith-1952" /> He drew a parallel to the [[Copernican Revolution#Immanuel Kant|Copernican revolution]] in his proposal that worldly objects can be intuited ''[[A priori and a posteriori|a priori]]'', and that [[Anschauung|intuition]] is consequently distinct from [[Objectivity (philosophy)|objective reality]]. He acquiesced to Hume somewhat by defining causality as a "regular, constant sequence of events in time, and nothing more".<ref>{{cite book|last=Smith|first=Homer W.|title=Man and His Gods|publisher=Grosset & Dunlap|year=1952|location=New York|page=[https://archive.org/details/manhisgods00smit/page/416 416]}}</ref> Although now recognized as one of the greatest works in the history of philosophy, the ''Critique'' disappointed Kant's readers upon its initial publication.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Dorrien|first=Gary|title=Kantian Reason and Hegelian Spirit: The Idealistic Logic of Modern Theology|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|year=2012|isbn=978-0-470-67331-7|location=Malden, MA|pages=37}}</ref> The book was long, over 800 pages in the original German edition, and written in a convoluted style. Kant was quite upset with its reception.{{sfn|Kuehn|2001|pp=250–254}} His former student, [[Johann Gottfried Herder]] criticized it for placing reason as an entity worthy of criticism instead of considering the process of reasoning within the context of language and one's entire personality.<ref>[[Frederick Copleston|Copleston, Frederick Charles]] (2003). ''The Enlightenment: Voltaire to Kant''. p. 146.</ref> Similar to [[Christian Garve]] and [[Johann Georg Heinrich Feder]], he rejected Kant's position that space and time possessed a form that could be analyzed. Additionally, Garve and Feder also faulted Kant's ''Critique'' for not explaining differences in perception of sensations.<ref>Sassen, Brigitte. ''Kant's Early Critics: The Empiricist Critique of the Theoretical Philosophy''. 2000.</ref> Its density made it, as Herder said in a letter to [[Johann Georg Hamann]], a "tough nut to crack", obscured by "all this heavy gossamer".<ref>''Ein Jahrhundert deutscher Literaturkritik'', vol. III, ''Der Aufstieg zur Klassik in der Kritik der Zeit'' (Berlin, 1959), p. 315; as quoted in Gulyga, Arsenij. ''Immanuel Kant: His Life and Thought''. Trans., Marijan Despaltović. Boston: Birkhäuser, 1987.</ref> Its reception stood in stark contrast to the praise Kant had received for earlier works, such as his ''Prize Essay'' and shorter works that preceded the first ''Critique''. Recognizing the need to clarify the original treatise, Kant wrote the ''[[Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics]]'' in 1783 as a summary of its main views. Shortly thereafter, Kant's friend Johann Friedrich Schultz (1739–1805), a professor of mathematics, published ''Explanations of Professor Kant's Critique of Pure Reason'' (Königsberg, 1784), which was a brief but very accurate commentary on Kant's ''Critique of Pure Reason''.{{sfn|Kuehn|2001|pp=268–269}} [[File:Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) engraving.jpg|thumb|left|Engraving of Immanuel Kant]] Kant's reputation gradually rose through the latter portion of the 1780s, sparked by a series of important works: the 1784 essay, "[[What is Enlightenment?|Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?]]"; 1785's ''[[Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals]]'' (his first work on moral philosophy); and, from 1786, ''[[Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science]]''. But Kant's fame ultimately arrived from an unexpected source. In 1786, [[Karl Leonhard Reinhold]] published a series of public letters on Kantian philosophy.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Guyer|first=Paul|title=The Cambridge Companion to Kant and Modern Philosophy|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2006|isbn=978-0-521-82303-6|location=Cambridge, UK|pages=631}}</ref> In these letters, Reinhold framed Kant's philosophy as a response to the central intellectual controversy of the era: the [[pantheism controversy]]. [[Friedrich Jacobi]] had accused the recently deceased [[Gotthold Ephraim Lessing]] (a distinguished dramatist and philosophical essayist) of [[Spinozism]]. Such a charge, tantamount to an accusation of atheism, was vigorously denied by Lessing's friend [[Moses Mendelssohn]], leading to a bitter public dispute among partisans. The [[scandal|controversy]] gradually escalated into a debate about the values of the Enlightenment and the value of reason. Reinhold maintained in his letters that Kant's ''Critique of Pure Reason'' could settle this dispute by defending the authority and bounds of reason. Reinhold's [[Letter (message)|letters]] were widely read and made Kant the most famous philosopher of his era. ===Later work=== Kant published a second edition of the ''Critique of Pure Reason'' in 1787, heavily revising the first parts of the book. Most of his subsequent work focused on other areas of philosophy. He continued to develop his moral philosophy, notably in 1788's ''[[Critique of Practical Reason]]'' (known as the second ''Critique''), and 1797's ''[[Metaphysics of Morals]]''. The 1790 ''[[Critique of the Power of Judgment]]'' (the third ''Critique'') applied the Kantian system to aesthetics and [[teleology]]. In 1792, Kant's attempt to publish the Second of the four Pieces of ''[[Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason]]'',<ref name="KReligion">Werner S. Pluhar, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=da8RrM-qkiwC&pg=PR7 Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200304020309/https://books.google.com/books?id=da8RrM-qkiwC&pg=PR7 |date=4 March 2020 }}''. 2009. [https://books.google.com/books?id=da8RrM-qkiwC Description] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200201192948/https://books.google.com/books/about/Religion_Within_the_Bounds_of_Bare_Reaso.html%3Fid%3Dda8RrM-qkiwC |date=1 February 2020 }} & [https://books.google.com/books?id=da8RrM-qkiwC&pg=PR7 Contents.] With an [https://books.google.com/books?id=da8RrM-qkiwC&pg=PR15 Introduction] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200803085237/https://books.google.com/books?id=da8RrM-qkiwC&pg=PR15 |date=3 August 2020 }} by Stephen Palmquist. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company,</ref> in the journal ''Berlinische Monatsschrift'', met with opposition from the King's [[censorship]] commission, which had been established that same year in the context of the [[French Revolution]].<ref name="DerridaKantCensorship"/> Kant then arranged to have all four pieces published as a book, routing it through the philosophy department at the University of Jena to avoid the need for theological censorship.<ref name="DerridaKantCensorship">Derrida, ''Vacant Chair'' p. 44.</ref> This insubordination earned him a now-famous reprimand from the King.<ref name="DerridaKantCensorship"/> When he nevertheless published a second edition in 1794, the censor was so irate that he arranged for a royal order that required Kant never to publish or even speak publicly about religion.<ref name="DerridaKantCensorship"/> Kant then published his response to the King's reprimand and explained himself in the preface of ''The Conflict of the Faculties''.<ref name="DerridaKantCensorship"/> [[File:Kant doerstling2.jpg|thumb|Kant with friends, including [[Christian Jakob Kraus]], [[Johann Georg Hamann]], [[Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel the Elder|Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel]] and [[Karl Gottfried Hagen]]]] He also wrote a number of semi-popular essays on history, religion, politics, and other topics. These works were well received by Kant's contemporaries and confirmed his preeminent status in eighteenth-century philosophy. There were several journals devoted solely to defending and criticizing Kantian philosophy. Despite his success, philosophical trends were moving in another direction. Many of Kant's most important disciples and followers (including [[Karl Leonhard Reinhold|Reinhold]], [[Jakob Sigismund Beck|Beck]], and [[Johann Gottlieb Fichte|Fichte]]) transformed the Kantian position. The progressive stages of revision of Kant's teachings marked the emergence of [[German idealism]]. Kant opposed these developments and publicly denounced Fichte in an open letter in 1799.<ref name="Fichte">{{cite web|url=http://www.korpora.org/Kant/aa12/370.html|title=Open letter by Kant denouncing Fichte's Philosophy|language=de|website=Korpora.org|access-date=24 July 2009|archive-date=19 July 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110719150635/http://www.korpora.org/Kant/aa12/370.html|url-status=live}}</ref> It was one of his final acts expounding a stance on philosophical questions. In 1800, a student of Kant named Gottlob Benjamin Jäsche (1762–1842) published a manual of logic for teachers called ''Logik'', which he had prepared at Kant's request. Jäsche prepared the ''Logik'' using a copy of a textbook in logic by [[Georg Friedrich Meier]] entitled ''Excerpt from the Doctrine of Reason'', in which Kant had written copious notes and annotations. The ''Logik'' has been considered of fundamental importance to Kant's philosophy, and the understanding of it. The great 19th-century logician [[Charles Sanders Peirce]] remarked, in an incomplete review of [[Thomas Kingsmill Abbott]]'s English translation of the introduction to ''Logik'', that "Kant's whole philosophy turns upon his logic."<ref>Peirce, C.S., ''Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce'', v. 1, (HUP, 1960), 'Kant and his Refutation of Idealism' p. 15 </ref> Also, [[Robert Schirokauer Hartman]] and Wolfgang Schwarz wrote in the translators' introduction to their English translation of the ''Logik'', "Its importance lies not only in its significance for the ''Critique of Pure Reason'', the second part of which is a restatement of fundamental tenets of the ''Logic'', but in its position within the whole of Kant's work."<ref>Kant, Immanuel, ''Logic'', G.B. Jäsche (ed), R.S. Hartman, W. Schwarz (translators), Indianapolis, 1984, p. xv.</ref> ===Death and burial=== Kant's health, long poor, worsened. He died at Königsberg on 12 February 1804, uttering "''Es ist gut''" (It is good) before expiring.<ref>Karl Vorländer, ''Immanuel Kant: Der Mann und das Werk'', Hamburg: Meiner, 1992, p. II 332.</ref> His unfinished final work was published as ''[[Opus Postumum]]''. Kant always cut a curious figure in his lifetime for his modest, rigorously scheduled habits, which have been referred to as clocklike. However, [[Heinrich Heine]] noted the magnitude of "his destructive, world-crushing thoughts" and considered him a sort of philosophical "executioner", comparing him to [[Maximilien Robespierre|Robespierre]] with the observation that both men "represented in the highest the type of provincial bourgeois. Nature had destined them to weigh coffee and sugar, but Fate determined that they should weigh other things and placed on the scales of the one a king, on the scales of the other a god."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://philosophy.uchicago.edu/resources/files/On%20Kant.pdf |title=Heine on Immanuel Kant |access-date=10 July 2015 |archive-date=23 November 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151123060538/http://philosophy.uchicago.edu/resources/files/On%20Kant.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> When his body was transferred to a new burial spot, his skull was measured during the exhumation and found to be larger than the average German male's with a "high and broad" forehead.<ref>''Examined Lives, From Socrates to Nietzsche'', James Miller p. 284</ref> His forehead has been an object of interest ever since it became well known through his portraits: "In Döbler's portrait and in Kiefer's faithful if expressionistic reproduction of it—as well as in many of the other late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century portraits of Kant—the forehead is remarkably large and decidedly retreating."<ref>Immanuel Kant and the Bo(a)rders of Art History Mark Cheetham, in ''The Subjects of Art History: Historical Objects in Contemporary Perspectives'', p. 16</ref> [[File:Kaliningrad 05-2017 img05 Kant Island.jpg|upright|thumb|Kant's tomb in [[Kaliningrad]], Russia]] Kant's [[mausoleum]] adjoins the northeast corner of [[Königsberg Cathedral]] in [[Kaliningrad]], Russia. The mausoleum was constructed by the architect [[Friedrich Lahrs]] and was finished in 1924, in time for the bicentenary of Kant's birth. Originally, Kant was buried inside the cathedral, but in 1880 his remains were moved to a [[neo-Gothic]] chapel adjoining the northeast corner of the cathedral. Over the years, the chapel became dilapidated and was demolished to make way for the mausoleum, which was built on the same location. The tomb and its mausoleum are among the few artifacts of German times preserved by the [[Soviets]] after they captured the city.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/architectural-competition-held-to-rebuild-koenigsberg-city-center-a-980260.html|title=Resurrecting Königsberg: Russian City Looks to German Roots|last=Beyer|first=Susanne|date=2014-07-25|work=Spiegel Online|access-date=2018-02-03|archive-date=4 February 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180204192755/http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/architectural-competition-held-to-rebuild-koenigsberg-city-center-a-980260.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Today, many newlyweds bring flowers to the mausoleum. Artifacts previously owned by Kant, known as ''Kantiana'', were included in the [[Königsberg City Museum]]. However, the museum was destroyed during [[World War II]]. A replica of the statue of Kant that in German times stood in front of the main [[University of Königsberg]] building was donated by a German entity in the early 1990s and placed in the same grounds. After the [[Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950)|expulsion]] of [[Königsberg]]'s German population at the end of [[World War II]], the University of Königsberg where Kant taught was replaced by the Russian-language Kaliningrad State University, which appropriated the campus and surviving buildings. In 2005, the university was renamed ''Immanuel Kant State University of Russia''. The name change was announced at a ceremony attended by President [[Vladimir Putin]] of Russia and Chancellor [[Gerhard Schröder]] of Germany, and the university formed a Kant Society, dedicated to the study of [[Kantianism]]. The university was again renamed in the 2010s, to [[Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/1131|title=Executive order on establishing Immanuel Kant University|date=13 October 2010 }}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page