Immanuel Kant: Morality, the Limits of Reason, and the Postulates of Faith

Immanuel Kant: Morality, the Limits of Reason, and the Postulates of Faith

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) is one of the most important and influential philosophers in Western history. Born in Königsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia), Kant spent his entire life in the city, working as a professor at the University of Königsberg. His philosophical system, known as critical philosophy or transcendental idealism, transformed epistemology, ethics, and the philosophy of religion. For AQA A-Level Religious Studies (specification 7062), Kant is essential for understanding the moral argument for God’s existence, the critique of the ontological argument, and the relationship between morality and religion.

Kant’s Epistemology: The Limits of Reason

Kant’s philosophical revolution began with the Critique of Pure Reason (1781; second edition 1787), one of the most difficult and important works in the history of philosophy. In it, Kant sought to resolve the dispute between rationalism (the view that knowledge comes from reason alone, represented by Descartes, Leibniz, and Wolff) and empiricism (the view that knowledge comes from sense experience, represented by Locke, Berkeley, and Hume).