Editing Immanuel Kant (section)

== 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| issn=0020-2754 }}</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.

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}}
[[File:Painting of David Hume.jpg|thumb|Philosopher [[David Hume]]]]
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|location=Cambridge|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2009|isbn=978-0-521-78162-6|page=276}}</ref> He needed to explain how we combine what is known as sensory knowledge with the other type of knowledge{{mdash}}that is, reasoned knowledge{{mdash}}these two being related but having very different processes. Kant also credited [[David Hume]] with awakening him from a "{{vanchor|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|location=New York|publisher=[[Grosset & Dunlap]]|year=1952|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 know the mind only 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|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'', printed by [[Johann Friedrich Hartknoch]]. 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]]. Perhaps the most direct contested matter was Hume's argument against any necessary connection between causal events, which Hume characterized as the "cement of the universe". In the ''Critique of Pure Reason'', Kant argues for what he takes to be the ''a priori'' justification of such necessary connection.<ref>Kant, ''CPuR'' A188-211/B233-56</ref>

[[File:Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) engraving.jpg|thumb|left|Engraving of Kant]]
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 by itself 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> Similarly to [[Christian Garve]] and [[Johann Georg Heinrich Feder]], he rejected Kant's position that space and time possess a form that can be analyzed. Garve and Feder also faulted the ''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}}

Kant's reputation gradually rose through the latter portion of the 1780s, sparked by a series of important works: the 1784 essay, "[[Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?]]"; 1785's ''[[Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals]]'' (his first work on moral philosophy); and ''[[Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science]]'' from 1786. Kant's fame ultimately arrived from an unexpected source. In 1786, [[Karl Leonhard Reinhold]] published a series of public letters on Kantian philosophy. 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 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.<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|page=631}}</ref>