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Immanuel Kant was born the fourth of ten children in a family of craftsmen in Königsberg.
Between 1732 and 1740 Kant attended the Friedrichskollegium in Königsberg. In 1737 his mother died. After leaving school, he studied natural sciences, mathematics, philosophy, theology and classical Latin literature at the Albertina University in Königsberg from 1740 to 1745. His father died in 1745, shortly before completing his studies. While he was still studying and doing his doctorate, Immanuel Kant worked as a tutor and tutor in the area around Königsberg to secure his family's livelihood. During this time he also published his first natural-philosophical texts such as "Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces" (1749). After this time, Kant never left Konigsberg for the rest of his life.
Nevertheless, he later led a sociable life. In the scientific, anonymously published work "General Natural History and Theory of the Heavens" (1755), Kant deals with the formation of the planetary system according to Newton's principles. In 1755 he completed his doctorate with a thesis on fire entitled "De igne". In the same year he completed his habilitation thesis "Nova Dilucidatio", a treatise on metaphysical principles, and began teaching as a private lecturer at the Albertina. His lecture subjects were varied: logic, ethics, metaphysics, mathematics, natural law, philosophical encyclopedia, pedagogy, mechanics, theology and anthropology. Kant's lectures were well attended. Again and again he tried to get a full professorship at the university, but this was rejected for a long time despite his high qualifications.
In the years from 1758 to 1762 Königsberg was occupied by the Russians. This period brought with it a relaxed social atmosphere in which Kant took part. He turned down a professorship for poetry at the Albertina. In 1766, in addition to his income from hearing aids and private tuition, he found another source of income when he accepted the position of assistant librarian at the royal palace library. He also declined an appointment at the University of Erlangen as a professor for logic and metaphysics, as well as that at the University of Jena. It was not until 1770 that Kant received a full professorship in logic and metaphysics at the University of Königsberg. In his inaugural lecture, he spoke about the topic "Sensual and Intelligible World". Here Kant separates sensual and intelligent knowledge, space and time are recognized as subjective forms of perception.
The topic of his inaugural speech became the basis for his main work "Critique of Pure Reason" (1781), on which he had worked for ten years. This was followed at shorter intervals by further critical writings such as "Critique of Practical Reason" (1788) or "Critique of Judgment" (1790). These works were intended as the cornerstone for an overall system of his philosophy, which, however, was only partially implemented. His article "Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment", which appeared in the Berlin Monthly Magazine in 1784, became famous, as did Kant's catchy answer, which he summed up: "Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-inflicted immaturity". "The Critique of Pure Reason" surprised the reading public. The edition, of which another edition with changes appeared in 1787, was difficult to understand.
Kant remedied this by writing a more accessible edition in 1783 entitled "Prolegomena to any future metaphysics". In 1790 his writing "About a discovery according to which all new criticism of pure reason should be made superfluous by an older one" came out as a defense against school-philosophical attacks from the Leipniz-Wolffian corner. In 1786 Kant became a member of the Academy of Sciences. In 1795 his writing "Perpetual Peace" was published. In it Kant presents a utopian draft of a League of Nations. The work became a success. Two periods were recognizable in Kant's work: the pre-critical and, after the publication of his main work "Critique of Pure Reason" in 1781, the critical creative phase. The following stages of development became noticeable:
In his scientific phase from 1747 to 1755 he laid the foundation for his later theory of development. In his metaphysical phase he turned away from traditional Wolffian teaching and advocated a critical metaphysics. His critical philosophy began with his main work, followed by the stage of the post-critical creative period, including the work "Opus postumum", which was only published in 1938 and which combines Kant's criticism and the metaphysics of idealism. In his practical philosophy, Kant sees the "categorical imperative" as the supreme justification principle for morality and norms of action: "Only act according to that maxim through which you can also want it to become general law." In 1796 Kant gave his last lecture.
Immanuel Kant died in Koenigsberg on February 12, 1804.
