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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Immanuel Kant Biography KANT, Immanuel, educator and metaphysician, born in Königsberg, Germany, April 22, 1724; died there Feb. 12, 1804 He was the son of a saddler and strap maker, graduated at the university of his native town where he took a degree in 1755, and entered upon the profession of a teacher. In 1770 he was elected professor of logic and metaphysics at the University of Königsberg, and later also taught natural theology, moral philosophy, physical geography, and natural law. Like Socrates, he was fond of reading, but seldom left his native town more than forty miles. He never married, and was regarded of unimpeachable honor and veracity. As a teacher, he held that pupils should be induced to form the habit of self-reflection for the purpose of enlarging mental power. The germ of his theory lies in the proposition that before any knowledge can be developed concerning the object of cognition, the student must acquire the faculty of cognition and clearly realize the sources of knowledge it contains. He held that sense, understanding, and reason are the three original faculties by which we acquire knowledge. He regarded sense a passive and receptive faculty for the reason that it necessarily depends upon space and time; understanding or the active faculty, consisting in the power of forming conceptions by categories, such as causality, unity, and plurality, these categories being applied to objects of experience through the medium of the two forms of perception, space and time. Reason is the power of forming ideas and constitutes the higher degree of mental spontaneity. In teaching and lecturing it was his habit to fix his eye upon one or two students, and by their attitude determine whether or not his instruction was assimilated and understood. In morality he was austere and stoical, and maintained the unconditional validity of the moral law. Duty and obligation he considered the supreme governing idea in religion, and left but little play for the inclination and feelings of the individual. His writings and lectures cover a wide range of subjects, and collectively constitute an important series of productions. His works on pedagogy are of especial interest, and have given tone and tendency to systems of education in many countries. The most important of his writings include "Treatise of the Practical Reason;" "Criticism of the Pure Reason;" "Foundation of Metaphysics and Ethics;" "Treatise of the Power of Judgment;" "Observations Regarding Feelings of Beauty and Order;" "Metaphysical Elements of Science," and "Anthropology in a Pragmatic Point of View." The Teachers' and Pupils' Cyclopćdia, Vol. III (Kansas City: Bufton Book Co., 1909) 945-946. |