One of the giants of philosophy was Immanuel Kant. Kant was evidently a man of great discipline in every part of his life. He kept his daily routine to the point that neighbors could set their watches allegedly to his daily stroll. His lectures were famous for their brilliance. He was the first of the great philosophers of the modern era to be an academic.
The writings of Kant made him widely known. His masterpiece was the Critique of Pure reason, published in 1781. Two years later he published the Prolegomena to the work in order to explain it. In 1787 he published a longer edition of the Critique of Pure Reason. In 1788 he published a Critique of Practical Reason and in 1790 he published The Critique of Judgment. In 1785 he published The Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Ethics, which had immense influence on moral philosophy.
Kant was the first great systematic thinker in philosophy. Consequently, breaking into the Kantian system is a challenging task. Frequently individuals will attempt to access Kant's thought by examining his analysis of the merits of rationalism and empiricism. Some have suggested, however, that a better approach to accessing the work of the philosophical giant is to study his concern with the conflict between the findings of the physical sciences and fundamental ethical and religious convictions.
In subsequent writings, we will further explore this dimension of Kant's work.
