Immanual Kant

A philosopher from the age of enlightenment, Kant is best known for writings about morality and the categorical imperative. He observed the need to replace religion as the source of morality with rationality.

Links to this note

• Taste Is the Refined Sense of Judgment and Finding Balance That Produces a Pleasing and Integrated Whole

  Having ‘good taste’ is difficult to define. Taste is subjective, it is only confirmed by assent from others (from Immanual Kant) a kind of determinate negation.

• Culture Is an Attempt to Cover up Our Wildness

  Immanual Kant states that between instinct and culture is wildness. It is in mankind’s nature to be raw and wild so we find ways to cover up this wildness through culture—a collective set of customs, art, and achievements.

• Categorical Imperative

  Immanual Kant, in his book Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, argues for a universal imperative that we should treat people as the ends rather than the means. A similar Christian teaching is ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’.