P7Ch47e Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

Part 7 History of Philosophy Chapter 47 The History of Modern Philosophy Section e. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) Descartes foundations of modern thought produced to irreconciled schools, that of the rationalists of the intellect and the other a rationalism of the sensible. One tending to idealism the other to materialism, both stemming from the same cartesian principle of immanence, which is foundational to modern thinkers. Immanuel Kant sought to do was to synthesize both of these, of which this section discusses this attempt. This resulted in three major divergences in modern thinkers: i) it is not possible to prove God as the cause of all with 'pure' reason as God is beyond sense experience ii) morality is not rooted in metaphysics but in the structure of the human mind iii) the importance of freedom over necessity Kant, himself, claimed to have accomplished two revolutions in thought: 1) it is not the mind that rotates around reality, but the other way around 2) it is not action (practical reason) that follows knowledge (pure reason), but the other way around