The necessary revolution in man's thinking after Immanuel Kant

THE NECESSARY REVOLUTION IN MAN’S THINKING APTER IMMANUEL KANT

KANT WAS BORN in 1724 at Koenigsberg in East Prussia, into a modest middle-class family, of Scottish origin, that had emigrated there a few generations back. In his early youth Kant was principally concerned with theological questions, these being at that time of far more interest to him than philosophy. After a while, however, he became an adherent of the Leibnizian brand of philosophical rationalism, or rather Wolff’s version of it. That is to say, during the first phase of his development as a thinker he adopted a form of dogmatism. But between 1755 and 1769, which was the crucial period in his advance towards maturity as a scientist, he came in contact with other currents of thought. One of these was a counterblast to the over-facile optimism of Leibniz, namely Voltaire’s Candide, which ridiculed it, in the garb of Dr. Pangloss; the other was Hume’s philosophy, which influenced Kant decisively by bringing the dogmatic principles which were the very basis of all contemporary science under the searchlight of sceptical criticism.

Thus was planted in Kant’s fertile mind the seed of that great fundamental problem which exercised him so powerfully to the end of his days and which provides the clue to any real understanding of his philosophy, since this was, in fact, a sustained

Note:- Reference to the diagram printed at the end will make the lecture easier to follow. I