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“Always act in such a way that your conduct could serve as a principle for universal legislation,” wrote Immanuel Kant (Königsberg 1724-1804), Prussian philosopher of the Enlightenment. He studied philosophy at the University of Königsberg, delving into Wolf’s philosophy and Newtonian physics.
He was a tutor for families in East Prussia. He is a representative of criticism and a precursor of German idealism. The founder of modern critical philosophy. Pacifist. He has influences from Plato, Hume and Rousseau. From this time comes his book Dreams of a Visionary.
Kant was the founder of criticism with these three questions:
In his Treaty of Perpetual Peace, the germ of the UN (United Nations Organization) is found.
In the first half of the 18th century, philosophy, art and science had a marked English and French character. The German Enlightenment also plays a relevant role.
Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), the great figure of the cultural Renaissance in Germany, was followed by Christian Wolf (1679-1754), who leaned towards a closed and dogmatic scholastic rationalism.
Among Wolf’s disciples is Alexander Baumgartem (1714-1762), who created the term “aesthetics” (from the Greek aisthesis) and introduced this discipline as a philosophical science of sensitivity.
Other representatives of the German Enlightenment are Gotthold Efraim Lessing (1729-1781), who was a poet and art critic. For him, history and philosophy should not be confused. The revealed truths must be translated into truths of reason if we want the human race to be able to assimilate them completely.
“More important than possessing the truth that makes man inert, lazy and arrogant, is for us the effort to seek it, which consists of the greatest perfection of man. The possession of the truth corresponds to God, to man corresponds the partial conquests and limitations and the continuous search, the tendency towards the eternal”.
“Attributing to man the capacity to achieve absolute truth would be equivalent to recognizing the absurd possibility of exiting history.”
Johann Gottfred Herder (1714-1803) conceived of history as Lessing and Vico had already done, that is, as the realization of a vast divine project for the education of humanity.
Other important representatives of the German Enlightenment were: Christian Thomasius, Christian A. Crusius, Moses Mendelssohn.
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“He who behaves cruelly towards animals also has a hardened heart towards his fellow humans. You can know the human heart from his relationship with animals.”
1. “Act in such a way that you can desire that the maxim of your actions become universal and when you carry out a certain action, choose for your guide the maxim that can be transformed into a universal law.”
2. “Act in a way that treats humanity, both in yourself and in others, always as an end and not as a means.”
3. “Act in such a way that your will may institute universal legislation, and so that your activity may be the source of a kingdom of morality.”
Important works of Kant are Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason and Critique of Judgment.
