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Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant (April 22, 1724 – February 12, 1804) was a German philosopher and scientist (astrophysics, mathematics, geography, anthropology) from East Prussia, generally considered to be one of Western society's and modern Europe's most influential thinkers and the last major philosopher of the Enlightenment.

Kant and his philosophy

Kant defined the Enlightenment, in the essay "Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment?", as an age shaped by the motto, "Dare to know". This involved thinking autonomously, free of the dictates of external authority. Kant's work served as a bridge between the Rationalist and Empiricist traditions of the 18th century. He had a decisive impact on the Romantic and German Idealist philosophies of the 19th century. His work has also been a starting point for many 20th century philosophers. The two interconnected foundations of what Kant called his "critical philosophy", of the "Copernican revolution" he claimed to have wrought in philosophy, were his epistemology (or theory of knowledge) of Transcendental Idealism and his moral philosophy of the autonomy of reason. These placed the active, rational human subject at the center of the cognitive and moral worlds. With regard to knowledge, Kant argued that the rational order of the world as known by science could never be accounted for merely by the fortuitous accumulation of sense perceptions. It was instead the product of the rule-based activity of "synthesis". This consisted of conceptual unification and integration carried out by the mind through concepts or the "categories of the understanding" operating on perceptions within space and time, which are not concepts, but forms of sensibility that are necessary conditions for any possible experience. Thus the objective order of nature and the causal necessity that operates within it are products of the mind in its interaction with what lies outside of mind (the "thing-in-itself"). With regard to morality, Kant argued that the source of the good lies not in anything outside the human subject, either in nature or given by God, but rather only in a good will. A good will is one that acts in accordance with universal moral laws that the autonomous human being freely gives itself. These laws obligate her or him to treat other human beings as ends rather than as means to an end. These Kantian ideas have largely framed or influenced all subsequent philosophical discussion and analysis. The specifics of Kant's account generated immediate and lasting controversy. Nevertheless his theses that the mind itself makes a constitutive contribution to its knowledge (and that knowledge is therefore subject to limits which cannot be overcome), that morality is rooted in human freedom acting autonomously according to rational moral principles, and that philosophy involves self-critical activity irrevocably reshaped philosophy.

Biography

Birth and youth

Immanuel Kant was born in 1724. He spent his entire life in and around Königsberg, the capital of East Prussia (now Kaliningrad). His father was a German craftsman. In his youth, Kant was a a solid, albeit unspectacular, student. He was raised in a Pietist household, a then popular Lutheran reform movement that stressed intense religious devotion, personal humility and a literal reading of the bible. Consequently, Kant received a stern Pietist education, one that favored Latin and religious instruction over mathematics and science. Kant later described this period as a time of unhappiness because of the strict, punitive, and disciplinary quality of this education.

The young scholar

Kant enrolled in the University of Königsberg in 1740, at the age of 16. He studied the philosophy of Leibniz and Wolff under Martin Knutsen, a rationalist who was also familiar with the developments of British philosophy and science and introduced Kant to the new mathematical physics of Newton. His father's stroke and subsequent death in 1746 interrupted his studies. Kant became a private tutor in the smaller towns surrounding Königsberg, but continued his scholarly research. 1749 saw the publication of his first work, Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces. Kant published several more works on scientific topics and became a university lecturer in 1755. From this point on, Kant turned increasingly to philosophical issues, although he would continue to write on the sciences throughout his life. In the early 1760s, Kant produced a series of important works in philosophy. The False Subtlety of the Four Syllogistic Figures, a work in logic, was published in 1762. Two more works appeared the following year: Attempt to Introduce the Concept of Negative Magnitudes into Philosophy and The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God. In 1764, Kant wrote Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime and then was second to Moses Mendelssohn in a Berlin Academy prize competition with his Inquiry Concerning the Distinctness of the Principles of Natural Theology and Morality (often referred to as "the Prize Essay"). In 1770, at the age of 45, Kant was finally appointed Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at the University of Königsberg. Kant wrote his Inaugural Dissertation in defense of this appointment. This work saw the emergence of several central themes of his mature work, including the distinction between the faculties of intellectual thought and sensible receptivity.

The critical turn

At the age of 46, Kant was an established scholar and an increasingly influential philosopher. Much was expected of him. But, surprisingly, Kant would not publish another work in philosophy for the next eleven years. In response to a letter from his student, Markus Herz, Kant came to recognize that in the Inaugural Dissertation, he had failed to account for the relation and connection between our sensible and intellectual faculties. Kant spent his silent decade working on a solution to this problem. When he emerged from his silence in 1781, the result was the Critique of Pure Reason. Although now uniformly recognized as one of the greatest works in the history of philosophy, the first Critique was largely ignored upon its initial publication. The work was long, over 800 pages in the original German edition, and written in a dry, scholastic style. It received few reviews, and these failed to recognize the Critiques revolutionary nature. Kant was disappointed with the work's reception. Recognizing the obscurity of the original treatise, he wrote the Prolegomena in 1783 as a summary of its main views and he encouraged his friend, Johann Schultz, to publish a brief commentary of the Critique. Kant's reputation gradually rose through the 1780s, sparked by a series of important works: the 1784 essay, "Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?"; 1785's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (his first work on moral philosophy); and, from 1786, Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. But Kant's fame ultimately arrived from an unexpected source. In 1786, Karl Reinhold began to publish a series of public letters on the Kantian philosophy. In these letters, Reinhold framed Kant's philosophy as a response to the central intellectual controversy of the era: the Pantheism Dispute. Friedrich Jacobi had accused the recently deceased Lessing (a distinguished philosopher of the period) of Spinozism. Such a charge, tantamount to atheism, was vigorously denied by Lessing's friend Mendelssohn, and a bitter public dispute arose between them. The controversy gradually escalated into a general debate over the values of the Enlightenment and of reason itself. Reinhold maintained in his letters that Kant's Critique of Pure Reason could settle this dispute by defending the authority and bounds of reason. Reinhold's letters were widely read and made Kant the most famous philosopher of his era.
Kant's later work
Kant published a second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason in 1787, heavily revising the first parts of the book. But most of his subsequent work focused on other areas of philosophy. He continued to develop his moral philosophy, notably in 1788's Critique of Practical Reason (known as the second Critique) and 1797's Metaphysics of Morals. The 1790 Critique of Judgment (the third Critique) applied the Kantian system to aesthetics and teleology. He also wrote a number of semi-popular essays on history, religion, politics and other topics. These works were well received by Kant's contemporaries and confirmed his preeminent status in eighteenth century philosophy. There were several journals devoted solely to defending and criticizing the Kantian philosophy. But despite his success, philosophical trends were moving in another direction. Many of Kant's most important disciples (including Reinhold, Beck and Fichte) transformed the Kantian position into increasingly radical forms of idealism. This marked the emergence of German Idealism. Kant was against these developments and publicly denounced Fichte in an open letter in 1799. It was one of his final philosophical acts. Kant's health, long poor, turned for the worst and he died in 1804. His unfinished final work, the fragmentary Opus Postumum, was (as its title suggests) published posthumously.
Kantian myths
A variety of myths have arisen concerning Kant's biography and legend. It is often held, for instance, that Kant was a late bloomer, that he only became an important philosopher in his mid-50s after rejecting his earlier views. While it is true that Kant wrote his greatest works relatively late in life, there is a tendency to underestimate the value of his earlier works. Recent Kant scholarship has devoted more attention to these "pre-critical" writings and has recognized a degree of continuity with his mature work. Another common myth concerns Kant's personal mannerisms. It is often held that Kant lived a very strict and predictable life, leading to the oft-repeated story that neighbors would set their clocks by his daily walks. Again, this is only partly true. While still young, Kant was very gregarious and, though he never married, he remained fond of dinner parties through most of his life. Only later in his life, under the influence of his friend, the English merchant Joseph Green, did Kant adopt a more regulated lifestyle.
Kant's moral philosophy
Kant developed his moral philosophy in three works: Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [http://eserver.org/philosophy/kant/metaphys-of-morals.txt] (1785), Critique of Practical Reason [http://eserver.org/philosophy/kant/critique-of-practical-reaso.txt] (1788), and Metaphysics of Morals [http://eserver.org/philosophy/kant/intro-to-metaphys-of-morals.txt] (1798). Kant is known for his theory that there is a single moral obligation, which he called the Categorical Imperative, from which all other moral obligations are generated. He believed that the moral law is a principle of reason itself, and is not based on contingent facts about the world (e.g., what would make us happy). Accordingly, he believed that moral obligation applies to all and only rational agents. A categorical imperative is an unconditional obligation; that is, it has the force of an obligation regardless of our will or desires. (Contrast this with hypothetical imperative.) Kant's categorical imperative was formulated in three ways, which he believed to be roughly equivalent (although many commentators do not):
- The first formulation (Formula of Universal Law) says: "Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a universal law of nature."
- The second formulation (Formula of Humanity) says: "Act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means."
- The third formulation (Formula of Autonomy) is a synthesis of the first two. It says that we should so act that we may think of ourselves as legislating universal laws through our maxims. We may think of ourselves as such autonomous legislators only insofar as we follow our own laws.
Example of the first formulation:
The most popular interpretation of the first formulation is called the "universalizability test." An agent's maxim, according to Kant, is his "subjective principle of volition" — that is, what the agent believes is his reason to act. The universalizability test has five steps: # Find the agent's maxim. # Imagine a possible world in which everyone in a similar position to the real-world agent followed that maxim. # Decide whether any contradictions, or irrationalities, arise in the possible world as a result of following the maxim. # If a contradiction or irrationality arises, acting on that maxim is not allowed in the real world. # If there is no contradiction, then acting on that maxim is permissible, and in some instances required.
Example of the second formulation:
If I steal a book from you, I am treating you as a means only (to obtain a book). If I ask to have your book, I am respecting your right to say no, and am thereby treating you as an end-in-yourself, not as a means to an end. However, if I only ask you to be perceived by you as a nice person and to induce you to do things for me in the future, then again I am treating you as a means only. Kant applied his categorical imperative to the issue of suicide in Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, writing that:
If a man is reduced to despair by a series of misfortunes and feels wearied of life, but is still so far in possession of his reason that he can ask himself whether it would not be contrary to his duty to himself to take his own life, he should ask himself a question. He should inquire whether the maxim of his action could become a universal law of nature. His maxim is: From self-love I adopt it as a principle to shorten my life when its longer duration is likely to bring more evil than satisfaction. It is asked then simply whether this principle founded on self-love can become a universal law of nature. Now we see at once that a system of nature of which it should be a law to destroy life by means of the very feeling whose special nature it is to impel to the improvement of life would contradict itself, and therefore could not exist as a system of nature; hence the maxim cannot possibly exist as a universal law of nature, and consequently would be wholly inconsistent with the supreme principle of all duty.
The theory that we have universal duties, which hold despite one's own inclinations or the desire to pursue one's own happiness instead, is known as deontological ethics. Kant is often cited as the most important source of this strand of ethical theory; in particular, of the theory of conduct, also known as the theory of obligation.
Influence
Kant's most powerful and revolutionary effect on philosophy, which changed forever its meaning, modes of thinking, and language(s), was not "positive" in the sense of producing specific assertions about the world that have become accepted truths, as in the positive sciences. Rather it was "negative" in the sense of restricting the areas about which such knowledge was possible — by making philosophy "critical" and self-critical. Kant's idea of "critique" was to examine the legitimate scope of the mind or of knowledge. In this regard the "critique of pure reason", which was also the title of his most important work (see below and Critique of Pure Reason), meant examining what certain and legitimate knowledge human beings could arrive at simply by thinking about things independently of experience and perception, with his conclusion being: not very much. Prior to Kant, the entire mode of functioning of most philosophy was drawing conclusions about the nature of the universe, of God, or of the soul simply by logical thinking about them, by what seemed to make sense through "a priori" thinking, i.e. thinking on purely logical grounds. For this sort of thinking it must be the case that God or the universe is this way or that way, because it makes sense logically. But, in the history of philosophy, for every philosophical theory that God or the universe or the mind must be one way, some philosopher arrived at another theory stating that it must be precisely the opposite way. Kant called this unproductive, unresolvable, back-and-forth, dogmatic thinking the "dialectic of pure reason". That is, it was an inevitable consequence of trying to arrive at knowledge on purely logical grounds independently of experience or of scientific knowledge based on the evidence of the senses. For Kant, this entire style of pursuing knowledge was bankrupt and must be abandoned. According to Kant, philosophy must henceforth operate within the narrow "limits of pure reason" and recognize that most positive knowledge could come only through the sciences based on sense perception and not through metaphysics, which was about things of which we could never have direct sense perception. Some important philosophers and schools of thought, such as German Idealists, neo-Thomists and other theologically oriented philosophers, and Heidegger's "fundamental ontology" have refused to accept the limitations that Kant imposed upon philosophy and attempted to come up with new metaphysical systems about "the Absolute", "God", or "Being" , although even these philosophers have generally tried doing so by taking Kant into account. Over-all, however, post-Kantian philosophy has never been able to return to the style of thinking, arguing, and asserting conclusions that characterized philosophy before him. In this way, Kant was correct in asserting that he had brought about a "Copernican revolution" in philosophy. According to Kant, Copernicus's revolution in the understanding of the cosmos lay in taking the position of the observer into account. This explained why it looks as though the sun revolves around the earth even though in reality the earth revolves around the sun. Taking the observer's position into account prevents the unaware projection of the observer's perception or point of view onto the picture of the universe. Kant saw his own Copernican revolution in philosophy, analogously, as consisting in taking the position of the knower into account and thereby preventing the unaware projection of the knower's way of thinking ("pure reason") onto the philosophical map of reality. According to Kant, it was philosophers unawarely doing this that had created the illusions of metaphysics that dominated the prior history of philosophy. Kant saw this revolution, in turn, as being part of "Enlightenment" (as conceived of in the Age of Enlightenment) and the creation of an enlightened citizenry and society freed from dogmatism and irrational authority. Kant's wider influence not only in philosophy but in the humanities and social sciences generally lies in the central concept of the Critique of Pure Reason, namely that it is the synthesizing, unifying, constitutive activity of the subject of knowledge that is at the basis of our having an ordered world of experience and of the objects of knowledge themselves. This idea has spread out through many intellectual disciplines in which it has manifested itself in different forms, for example from Marx's notion, in social theory, of the constitutive role of human labor in the creation of history and society through Freud's notion, in psychology, that the activity of the ego produces the reality principle through Durkheim's notion, in sociology, that society creates collective consciousness through social categories through Chomsky's notion, in linguistics, of transformational grammar, to current notions, in several of the humanities and social sciences, of the "social construction of reality". In this way Kant's conception of synthesizing, ordering mental activity has become central to modern intellectual culture.
Tomb
social construction of reality His tomb and its pillared enclosure outside the cathedral in Königsberg are some of the few artifacts of German times preserved by the Soviets after they conquered East Prussia in 1945. A replica of a statue of Kant that stood in front of the university was donated by a German entity in 1991 and placed on the original pediment. Near his tomb is the following inscription in German and Russian, taken from the "Conclusion" of his Critique of Practical Reason [5:161-2]: :Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and perseveringly my thinking engages itself with them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.
Works and links to texts, in English and German

- (1749) Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces (Gedanken von der wahren Schätzung der lebendigen Kräfte)
- (1755) Universal Natural History and Theory of Heaven (Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie Des Himmels [http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/kant2g.htm])
- (1762) The False Subtlety of the Four Syllogistic Figures (Die falsche Spitzfindigkeit der vier syllogistischen Figuren)
- (1763) The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God (Der einzig mögliche Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstration des Daseins Gottes)
- (1763) Attempt to Introduce the Concept of Negative Magnitudes into Philosophy (Versuch den Begriff der negativen Größen in die Weltweisheit einzuführnen)
- (1764) Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime (Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen)
- (1764) Inquiry Concerning the Distinctness of the Principles of Natural Theology and Morality (the Prize Essay) (Untersuchungen über die Deutlichkeit der Grundsätze der natürlichen Theologie und der Moral)
- (1770) Inaugural Dissertation (De mundi sensibilis atque intelligibilis forma et principiis)
- (1781) First edition of the Critique of Pure Reason [http://www.hkbu.edu.hk/~ppp/cpr/toc.html] (Kritik der reinen Vernunft [http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/kant/krva/krva.htm])
- (1783) Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics [http://eserver.org/philosophy/kant-prolegomena.txt] (Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik)
- (1784) "An Answer To The Question: What Is Enlightenment?" (Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung? [http://www.prometheusonline.de/heureka/philosophie/klassiker/kant/aufklaerung.htm])
- (1784) Idea For A Universal History With A Cosmopolitan Purpose (Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht)
- (1785) Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten)
- (1786) Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft)
- (1787) Second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason [http://www.hkbu.edu.hk/~ppp/cpr/toc.html] (Kritik der reinen Vernunft [http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/kant/krvb/krvb.htm])
- (1788) Critique of Practical Reason [http://eserver.org/philosophy/kant/critique-of-practical-reaso.txt] (Kritik der praktischen Vernunft [http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/kant/kritikpr/kritikpr.htm])
- (1790) Critique of Judgment (Kritik der Urteilskraft [http://wikisource.org/wiki/Kritik_der_Urteilskraft])
- (1793) Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone (Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft)
- (1795) Perpetual Peace [http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/kant/kant1.htm] (Zum ewigen Frieden [http://www.uni-kassel.de/fb5/frieden/themen/Theorie/kant.html])
- (1797) Metaphysics of Morals (Metaphysik der Sitten)
- (1798) Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht)
- (1798) The Contest of Faculties [http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/564/] (Der Streit der Fakultäten [http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/kant/streit/streit.htm])
- (1800) Logic (Logik)
- (1803) On Pedagogy (Über Pädagogik [http://www1.uni-bremen.de/~kr538/kantpaed.html])
- (1804) Opus Postumum
- (More German works at [http://wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Immanuel_Kant Wikisource])
- (More German works at [http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/autoren/kant.htm Project Gutenberg])
- (More English works at [http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/aut/kant_immanuel.html The University of Adelaide Library])
Quotes
Two things fill the mind with ever new, and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.
-Epitaph (from Critique of Practical Reason 5:161)
External links

- [http://ethics.acusd.edu/theories/kant Kant & Ethics]
- [http://naks.ucsd.edu/ North American Kant Society (NAKS)] (many helpful links!)
- [http://www.hkbu.edu.hk/~ppp/Kant.html Kant on the Web]
- [http://comp.uark.edu/~rlee/semiau96/kantlink.html Kant Links]
- [http://www.friesian.com/kant.htm Epistemology and Metaphysics]
- [http://www.phil.upenn.edu/~cubowman/kant.html Kant and the project of enlightenment]
- [http://www.e-text.org/text/ Several Kant's works in clickable pdf]
- [http://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html#k Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (many entries on Kant)]
-
- [http://www.philos.msu.ru/community/staff/vasiliev/Kant_Interview/Kant_Interview.html International Kant Interview - 2004]
See also

- Kantianism
- Neo-Kantianism
- Liberalism
- Contributions to liberal theory
- Kant Russian State University
References and further reading
Any suggestion of further reading on Kant has to take cognizance of the fact that his work has dominated philosophy like no other figure after him. Nevertheless, several guideposts can be made out. In Germany, the most important contemporary interpreter of Kant and the movement of German Idealism which he began is Dieter Henrich, who has some work available in English. P.F. Strawson's "The Bounds of Sense" (1969) largely determined the contemporary reception of Kant in England and America, but his positions have been challenged by a number of recent thinkers including Henry Allison, Paul Guyer, Robert Pippin, Terry Pinkard, and Béatrice Longuenesse. This body of work has begun to lessen the divide between academic interpretations of Kant in the English speaking world and in Europe. John Rawls' Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy, is particularly useful in its investigation of Kant's moral philosophy within the vicissitudes of ethical systems from Hume to Leibniz to Hegel. More recently, Gary Banham has published a key interpretation of Kant's practical philosophy that has corrected exclusive focus on the categorical imperative in favour of an inclusive comprehension of right and virtue. John McDowell is perhaps the most important contemporary analytic philosopher who explicitly builds upon Kantian themes. Howard Caygill's dictionary of Kantian terms is an excellent guide to the overall terrain of the influence and nature of Kant's concepts.
General introductions to Kant's thought

- Broad C. D. Kant: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press, 1978. ISBN 0521217555, ISBN 0521292654
Biography and historical context

- Beck, Lewis White. "Early German Philosophy: Kant and his Predecessors." Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969. ::a survey of Kant's intellectual background
- Beiser, Frederick C. "The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte." Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987.
- Kuehn, Manfred. Kant: A Biography. Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521497043
- Pinkard, Terry. German philosophy, 1760-1860: The Legacy of Idealism. Cambridge, 2002.
- Sassen, Brigitte. ed. Kant's Early Critics: The Empiricist Critique of the Theoretical Philosophy, 2000.
Collections of essays

- Guyer, Paul. ed. The Cambridge Companion to Kant. Cambridge University Press, 1992. ISBN 0521365872, ISBN 0521367689 ::an excellent collection of papers that covers most areas of Kant's thought
- Mohanty, J.N. and Robert W. Shahan. eds. Essays on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Norman : University of Oklahoma Press, 1982. ISBN 0806117826
- Proceedings of the International Kant Congresses. Several Congresses (numbered) edited by various publishers.
- Förster, Eckart ed. "Kant's Transcendental Deductions: The Three 'Critiques' and the 'Opus Postumum.'" Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989. ::includes an important essay by Dieter Henrich'
- Cohen, Ted and Paul Guyer eds. Essays in Kant's Aesthetics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. ::essays on Kant's Critique of Judgment
On Kant's theoretical philosophy

- Allison, Henry. Kant’s Transcendental Idealism. New Haven : Yale University Press, 1983, 2004. ISBN 0300036299, ISBN 0300030029 ::very influential defense of Kant's idealism, recently revised
- Ameriks, Karl. "Kant's Theory of Mind: An Analysis of the Paralogisms of Pure Reason." Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982. ::one of the first detailed studies of the Dialectic in English
- Gram, Moltke S. The Transcendental Turn: The Foundation of Kant's Idealism. Gainesville : University Presses of Florida, 1984. ISBN 0813007879
- Guyer, Paul. "Kant and the Claims of Knowledge." Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987. ::a modern defense of the view that Kant's theoretical philosophy is a "patchwork" of ill-fitting arguments
- Henrich, Dieter. The Unity of Reason: Essays on Kant’s Philosophy. Edited and with an introduction by Richard L. Velkley ; translated by Jeffrey Edwards ... [et al.]. Harvard University Press, 1994. ISBN 0674929055
- Kemp Smith, Norman. "A Commentary to Kant's ‘Critique of Pure Reason.’" London: Macmillan, 1930. ::a somewhat dated, but influential commentary on the first Critique, recently reprinted
- Kitcher, Patricia. "Kant's Transcendental Psychology." New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
- Longuenesse, Béatrice. Kant and the Capacity to Judge. Princeton University Press, 1998. ISBN 0691043485 ::argues that the notion of judgment provides the key to understanding the overall argument of the first Critique
- Melnick, Arthur. "Kant's Analogies of Experience." Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973. ::an important study of Kant's Analogies, including his defense of the principle of causality
- Paton, H. J. "Kant’s Metaphysic of Experience: A Commentary on the First Half of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft." Two volumes. London: Macmillan, 1936. ::an extensive study of Kant's theoretical philosophy
- Pippin, Robert B. Kant's Theory of Form: An Essay on the Critique of Pure Reason. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982. ::an influential examination of the formal character of Kant's work
- Strawson, P.F. The Bounds of Sense: an essay on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Routledge, 1989. ::the work that revitalized the interest of contemporary analytic philosophers in Kant
- Wolff, Robert Paul. Kant's theory of mental activity: A commentary on the transcendental analytic of the Critique of Pure Reason. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963. ::a detailed and influential commentary on the first part of the Critique of Pure Reason
On Kant's practical philosophy

- Banham, Gary. Kant's Practical Philosophy: From Critique to Doctrine Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
- Michalson, Gordon E. Fallen Freedom: Kant on Radical Evil and Moral Regeneration. Cambridge University Press, 1990.
- Michalson, Gordon E. Kant and the Problem of God. Blackwell Publishers, 1999.
- Rawls, John. Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy. Cambridge, 2000.
- Wolff, Robert Paul. The Autonomy of Reason: A Commentary on Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals. New York: HarperCollins, 1974. ISBN 0061317926
On Kant's aesthetics

- Guyer, Paul. Kant and the Claim of Taste. Cambridge MA and London, 1979.
- Crawford, Donald. Kant's Aesthetic Theory. Wisconsin, 1974.
- Makkreel, Rudolf, Imagination and Interpretation in Kant. Chicago, 1990.
- McCloskey, Mary. Kant's Aesthetic. SUNY, 1987.
- Schaper, Eva. Studies in Kant's Aesthetics. Edinburgh, 1979.
Other work on Kant

- Caygill, Howard. A Kant Dictionary. Oxford, UK; Cambridge, Mass., USA : Blackwell Reference, 1995. ISBN 0631175342, ISBN 0631175350 ::a very useful resource
Contemporary philosophy with a Kantian influence

- Korsgaard, Christine. Creating the Kingdom of Ends. Cambridge ; New York, NY, USA : Cambridge University Press, 1996. ISBN 0521496446, ISBN 0521499623 (pbk.) ::not a commentary, but a defense of a broadly Kantian approach to ethics
- McDowell, John. Mind and World. Harvard University Press, 1994. ISBN 0674576098 ::offers a Kantian solution to a dilemma in contemporary epistemology regarding the relation between mind and world Kant, Immanuel Kant, Immanuel Kant, Immanuel Kant, Immanuel Kant, Immanuel Kant, Immanuel Kant, Immanuel Kant, Immanuel Kant, Immanuel ko:이마누엘 칸트 ja:イマヌエル・カント simple:Immanuel Kant th:อิมมานูเอิล คานท์

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- 1913 - Pravda, the "voice" of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, begins publications in Saint Petersburg.
- 1914 - Babe Ruth, age 19, pitches his first professional game for the minor league Baltimore Orioles.
- 1915 - The use of poison gas in World War I escalates when chlorine gas is released as a chemical weapon in the Second Battle of Ypres.
- 1930 - The United Kingdom, Japan and the United States sign the London Naval Treaty regulating submarine warfare and limiting shipbuilding.
- 1943 - Albert Hofmann writes his first report about the hallucinogenic properties of LSD.
- 1944 - World War II: Operation Persecution initiated – Allied forces land in the Hollandia area of New Guinea.
- 1945 - World War II: After learning that Soviet forces have taken Eberswalde without a fight, Adolf Hitler admits defeat in his underground bunker and states that suicide is his only recourse.
- 1946 - The first installment of the popular Japanese comic strip, Sazae-san, is published in the Fukunichi Shimbun.
- 1954 - Red Scare: Army-McCarthy Hearings begin.
- 1964 - The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair opens for its first season.
- 1970 - First Earth Day celebrated.
- 1971 - John Kerry, dressed in combat fatigues, testifies on his views of the Vietnam War before the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee
- 1972 - Vietnam War: Increased American bombing in Vietnam prompts antiwar protests in New York City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
- 1975 - Barbara Walters signs a five-year $5 million contract with the American Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), becoming the highest paid television newsperson.
- 1978 - The Blues Brothers make their first appearance on Saturday Night Live.
- 1979 - Brent Mydland performs his first show with the Grateful Dead at Spartan Stadium, San Jose.
- 1993 - In Washington, DC, the Holocaust Memorial Museum is dedicated.
- 1993 - The web browser Mosaic version 1.0 is released.
- 1996 - Cisco Systems acquires StrataCom for $4B
- 1997 - Haouch Khemisti massacre in Algeria; 93 villagers killed.
- 1997 - A 126-day hostage crisis at the residence of the Japanese ambassador in Lima, Peru ends after government commandos storm and capture the building, rescuing 71 hostages. One hostage dies of a heart attack, two soldiers are killed from rebel fire, and all 14 rebels are slain.
- 2000 - In a predawn raid, federal agents seize six-year-old Elián González from his relatives' home in Miami, Florida.
- 2000 - The Big Number Change takes place in the United Kingdom.
- 2004 - Two fuel trains collide in Ryongchon, North Korea, killing up to 150 people.
- 2005 - Mordechai Vanunu installed as Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow.
Births

- 1451 - Queen Isabella of Castile and Leon (d. 1504)
- 1550 - Edward de Vere, Lord Great Chamberlain of England (d. 1604)
- 1610 - Pope Alexander VIII (d. 1691)
- 1658 - Giuseppe Torelli, Italian composer (d. 1709)
- 1690 - John Carteret, 2nd Earl Granville, English statesman (d. 1763)
- 1692 - James Stirling, Scottish mathematician (d. 1770)
- 1707 - Henry Fielding, English author (d. 1754)
- 1711 - Eleazar Wheelock, American founder of Dartmouth College (d. 1779)
- 1724 - Immanuel Kant, German philosopher (d. 1804)
- 1766 - Madame de Staël, French author (d. 1817)
- 1812 - Solomon Caesar Malan, British orientalist (d. 1894)
- 1840 - Odilon Redon, French painter (d. 1916)
- 1852 - Guillaume IV, Grand Duke of Luxembourg (d. 1912)
- 1854 - Henri La Fontaine, Belgian lawyer and activist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1943)
- 1870 (N.S.) - Vladimir Lenin, Russian revolutionary (d. 1924)
- 1873 - Ellen Glasgow, American author (d. 1945)
- 1876 - Robert Bárány, American physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1936)
- 1876 - Georg Lurich, Estonian wrestler (d. 1920)
- 1881 - Alexander Kerensky, Russian politician (d. 1970)
- 1884 - Otto Rank, Austrian psychologist (d. 1939)
- 1891 - Harold Jeffreys, English astronomer (d. 1989)
- 1899 - Vladimir Nabokov, Russian writer (d. 1977)
- 1904 - Robert Oppenheimer, American physicist (d. 1967)
- 1906 - Eddie Albert, American actor (d. 2005)
- 1906 - Prince Gustaf Adolf, Duke of Westrobothnia, second in line to the Swedish throne (d. 1946)
- 1907 - Ivan Efremov, Russian paleontologist and author (d. 1972)
- 1909 - Rita Levi-Montalcini, Italian neurologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- 1910 - Norman Steenrod, American mathematician (d. 1971)
- 1912 - Kathleen Ferrier, British contralto (d. 1953)
- 1914 - Jan de Hartog, Dutch writer (d. 2002)
- 1916 - Yehudi Menuhin, American-born violinist (d. 1999)
- 1918 - Mickey Vernon, baseball player
- 1919 - Donald J. Cram, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2001)
- 1922 - Charles Mingus, American musician (d. 1979)
- 1922 - Wolf V. Vishniac, American microbiologist (d. 1973)
- 1923 - Bettie Page, American model
- 1923 - Aaron Spelling, American television producer and writer
- 1926 - Charlotte Rae, American actress
- 1926 - James Stirling, British architect (d. 1992)
- 1935 - Paul Chambers, American jazz bassist (d. 1969)
- 1936 - Glen Campbell, American musician
- 1937 - Jack Nicholson, American actor
- 1937 - Jack Nitzsche, American composer and arranger (d. 2000)
- 1939 - Jason Miller, American actor (d. 2001)
- 1943 - Louise Glück, American poet
- 1944 - Steve Fossett, American adventurer
- 1946 - John Waters, American film writer and director
- 1950 - Peter Frampton, British musician
- 1952 - Marilyn Chambers, American actress
- 1958 - Ken Olandt, American actor
- 1959 - Catherine Mary Stewart, Canadian actress
- 1959 - Ryan Stiles, Canadian-born actor and comedian
- 1962 - Jeff Minter, British video game programmer
- 1967 - Sheryl Lee, American actress
- 1974 - Shavo Odadjian, Armenian-born bassist (System of a Down)
- 1975 - Greg Moore, Canadian race car driver (d. 1999)
- 1977 - Andruw Jones, baseball player
- 1981 - Ken Dorsey, American football player
- 1982 - Kaká, Brazilian footballer
- 1983 - Matt Jones, American football player
Deaths

- 296 - Pope Caius
- 536 - Pope Agapetus I
- 1592 - Bartolomeo Ammanati, Italian architect and sculptor (b. 1511)
- 1672 - Georg Stiernhielm, Swedish poet (b. 1598)
- 1699 - Hans Erasmus Aßmann, Freiherr von Abschatz, German statesman and poet (b. 1646)
- 1758 - Antoine de Jussieu, French naturalist (b. 1686)
- 1778 - James Hargreaves, English weaver, carpenter, and inventor (b. 1720)
- 1806 - Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, French admiral (stabbed) (b. 1763)
- 1833 - Richard Trevithick, English inventor (b. 1771)
- 1892 - Edouard Lalo, French composer (b. 1823)
- 1896 - Thomas Meik, British civil engineer (b. 1812)
- 1908 - Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1836)
- 1925 - André Caplet, French composer (b. 1878)
- 1930 - Jeppe Aakjaer, Danish poet and novelist

1724

Events

- January 14 - King Philip V of Spain abdicates the throne
- February 20 - The premiere of Giulio Cesare, an Italian opera by George Frideric Handel, takes place in London
- June 23 - Treaty of Constantinople signed. Partitioned Persia between the Ottoman Empire and Russia
- July 27 - Wild Peter of Hanover captured near Helpensen in Hanover
- November 16 – Jack Sheppard hanged in London
- China expels foreign missionaries
- Blenheim Palace construction is completed. It is presented as a gift to the Duke of Marlborough for his involvement in the Battle of Blenheim in 1704
- Catherine I was named czarina by Peter the Great in Russia
- The Austrian Netherlands agree to the Pragmatic Sanction
- Mahmud of Afghanistan goes insane
- Pierro Orsini becomes Pope Benedict XIII
- Longman, oldest publishing house in England, is founded

Births

- January 24 - Frances Brooke, English writer (d. 1789)
- February 28 - George Townshend, 1st Marquess Townshend, British field marshal (d. 1807)
- April 12 - Lyman Hall, American signer of the Declaration of Independence (d. 1790)
- April 22 - Immanuel Kant, German philosopher (d. 1804)
- April 29 - John Michell, English scientist and geologist (d. 1793)
- May 7 - Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser, Alsatian-born Austrian general (d. 1797)
- May 19 - Augustus Hervey, 3rd Earl of Bristol, British admiral and politician (d. 1779)
- June 8 - John Smeaton, English civil engineer (d. 1794)
- July 2 - Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, German poet (d. 1803)
- July 31 - Noël François de Wailly, French lexicographer (d. 1801)
- August 23 - Abraham Yates, American Continental Congressman (d. 1796)
- August 25 - George Stubbs, English painter (d. 1806)
- August 27 - John Joachim Zubly, Swiss-born Continental Congressman (d. 1781)
- September 3 - Guy Carleton, 1st Baron Dorchester, British soldier and Governor of Quebec (d. 1808)
- October 31 - Christopher Anstey, English writer (d. 1805)
- December 12 - Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood, British admiral (d. 1816)
- December 13 - Franz Aepinus, German scientist (d. 1802)
- December 18 - Louise of Great Britain, queen of Frederick V of Denmark (d. 1751)
- December 24 - Johann Conrad Ammann, Swiss physician and naturalist (d. 1811)
- December 30 - Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée, French painter (d. 1805)

Deaths

- January 6 - Chikamatsu Monzaemon, Japanese dramatist (b. 1653)
- February 12 - Elkanah Settle, English writer (b. 1648)
- March 7 - Pope Innocent XIII (b. 1655)
- May 3 - John Leverett the Younger, American President of Harvard (b. 1662)
- May 21 - Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, English statesman (b. 1661)
- June 15 - Henry Sacheverell, English churchman and politician (b. 1674)
- October 2 - François-Timoléon de Choisy, French writer (b. 1644)
- October 29 - William Wollaston, English philosophical writer (b. 1659)
- November 16 - Jack Sheppard, English criminal (executed) (b. 1702)
- November 18 - Bartolomeu de Gusmão, Portuguese naturalist (b. 1685) Category:1724 ko:1724년 simple:1724

1804

1804 was a leap year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar).

Events

- January 1 - End of French rule in Haiti
- February 14 - First Serbian Uprising began.
- February 15 - New Jersey becomes the last northern state to abolish slavery
- February 16 - First Barbary War: Stephen Decatur leads a raid to burn the pirate-held frigate Philadelphia.
- February 21 - The first self-propelling steam engine or steam locomotive makes its outing at the Pen-y-Darren ironworks in Wales. Designed by Richard Trevithick, a Cornishman.
- March 7 - John Wedgwood founds The Royal Horticultural Society
- March 10 - Louisiana Purchase: In St. Louis, a formal ceremony is conducted to transfer ownership of Louisiana Territory from France to the United States.
- March 20 - Execution of the Duc d’Enghien for plotting against Napoleon
- March 21 - Code Napoleon adopted as French civil law
- April 26 - Henry Addington resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
- May 10 - William Pitt the younger begins his second term as a Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
- May 14 - The Lewis and Clark Expedition departs from Camp Dubois and begin their historic journey by traveling up the Missouri River.
- May 18 - Napoleon Bonaparte is proclaimed Emperor of France by the French Senate.
- June 15 - The Twelfth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ratified by New Hampshire, and arguably becomes effective (subsequently vetoed by the Governor of New Hampshire)
- July 11 - Duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr results in the death of Alexander Hamilton.
- July 27 - The Twelfth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ratified by Tennessee, removing doubt surrounding adoption.
- August 20 - Lewis and Clark Expedition: The "Corps of Discovery", whose purpose is to explore the Louisiana Purchase, suffers it first and last death when Sergeant Charles Floyd dies, apparently from acute appendicitis.
- September 1 - German astronomer K. L. Harding discovers the asteroid Juno
- Thomas Jefferson defeats Charles C. Pinckney in U.S. presidential election
- November 30 - The Jeffersonian Republican-controlled United States Senate begin an impeachment trial against Federalist-partisan Supreme Court of the United States Justice Samuel Chase (he was charged with political bias but was acquitted by the Senate of all charges on March 1, 1805).
- December 2 - At Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself as the first Emperor of the French in a thousand years (the Napoleonic Code is adopted).
- December 12 - Spain declares war on Britain

Unknown date

- Père Lachaise Cemetery a 118 acre (0.5 km²) cemetery in Paris, France is founded.
- Nicolas-François Appert (1750-1841) develops a method to preserve food by means of canning.

Ongoing events

- Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815)

Births

- January 1 - James Fannin, Texas revolutionary (d. 1836)
- January 20 - Eugène Sue, French novelist (d. 1857)
- January 21 - Eliza Roxcy Snow, American poet (d. 1887)
- February 7 - John Deere, American industrialist (d. 1886)
- March 14 - Johann Strauss Senior, Austrian composer (d. 1849)
- March 17 - Jim Bridger, American trapper and explorer (d. 1881)
- June 1 - Mikhail Glinka, Russian composer (d. 1857)
- June 1 - George Sand, French writer (d. 1876)
- June 24 - Willard Richards, American religious leader (d. 1854)
- July 4 - Nathaniel Hawthorne, American writer (d. 1864)
- July 28 - Ludwig Feuerbach, German philosopher (d. 1872)
- September 8 - Eduard Mörike, German poet (d. 1875)
- November 18 - Alfonso Ferrero la Marmora, Italian general and statesman (d. 1878)
- November 23 - Franklin Pierce, 14th President of the United States (d. 1869)
- December 10 - Carl Gustav Jakob Jacobi, German mathematician (d. 1851)
- December 13 - Joseph Howe, Canadian politican (d. 1873)
- December 21 - Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1881)
- December 23 - Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, French literary critic (d. 1869)

Deaths

- January 4 - Charlotte Ramsey Lennox, English author and poet (b. 1727)
- January 15 - Dru Drury, English entomologist (b. 1725)
- February 6 - Joseph Priestley, English chemist (b. 1733)
- February 12 - Immanuel Kant, German philosopher (b. 1724)
- March 21 - Louis-Antoine-Henri de Bourbon-Condé, duc d'Enghien (executed) (b. 1772)
- March 30 - Victor-François, 2nd duc de Broglie, Marshal of France (b. 1718)
- April 9 - Jacques Necker, French statesman (b. 1732)
- April 15 - Charles Pichegru, French general (strangled in prison) (b. 1761)
- July 12 - Alexander Hamilton, American statesman (killed in a duel)
- September 4 - Richard Somers, American naval officer (killed in battle)
- October 2 - Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot, French automobile pioneer (b. 1725)
- November 23 - Richard Graves, English writer (b. 1715) Category:1800s Category:1804 ko:1804년 ms:1804 simple:1804 th:พ.ศ. 2347

German People

The Germans (German: die Deutschen), or the German people, are a nation in the meaning an ethnos (in German: Volk), defined more by a sense of sharing a common German culture and having a German mother tongue, than by citizenship or by being subjects to any particular country. In the world today, approximately 100 million have German as their mother tongue. If a distinction is made between Germans and Ethnic Germans, the latter are distinguished by living outside of the Federal Republic of Germany and not holding German citizenship. The concept of who is a German has varied. Until the 19th century, it denoted the speakers of German, and was a much more distinct concept than that of Germany, the land of the Germans. The Dutch and the Swiss had already split off and shaped separate national identities. Swiss Germans, however, retained their cultural identity as German, albeit as a specific German subculture. In the 19th century, after the Napoleonic Wars and the fall of the Holy Roman Empire (of the German nation), Austria and Prussia would emerge as two opposite poles in Germany, trying to re-establish the divided German nation. In 1870, Prussia attracted even Bavaria in the Franco-Prussian War and the creation of the German Empire as a German nation-state, effectively excluding the multi-ethnic Austrian Habsburg monarchy. From this time on, the connotation of Germans came to shift gradually from "speakers of the German language" to "Imperial Germans." Before World War II, most Austrians considered themselves German and denied the existence of a distinct Austrian ethnic identity. It was only after the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II that this began to change. After the world war, the Austrians increasingly saw themselves as a nation distinct from the other German-speaking areas of Europe, and today, polls indicate that no more than ten percent of the German-speaking Austrians see themselves as part of a larger German nation linked by blood or language. Ethnic Germans form an important minority group in several countries in central and eastern Europe (Poland, Hungary, Romania) as well as in Namibia and in southern Brazil. Until the 1990s two million Ethnic Germans lived throughout the former Soviet Union, especially in Russia and Kazakhstan. In the United States 1990 census, 57 million people are fully or partly of German ancestry, forming the largest single ethnic group in the country. Most Americans of German descent live in the Mid-Atlantic states (especially Pennsylvania) and the northern Midwest (especially in Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois, North Dakota, South Dakota, and eastern Missouri.)

History

The Germans are a Germanic people. Ethnographers hypothesize that all Germanic speakers originally came from Scandinavia, which includes Jutland and the southwest shores of the Baltic Sea, before the Migrations Period. Prior to that time, their Indo-European ancestors may have migrated slowly from the Black Sea region and arrived in southern Scandinavia. Assimilation with other peoples is postulated, both with the prior inhabitants of Scandinavia and with peoples encountered on their way from Asia. Celtic peoples were then either assimilated, exterminated, or driven out during the expansion southwards from the Baltic.

Background

After the Migrations Period, Slavs expanded westwards at the same time as Germans expanded eastwards. The result was German colonization as far East as Romania, and Slavic colonization as far west as present-day Lübeck, at the Baltic Sea, Hamburg (connected to the North Sea), and along the rivers Elbe and Saale further South. After Christianization, the superior organization of the Catholic Church lent the upper hand for a German expansion at the expense of the Slavs, giving the medieval Drang nach Osten as a result. At the same time, naval innovations led to a German domination of trade in the Baltic Sea and Central–Eastern Europe through the Hanseatic League. Along the trade routes, Hanseatic trade stations became centers of Germanness where German urban law (Stadtrecht) was promoted by the presence of large, relatively wealthy German populations and their influence on the worldly powers. Thus people whom we today often consider "Germans", with a common culture and worldview very different from that of the surrounding rural peoples, colonized as far north of present-day Germany as Bergen (in Norway), Stockholm (in Sweden), and Vyborg (now in Russia). At the same time, it's important to note that the Hanseatic League was not exclusively German in any ethnic sense. Many towns who joined the league were outside of the Holy Roman Empire, and some of them ought not at all be characterized as German. Also the "German" Holy Roman Empire was not in any way exclusively German, and its course became much different than that of France or Great Britain. The Thirty Years War confirmed its dissolution; the Napoleonic Wars gave it its coup de grâce.

Ethnic nationalism

The reaction evoked in the decades after the Napoleonic Wars was a strong ethnic nationalism that emphasized, and sometimes overemphasized, the cultural bond between Germans. Later alloyed with the high standing and world-wide influence of German science at the end of the 19th century, and to some degree enhanced by Bismarck's military successes and the following 40 years of almost perpetual economic boom (the Gründerzeit), it gave the Germans an impression of cultural supremacy, particularly compared to the Slavs.

The Divided Germany

The idea that Germany is a divided nation is not new and not peculiar. Compared to the neighbors France, Russia, Sweden, and Denmark it was obvious and true. Since the Peace of Westphalia, Germany has been "one nation split in many countries". The Austrian–Prussian split, confirmed when Austria remained outside of the 1871 created Imperial Germany, was only the most prominent example. Most recently, the division between East Germany and West Germany kept the idea at life. The beginnings of the divided Germany may be traced back much further; to a Roman occupied Germania in the west and to Free Germania in the east. Starkly different ideologies have many times been developed due to conquerors and occupiers of sections of Germany. Poets talked of Zwei Herzen in einer Seele (Two hearts in one soul). The thought of a weak split nation gave birth to the idea of the advantage by unification. With Prince Bismarck as the great example, the Nazis went all the way and wanted to unite "all Germans" in one realm, which met a certain resistance among the Flemish and the Austrians, and much more so among the Swiss and the Dutch, who mostly were perfectly content with their perception of separate nations established in 1648.

Religion

Protestant Reformation started in the German culture, and Germans are both Protestants and Catholics. The late 19th century saw a strong movement among the Jewry in Germany and Austria to assimilate and define themselves as à priori Germans, i.e. as Germans of Jewish faith. In Conservative circles, this was not always quite appreciated, and for the Nazis it was an anathema. After the Nazi rule led to the annihilation of almost all domestic Jews, the controversy today is over the Gastarbeiter and later arrived refugees from ex-Yugoslavia, who often are Muslims.

Minorities

In recent years, the German-speaking countries of Europe have been confronted with demographic changes due to decades of immigration. These changes have led to renewed debates (especially in the Federal Republic of Germany) about who should be considered German. Non-ethnic Germans now make up more than 8 percent of the German population, mostly the descendants of guest workers who arrived in the 1960s and 1970s. Turks, Italians, Greeks, and people from the Balkans in southeast Europe form the largest single groups of non-ethnic Germans in the country. In addition, a significant number of German citizens (close to 5%), although traditionally considered ethnic Germans, are in fact foreign-born and thus often retain the cultural identities and languages or their native countries, a fact that clearly sets them apart from those born and raised in Germany, in the eyes of the latter. Ethnic German repatriates from the former Soviet Union constitute by far the largest such group and the second largest ethno-national minority group in Germany. Unlike these ethnic German repatriates, most non-German ethnic minorities in the country, including many who were born and raised in the Federal Republic, remain non-citizens. While citizenship laws have been recently relaxed to allow such individuals to become nationalized citizens, many chose not to give up allegiance to the countries of their ethnic roots and continue to live in Germany under an ambiguous status of an alien resident or a guest worker, especially that this status, though lacking certain political rights, often does not impede one's ability to work, get free public higher education and travel abroad. As a result, close to 10 million people permanently living in the Federal Republic today distinctly differ from the majority of the population in a variety of ways such as race, ethnicity, religion, language and culture, yet often fail to be recognized as minorities in official statistical sources due to the fact that such sources traditionally survey only German citizens, and under the so called jus sanguinis system, that has been in effect in Germany since the 19th century, and has only recently been partially replaced by the alternative jus soli system, citizens are, by definition, ethnic Germans. This situation contributes to the invisibility of Germany's minorities making Germany technically one of the most ethnically homogeneous nation in the world, whereas in all practicality the Federal Republic is today the most ethnically diverse country in Europe. Since the mid 1990s, however, changes in citizenship laws and the increased visibility of ethnic minorities seems to indicate that the concept of who is a German is slowly moving away from one that centered on ethnicity and heritage (jus sanguinis) to a concept based more on nationality, citizenship, and cultural identification (jus soli). The shift can be viewed as having been caused, in part, by both the pressure from the international community and the immigrants themselves to move to a more "modern" system citizenship based on place of birth and/or permanent residence, on the one hand, and internal pressure to limit what is viewed as excessively "generous" across-the-board granting of citizenship to everybody who can prove German heritage. Overall, mainstream public opinion seems to be shifting towards a more socially and culturally defined concept of "Germanness" rather than purely racial, ethnic or hereditary.

Conclusion

Historical persons like Kafka might be called Germans, or might not. Some would hold that they belong to the German culture, which is what decides if someone is considered a German or not, at least in certain contexts. Similarly, Händel, Mozart and Beethoven - who spent most of their lives in what is Austria today - may be considered to have been central within the German culture. The Dutch and the Flemish have another standard language, so conceptually they constitute no real problem. With regard to present-day conditions, many, probably most, Germans consider Austrians and the Swiss to have nationalities of their own, although their ethnicity may be defined as German.

Scientist

:This article is about a profession. For the Australian indie rock band see The Scientists. For the dub musician see Scientist (musician). For the single by Coldplay see The Scientist (single). ---- A scientist is a person who is an expert in at least one area of science and who uses the scientific method to research that area. Upon the request of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1833, William Whewell invented the English word "scientist"; before this, the only terms in use were "natural philosopher" and "man of science".

Mathematics and engineering

Traditionally, mathematics has been grouped with the sciences, but in modern times people tend not to regard mathematicians as scientists. Mathematical discoveries generally appear to be arrived at differently than scientific ones, and experiments as they are usually conceived are unable to supply mathematical proof. Yet the class of people called "scientists" includes theorists who never do experiments, and even pure experimentalists often employ mathematics and deduction to arrive at their conclusions. At the same time, a mathematical proof may proceed as a proof by construction, an idea that shares something in common with experiments. The distinction between math and science is therefore not clear-cut. There is a more clear distinction, however, between science and engineering. Engineers are concerned with the design of a solution to a practical problem. A scientist may ask "why?" and proceed to research the answer to the question. By contrast, engineers want to know how to solve a problem, and how to implement that solution. In other words, scientists investigate phenomena, whereas engineers create solutions to problems or improve upon existing solutions. In the course of their work scientists may have to complete engineering tasks (such as designing experimental apparatus or building prototypes), while engineers often have to do research.

Types of scientists

- Astronomers (including astrophysicists)
- Biologists (including botanists, zoologists, entomologists, herpetologists, ichthyologists, lepidopterists, ornithologists, and virologists)
- Chemists (including biochemists)
- Computer scientists
- Ecologists (including hydrologists, limnologists, and toxicologists)
- Economists
- Geologists (including mineralogists, vulcanologists and seismologists)
- Mathematicians (see note above)
- Physicists

Astrophysics

] Astrophysics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of the universe, including the physical properties (luminosity, density, temperature and chemical composition) of astronomical objects such as stars, galaxies, and the interstellar medium, as well as their interactions. The study of cosmology is theoretical astrophysics at the largest scales. Because it is a very broad subject, astrophysicists typically apply many disciplines of physics including, but not limited to, mechanics, electromagnetism, statistical mechanics, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, relativity, nuclear and particle physics, and atomic and molecular physics. In practice, modern astronomical research involves a substantial amount of physics. The name of a university's department ("astrophysics" or "astronomy") often has to do more with the department's history than with the contents of the programs.

History

Although astronomy is as old as recorded history, it was long separated from the study of physics. In the Aristotelian worldview, the celestial pertained to perfec

Immanuel Kant

Kant and his philosophy

Biography

Birth and youth

The young scholar

The critical turn

Kant's later work

Kantian myths

Kant's moral philosophy

Example of the first formulation:

Example of the second formulation:

Influence

Tomb

Works and links to texts, in English and German

Quotes

External links

See also

References and further reading

General introductions to Kant's thought

Biography and historical context

Collections of essays

On Kant's theoretical philosophy

On Kant's practical philosophy

On Kant's aesthetics

Other work on Kant

Contemporary philosophy with a Kantian influence

April 22

Events

Births

Deaths

1724

Events

Births

Deaths

1804

Events

Unknown date

Ongoing events

Births

Deaths

German People

History

Background

Ethnic nationalism

The Divided Germany

Religion

Minorities

Conclusion

See also

Reference

Scientist

Mathematics and engineering

Types of scientists

See also

Related lists

Astrophysics

History