Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant is widely regarded as the central figure of modern philosophy, whose Critique of Pure Reason (1781) attempted to reconcile empiricism and rationalism by arguing that human cognition actively shapes experience. His moral philosophy, especially the Categorical Imperative — the principle that one should act only according to maxims that could be universalized — remains the cornerstone of deontological ethics. Kant's work on aesthetics, political philosophy, and the philosophy of science defined the agenda of Western philosophy for two centuries.