Sparks Commentary: A review of “Immanuel Kant” (audiobook)

Friday, April 22, 2022

A review of “Immanuel Kant” (audiobook)

“I openly confess, the suggestion of David Hume was the very thing, which many years ago first awakened me from my dogmatic slumber, and gave my investigations in the field of speculative philosophy quite a new direction.”

– Immanuel Kant, in the Introduction to his “Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics” (1783)

Immanuel Kant may have been the most influential philosopher since antiquity. He was active in virtually every area of philosophy, with writings on many of its subfields. These included epistemology, metaphysics, aesthetics, and ethics. He was probably the most influential of all of the German philosophers, and helped to establish a tradition of writing philosophical works in the German language.

Unfortunately, time does not permit me to do justice to him or his work. I shall have to react selectively to a few of the features of Kant’s theories that most strike me as significant. Let me start off with one of the biggest of them.

Immanuel Kant

For centuries, there has been a debate regarding something called “epistemology,” which is just a fancy word for the “theory of knowledge.” Philosophers had debated about whether reason or empirical evidence was the most reliable foundation of human knowledge. Kant basically argued that it was silly to have to choose between these two things, and that a proper theory of knowledge must include both of them. In this, he followed in the footsteps of David Hume, whom he credited with “awaken[ing]” him from his “dogmatic slumber” (as quoted earlier).

Immanuel Kant

Kant acknowledged his debt to Hume in this passage, but he also added some new arguments of his own. His works were badly written, since he did not have a particularly clear way of expressing his ideas. But he did have some important things to say, even if his way of writing them did not always do justice to the topics. Specifically, his work entitled “Critique of Pure Reason” is one of the classics on the entire subject of epistemology.

Immanuel Kant

But most interesting to me personally is his theory of ethics. He believed in something that he called the “categorical imperative.” This is an intimidating-sounding term for a relatively simple idea. Basically, it says that there are some things that are always wrong, regardless of the circumstances. Thus, it is always “imperative” to refrain from doing them. I was once a critic of this theory, since it seemed to me to lack an explanation for why these things were wrong. I instead favored the “utilitarian” approach of the later philosopher John Stuart Mill. But another audiobook from this same company would later dissuade me from John Stuart Mill and utilitarianism. It seemed to show me why utilitarianism was wrong. This is a better subject for another post, which I may write at some later time. But suffice it to say here that after I soured on utilitarianism, I was more open to hearing about Kantian ethics. Thus, I listened to this audiobook again, and had a very different reaction to it the second time around.

Immanuel Kant

I’m still not sure that Kant’s ethical theories provide a good explanation of why these things are wrong. But I admit that I find them more appealing than I once did. Certainly I like them better than utilitarianism, the system that I had once admired. This audiobook makes Kant’s ethics seem much more reasonable, even if I still have some questions about how it all works.

Immanuel Kant

I don’t particularly want to read any of Kant’s works, since my philosophical interests tend to lie elsewhere. Specifically, I’m more interested in the applied debates about political philosophy, rather than in the more foundational debates about the ethics behind them. But I believe that all political philosophers should be exposed to the various theories of ethics out there, so I’ve listened to both sides with an open mind. Perhaps I shall find Kant even more appealing after I listen to this audiobook again, at some point in the future. For now, I will just say that this is a good introduction to Kantian theories, and helps you to understand both the depth and range of his many philosophical achievements.