(Originally posted here March 2013)
Immanuel Kant, 1724-1804, German Philosopher Portrait by Klaus Heinz Clasen
the old Jacobin
shook the foundations
eighteen centuries in their accretion
they collapsed under force
of his pounding critique
of accepted pure reason
then he rebuilt them strong
where they still stand erect
on progenitive, perceptive
practical reason
autonomous
in yield of morality
he achieved revolution
some measured Copernican
fixing man’s mind
as the sun-centered point
for ineluctable orbit
of ethical knowledge
he fused metaphysics
with morals in his blunt
categorical imperative
for judging motivation
and gauging the truth
of virtue in action
as champion of civil liberties
he ushered embrace of
constitutional means
to self-ruling republics
by the then-breaking wave
of enlightenment
he still shores schools of ethics,
metaphysics, theology,
logic, epistemology,
even his critics are forced
to describe what’s non-Kantian
about their own precepts
I confess being smitten
with this sociable prodigy
loved by his students
respected by colleagues
his legacy vastly enriches
the human condition
“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.”
– Immanuel Kant, from “Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals”
Recommended readings:
◾Critique of Pure Reason
◾Critique of Practical Reason
◾Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics
◾What is Enlightenment?
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