Immanuel Kant's Intellectual Environment: Enlightenment and Revolutions

Historical Context

Kant lived in the XVIII century, the century of the Enlightenment. Although primarily a cultural movement, it had significant historical, political, social, and philosophical implications. Two major events profoundly affected Kant's life: the Independence of the United States (1776) and the French Revolution (1789).

In politics, the dominant system was enlightened despotism, which Kant associated with the figure of Frederick the Great.

Sociocultural Context

Among the social consequences of the era was the political and social rise of the bourgeoisie. This new social form was greatly aided by the Industrial Revolution, which helped it take root.

Culturally, the Enlightenment is defined by Kant as the mental attitude wherein man decides to leave his self-incurred minority by using his own reason.

The Enlightenment emphasized the following ideas:

• Reason is the sole light leading to human progress.
• Science is the only way to understand and master nature, thereby achieving a better humanity.
• Thought became secularized, emancipating itself from religious dogmas.
• Great importance is attached to human dignity; the human being becomes the center of interest.
• There is opposition to tyranny and the accumulation of power, advocating for tolerance and freedom of thought—conditions indispensable for the development of reason.

The movement most eminently illustrated by the Encyclopedia aimed to achieve a rational understanding of everything surrounding the human being.

Philosophical Context

Two philosophical currents predominated during this period:

1. Dogmatic Rationalism: Prevalent in continental Europe, it maintained the possibility of metaphysics (e.g., Descartes).
2. British Empiricism: Knowledge was based on empirical grounds, considering metaphysics impossible as a science (e.g., Locke, Berkeley, and Hume).

Importantly, the figure of Newton culminated the work of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. His conception of science, based on a combination of experimentation and mathematical calculation, formed the basis of scientific thought.