The major works of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant analyze speculative and moral reason and the faculty of human judgement. Kant exerted influence on the intellectual movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The fourth of nine children of Johann Georg and Anna Regina Kant, Immanuel Kant was born in Königsberg on April 22, 1724. In 1740 Kant entered the University of Königsberg where he became interested in philosophy, mathematics, and the natural sciences. Kant accepted the rationalism of Leibniz and Wolff and the natural philosophy of Newton until he read the works of David Hume.

Impoverished by the death of his father in 1746, Kant became a private tutor for seven years. He published several papers dealing with scientific questions, the most important of which was "General Natural History and Theory of the Heavens" (1755). Here Kant postulated the the solar system originated from the gravitational interaction of...