Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was a prominent German philosopher who made significant

contributions to the fields of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics.

His philosophy is often associated with the movement known as German Idealism and
has had a profound influence on various areas of philosophy.

Kant's most influential work is his monumental work, "Critique of Pure Reason"
(1781), in which he sought to reconcile the rationalist and empiricist traditions
of philosophy. Kant argued that knowledge is derived from both sensory experience
and innate structures of the mind, which he called the "pure forms of intuition"
and the "categories of understanding." According to Kant, these a priori forms and
categories shape our experience of the world and enable us to have knowledge.

Kant's philosophy also emphasized the distinction between phenomena and noumena.
Phenomena are the objects of our experience, the appearances that we perceive
through our senses. On the other hand, noumena are things as they are in
themselves, independent of our perceptual faculties. Kant argued that we can only
have knowledge of phenomena, as our understanding is limited to the conditions of
our experience. The noumenal realm, however, remains unknowable.

In ethics, Kant developed a deontological ethical theory known as the "categorical

imperative." He believed that moral principles are based on reason and are
universally binding.