Kantianism summary

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Kantianism , System of critical philosophy created by Immanuel Kant and the philosophies that have arisen from the study of his writings. Kantianism comprises diverse philosophies that share Kant’s concern to explore the nature and limits of human knowledge in the hope of raising philosophy to the level of a science. Each submovement of Kantianism has tended to focus on its own selection and reading of Kant’s many concerns. In the 1790s there emerged in Germany the so-called semi-Kantians, who altered features of Kant’s system they viewed as inadequate, unclear, or even wrong; its members included Friedrich Schiller, Friedrich Bouterwek (1766–1828), and Jakob Friedrich Fries (1773–1843). The period from 1790 to 1835 was the age of the post-Kantian idealists (see idealism). A major revival of interest in Kantian philosophy began c. 1860. See also Johann Gottlieb Fichte; G.W.F. Hegel; Neo-Kantianism; Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling.

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