Immanuel Kant
Kant developed his moral philosophy in three works: "Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals" (1785), "Critique of Practical Reason" (1788), and "Metaphysics of Morals" (1797).
Inductive reasoning
Awakened from "dogmatic slumber" by a German translation of Hume's work, Kant sought to explain the possibility of metaphysics. In 1781, Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" introduced the distinction "rationalism", a path toward knowledge distinct from "empiricism". Kant sorted statements into two types. The analytic are true by virtue of their terms' arrangement and meanings—thus are tautologies, merely logical truths, true by necessity—whereas the synthetic arrange meanings to refer to states of facts, contingencies. Finding it impossible to know objects as they truly are in themselves, however, Kant found the philosopher's task not peering behind the veil of appearance to view the "noumena", but simply handling "phenomena".