Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (; ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher who is a central figure in modern philosophy. In his doctrine of transcendental idealism, he argued that space, time and causation are mere sensibilities; "things-in-themselves" exist, but their nature is unknowable. In his view, the mind shapes and structures experience, with all human experience sharing certain structural features. He drew a parallel to the Copernican revolution in his proposition that worldly objects can be intuited "a priori" ("beforehand"), and that intuition is therefore independent from objective reality. Kant believed that reason is the source of morality, and that aesthetics arise from a faculty of disinterested judgment. Kant's views continue to have a major influence on contemporary philosophy, especially the fields of epistemology, ethics, political theory, and post-modern aesthetics.
Lumières
In Germany, Emmanuel Kant (like Rousseau, defining himself among the Lumières) heavily criticised the limitations of pure reason in his work "Critique of Pure Reason" (), but also that of English empiricism in "Critique of Practical Reason" (). Compared with the rather subjective metaphysics of Descartes, Kant developed a more objective viewpoint in this branch of philosophy.