Immanuel Kant Quotes on Metaphysics
-
A metaphysics of morals is therefore indispensably necessary, not merely because of a motive to speculation- for investigating the source of the practical basic principles that lie a priori in our reason- but also because morals themselves remain subject to all sorts of corruption as long as we are without that clue and supreme norm by which to appraise them correctly...
-
A plant, an animal, the regular order of nature-probably also the disposition of the whole universe-give manifest evidence that they are possible only by means of and according to ideas; that, indeed, no one creature, under the individual conditions of its existence, perfectly harmonizes with the idea of the most perfect of its kind-just as little as man with the idea of humanity, which nevertheless he bears in his soul as the archetypal standard of his actions; that, notwithstanding, these ideas are in the highest sense individually, unchangeably, and completely determined, and are the original causes of things; and that the totality of connected objects in the universe is alone fully adequate to that idea. (B 374)
-
Metaphysics has as the proper object of its enquiries three ideas only: God, freedom, and immortality. (B 395)
-
Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with many a philosophic wreck.