Workshop & logbook
All the thinking devices on this site are gathered here, and this is where you keep your logbook. Of the power of judgment Kant says it “wants not to be taught, but only to be practised” (Critique of Pure Reason, 1781, A 133/B 172, our translation). So: try things out, commit yourself, test.
The star map of reason
Each of the four questions Kant poses for the whole of philosophy is a constellation here, each thinking device a star. A star lights up once you have used the device through to its insight.
Point at a star or tap it. A second tap takes you to the device.
Point at a star or tap it. A second tap takes you to the device.
Point at a star or tap it. A second tap takes you to the device.
Point at a star or tap it. A second tap takes you to the device.
Once at least one star shines in every constellation, this is where you will see how the four questions belong together.
All four constellations are shining.
Kant relates the first three questions to the fourth: knowing, acting and hoping all ask, in the end, what the human being is. Ak. 9:25
Sources: Logic, Ak. 9:25 (the four questions, in German) · Critique of Practical Reason, Ak. 5:161 (in German)
All devices by door
Direct access: every tool in the workshop, arranged by the four questions. A filled star shows what you have already tested.
What can I know?Metaphysics
- Judgment labTest sentences with two lenses and place them, ending with a boss fight against 7 + 5 = 12.
- The path through Kant's thoughtEight stations in order, each with a task and an insight.
- Knowledge quizTen questions out of sixteen, each with an explanation and a source.
- Kant or not Kant?Genuine or misattributed? Check quotations, with the source.
- Review cardsFlashcards in five boxes: what you know comes back less often.
- CrosswordKant's concepts in the grid, easy and hard.
- Concept networkHow Kant's concepts refer to one another.
- Thinking space awayColour, apple and table can be thought away. And empty space itself?
- Copernican planetariumThrow the lever: does knowledge conform to things, or the other way round?
- The knowledge machineSwitch senses, space and time, understanding: when are thoughts empty, when are intuitions blind?
- Hume's billiardsOne ball strikes another. Where exactly do you see the cause?
- Court of the antinomiesDoes the world have a beginning? Two proofs that both seem compelling.
- Case file: The hundred thalersExamine the ontological proof of God: where does Kant object?
- Kant decoderTake a famous nested sentence apart: find its frame, open the key words, set the original beside a plain-language version.
What ought I to do?Morals
- Test your own maximTake a rule of your own through Kant's questions: conceiving, willing, humanity.
- Dilemma workshopEight cases: decide first, then Kant and the opposing voice; the Socratic mirror shows tensions.
- The false promiseWhat happens if everyone short of money makes false promises? Guess first, then play out what such a world would look like.
- What does Kant mean by enlightenment?A comprehension question with its source, for trying out projector mode with a class poll.
- Dispute of the dayA case for everyone each day: judge first, then Kant's test and an opposing voice.
- Motive X-ray in the shopX-ray two good deeds: in accordance with duty or from duty? Then Schiller's mockery.
- Triple maxim test benchSend a maxim through law of nature, end in itself and kingdom of ends; plus the Golden Rule trap.
- The murderer at the doorChoose your move and open Kant's tree of consequences; Constant objects.
- Out of the go-cartBook, pastor, doctor, plus satnav, search engine and AI: which straps do you untie?
- Public or private?Officer, citizen, pastor: where must one obey, where may one judge freely? Kant's reversal.
- Decoder: the good willThe first sentence of the Groundwork: what alone is good without limitation?
- Decoder: What is Enlightenment?The three opening sentences word by word: immaturity, understanding and the missing courage.
What may I hope?Religion
- The peace congressBuild a peace treaty from clauses, test it against Kant's articles and run it for fifty years in a model.
- Does doing good pay off?Worthy or happy: your verdict, Kant's highest good and Heine's mockery.
- Decoder: peace or armistice?The first preliminary article: why a treaty with a secret reservation is no peace.
What is the human being?Anthropology
- Kant's day as a clockFrom being woken at 4:45 to bedtime: his documented routine, hour by hour (part of “A day in Königsberg”).
- Königsberg in 1763Eight places from Kant's life on the city map of 1763, with his daily walk.
- Star map of reasonEvery device is a star, every door a constellation: see what you have already tested.
- A day in KönigsbergTurn the clock and see on the 1763 city plan where Kant is at that moment.
- Kant's dinner tableInvite guests by Kant's rule and steer the conversation through narrating, reasoning and jesting.
- Table talksFive objections from friends and correspondents: first find Kant's answer, then judge for yourself.
- Beautiful, agreeable or good?Sort Kant's examples: are you judging only for yourself or for everyone?
- The storm and the sublimeFrom the ship to the safe shore: when fear turns into the feeling of the sublime.
- Kant against KantKant's formula of dignity beside his writings on race, women, the death penalty and colonies.
Your logbook
Whatever you do here is remembered only by this browser. What counts are thinking days: days on which you tested, decided or reviewed anything. A break costs you nothing.
Stars per door
- What can I know? 0 / 14
- What ought I to do? 0 / 12
- What may I hope? 0 / 3
- What is the human being? 0 / 9
0 thinking days · Open the logbook
Stored only in this browser, never transmitted.
Your notes
Notes are hidden on the pages of this site: documented finds from Kant's works and life, each with its reference. Open one and it lands here.
- 1 Not found yetHidden on the page about the Critique of Pure Reason A court for reasonCritique of Pure Reason, preface to the 1st edition (A xi f.), Ak. 4:9
- 2 Not found yetHidden in the timeline Critik with a CFirst edition, Riga 1781 (edition A)
- 3 Not found yetHidden in the chapter on knowledge An experiment in the other directionCritique of Pure Reason, preface to the 2nd edition (B xvi), Ak. 3:12
- 4 Not found yetHidden in the chapter on knowledge Seven plus fiveCritique of Pure Reason (B 16), Ak. 3:37
- 5 Not found yetHidden in the chapter on knowledge A hundred thalersCritique of Pure Reason (B 627), Ak. 3:401
- 6 Not found yetHidden in the chapter on knowledge Green glassesHeinrich von Kleist to Wilhelmine von Zenge, Berlin, 22 March 1801
- 7 Not found yetHidden in the FAQ Woken by HumeProlegomena (1783), preface, Ak. 4:260
- 8 Not found yetHidden in the chapter on ethics Two thingsCritique of Practical Reason (1788), conclusion, Ak. 5:161
- 9 Not found yetHidden in the chapter on his life Graces and MusesAnthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798), § 88, Ak. 7:278
- 10 Not found yetHidden in the chapter on his life The note about LampeHanded down from Kant's notebook (after German Wikipedia, article Martin Lampe); not checked against the Academy edition
- 11 Not found yetHidden in the chapter on his life Three last wordsTradition; German Wikipedia calls them “allegedly” his last words, on the day before his death (11 February 1804, according to the article Kantiana; he died on 12 February)
- 12 Not found yetHidden in the chapter on his life Königsberg, 1763Plan of the city of Königsberg, 1763
- 13 Not found yetHidden in the chapter on peace and politics The innkeeper's signToward Perpetual Peace (1795), first sentence, Ak. 8:343
- 14 Not found yetHidden in the chapter on hope Crooked timberIdea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim (1784), Ak. 8:23
- 15 Not found yetHidden on the page about the Anthropology Four questions, one answerLogic (1800), introduction, Ak. 9:25
Dispute of the day
A case every day, the same for everyone, so a class can open it together. It alternates between an everyday case on which you try out Kant's test and a quotation that may or may not be genuine.
Sources: Groundwork, Ak. 4:421 (in German) · Ak. 4:429 · Wikipedia: Categorical imperative · Utilitarianism · Wikiquote: Immanuel Kant
A path through Kant's thought
Eight stations from Königsberg to the starry heavens. Each one: a short text, a small task, one insight — then the next station opens.
Sources: listed at each station, plus: Wikipedia: Immanuel Kant
The Kant quiz
Ten questions across life and work, shuffled anew each round. Every answer includes an explanation with a source link — and anything you get wrong is added to your review below.
Sources of the questions: Wikipedia: Immanuel Kant (among others)
Kant or not Kant?
Plenty of “Kant quotes” circulating online never came from him. Ten quotes per round, drawn at random from a pool of twenty, genuine and misattributed ones mixed together — can you spot the real Kant? Every answer names the passage or the true origin.
Sources of the quotes: Wikiquote: Immanuel Kant (incl. “Misattributed”) · Falschzitate (Gerald Krieghofer) · Academy edition (Kant corpus)
Crossword
Two puzzles from Kant's world of concepts: an easy one on the basic terms, a hard one on technical vocabulary. The clues follow the glossary and flashcard texts on this site. If you solve a word without using “Reveal” and a flashcard covers it, that card counts as practised in your review. Your progress stays in your browser.
Kant's philosophy: key terms
Solving on screen needs JavaScript. This sheet can also be printed.
Across
- 5The subjective principle of action: the rule someone actually acts on (5), 5 letters
- 7Self-legislation of the will: giving the moral law to oneself (8), 8 letters
- 10What pleases universally, without interest and without a concept (6), 6 letters
- 11In Kant not fault-finding but an examination of what a faculty can achieve (8), 8 letters
- 12Inborn talent, for Kant the origin of all fine art (6), 6 letters
- 14One of the three ideas of the unconditioned, besides world and God (4), 4 letters
- 15Empiricist, like Locke and Berkeley (4), 4 letters
Down
- 1Philosopher of the Enlightenment, 1724–1804, professor of logic and metaphysics (4), 4 letters
- 2What one must do out of respect for the moral law, not from inclination (4), 4 letters
- 3Prussian city, now Kaliningrad, where Kant spent almost his whole life (10), 10 letters
- 4The absolute worth of a person, unlike a price it admits of no equivalent (7), 7 letters
- 6Ability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance (8), 8 letters
- 8Highest faculty of cognition; in its practical use it legislates for the will (6), 6 letters
- 9Kant's postulate whose reality shows itself through the moral law (7), 7 letters
- 13Together with time, a pure form of our sensible intuition (5), 5 letters
Create your own crossword on crosswordcreator.org (external site, opens in a new tab)
Kant's philosophy: technical terms
Solving on screen needs JavaScript. This sheet can also be printed.
Across
- 1Freedom, immortality, God: assumptions demanded by practical reason (10), 10 letters
- 6Classical rationalist alongside Descartes and Spinoza (7), 7 letters
- 9Twelve pure concepts of the understanding, e.g. cause, substance, unity (10), 10 letters
- 11Joined with happiness in the highest good (6), 6 letters
- 12Immediate sensible representation of a single object (9), 9 letters
- 13Absolutely great: nature's overwhelming size and might (7), 7 letters
- 14Empiricist alongside Berkeley and Hume (5), 5 letters
Down
- 1What is affirmed or denied of a subject (9), 9 letters
- 2The object as given to us through space, time and the categories (10), 10 letters
- 3Second name in the theory that the solar system arose from a primeval nebula (7), 7 letters
- 4Said of judgments that extend knowledge, as opposed to analytic ones (9), 9 letters
- 5Basic operation of thought, combining representations (8), 8 letters
- 7A mere object of thought; for Kant a boundary concept of cognition (8), 8 letters
- 8Determination of the will from outside, the opposite of autonomy (10), 10 letters
- 10Reason in conflict with itself: thesis and antithesis both seem provable (8), 8 letters
Create your own crossword on crosswordcreator.org (external site, opens in a new tab)
Sources of the clues: the glossary and flashcards on this site, plus: Wikipedia: Immanuel Kant
Review: the key concepts
Flashcards in the style of the Leitner system: tap a card to flip it. What you know moves up a box and comes back less often; what you don't drops back to box 1 and comes straight back. Quiz questions you got wrong join the deck. Your progress is saved in your browser.
Sources of the cards: Wikipedia: Immanuel Kant · Categorical imperative · Critique of Pure Reason · Leitner system
The dilemma workshop has moved
The eight dilemmas now live where Kant develops his ethics: in the chapter on ethics. Your earlier decisions are kept.