Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant was born in 1724 in Konigsburg, Prussia. He was the son of a harness maker, reportedly never left his home town, and those two facts have never been called “related”. Kant went most of his life without producing anything of note, when at age 57, he published Critique of Pure Reason. Pure Reason later countered that Kant wasn’t so great himself. In his book, Kant argued that philosophy is scientific because it describes our experience in the world, and not the actual, unknowable nature of the world (pretty worldly talk from a guy who never left his home town). With regard to his evolving and often amorphous beliefs, Kant once said “I had to suspend knowledge, in order to make room for faith”, which became the first recorded excuse for not knowing how to change a tire.