Named for the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), foremost thinker of the Enlightenment. His comprehensive and systematic works in the theory of knowledge, ethics and esthetics have greatly influenced all subsequent philosophy. Although he started his study with theology, he was principally attracted to mathematics and physics. In 1781 his most famous work, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, was published. This deals with the roots of knowledge and the conditions of possible experience. The human mind cannot arrive, by pure thought, at truths about entities that, by their very nature, can never be objects of experience. (M 29148) _ _.