Dorothy Feidler, age 16, of Henderson, Nev., for her question:

WHY IS IMMANUEL KANT REMEMBERED?

Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher who lived from 1724 until 1804, is considered by many as the most influential thinker of modern times. He's remembered as a great scholar.

Kant received his education at the Collegium Fredericianum and the University of Konigsberg. At college he studied chiefly the classics and at the university he studied physics and mathematics.

After a period of time as a private tutor he resumed his studies and received his doctorate. Starting in 1755, he spent 15 years teaching at the university, lecturing first on science and mathematics but generally enlarging his field of concentration to cover almost all branches of philosophy.

In 1770, after establishing his reputation as an original philosopher, he received a chair at the university and was made professor of logic and metaphysics. For the next 27 years he continued to teach and attract large numbers of students to Koningsberg.

The keystone of Kant's philosophy, sometimes called critical philosophy, is found in his "Critique of Pure Reason" which was published in 1781 .

Kant differentiated modes of thinking into analytic and synthetic propositions.

An analytic proposition is one in which the predicate is contained in the subject, as in the statement "black houses are houses." The truth of this type of proposition is evident, because to state the reverse would be to make the proposition self contradictory.

Such propositions are called analytic because truth is discovered by the analysis of the concept itself.

Synthetic propositions, on the other hand, are those that cannot be arrived at by pure analysis, as in the statement "The house is black." All the common propositions that result from experience of the world are synthetic.                                        

In the "Metaphysics of Ethics" published in 1797 Kant described his ethical system, which is based on a belief that the reason is the final authority for morality. Actions of any sort, Karat believed, must be undertaken from a sense of duty dictated by reason, and no action performed for expedience or solely in obedience to law or custom can be regarded as moral.

Karat's ethical ideas are a logical outcome of his belief in the fundamental freedom of the individual. This freedom he did not regard as the lawless freedom of anarchy, but rather as the freedom of self government, the freedom to obey consciously the law of the universe as revealed by reason.

The philosopher believed that the welfare of each individual should properly be regarded as an end in itself and that the world was progressing toward an ideal society in which reason would "bind every lawgiver to make his laws in such a way that they could have sprung from the united will of an entire people."

Kant has a greater influence than any other philosopher of modern times.