Immanuel Kant was more important than John Stuart Mill in the development of philosophy

I’ve debated him recently and thus know that this will be an enjoyable and stimulating debate. I will focus on Kant this round and let Con present Mill in his case. Kant Revolutionized Philosophy; Metaphysics and Epistemology Before Kant, the two dominant epistemological and metaphysical theories were empiricism and rationalism. Kant, in a unique way, argued that both theories err in their methods, assumptions, and arguments. Moreover, Kant was concerned with the state of metaphysics and the potential for philosophy sliding into skepticism and ambiguity. He wished to raise metaphysics to a scientific foundation. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant attempts to rescue metaphysics from its meandering and speculative state. Kant focuses on human cognition and the role it plays in experience. He argues against empiricists in that their view of the world is untenable and rests on assumptions they themselves set out to disprove and against rationalism in that pure a priori deductions of mind-independent reality were impossible. Kant's answer to these two traditions "changed the face of philosophy"[1]. Kant found the traditional division between a priori truths and a posteriori truths insufficient. Kant believed there also needed to be an analysis of synthetic and analytic truths. The empiricist framework fails to account for the synthetic a priori notions such as causality. The concept of synthetic a priori knowledge was entirely new in philosophy. Kant’s exposition of the question “how is synthetic a priori knowledge possible? ”, his emphasis on the mind’s role in experience, and his divide between the noumenal and phenomenal aspects of reality were extremely original and influential [1]. Dr. Robert Hanna [2] posits that the Critique of Pure Reason is "arguably the single most brilliant, important, and difficult book in modern philosophy. Its main topic is the nature, scope, and limits of human cognition and reason; and its main conclusion is that necessary truth, a priori knowledge, and freedom of the will are possible if and only if transcendental idealism is true” [3]. He provides three arguments in support: 1. The CPR advanced a radically original solution to the rationalist and empiricist divide. 2. “The CPR offers a radically original resolution of the basic metaphysical problems of Rationalism and Empiricism (does God exist? how can we be free in a deterministic world? what is the nature of the mind & can it exist independently of the body? ). ” 3. The CPR has had a greater impact on modern philosophy than any other book or theory. The CPR was a philosophical revolution. It defeated dogmatic traditional rationalism, synthesized empiricism and rationalism, and pretty much opened up completely new approaches to philosophy. It opened the door for German idealism and thus Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. It inspired Charles Peirce and Gottlob Frege fathers of modern logic. Also, phenomenologists, Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. Most importantly, it put metaphysics on a reasonable footing which it had not been on before and denounced speculative supersensory dogmatic rationalist metaphysics. [4]To add some perspective to Kant’s importance in metaphysics, below is the amount of times certain philosophers are mentioned in the Stanford Encyclopedia entry on metaphysics. [8] Kant - 5Mill - 0Hume - 4Hegel - 1Descartes - 1Russell - 1Frege - 1Locke - 0Heidegger - 0Leibniz - 2Spinoza - 1Plato/Platonism - 10Aristotle - 35 Socrates - 10(The latter results are one reason I narrowed this debate down to modern philosophy)This further elucidates his importance since massive figures are never mentioned yet Kant is five different times. It is no wonder that Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy calls Kant “the central figure in modern philosophy” [9]. Ethics; Deontology TheorySubstantial as his critical philosophy is, Kant's ethics rivals its importance according to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy [1]. Kant is the most important figure in deontology, or duty ethics [1]. Deontology ethics is one of the three most important normative theories (virtue ethics, deontology, and consequentialism) [6]. Thus, Kant is of huge importance in ethics. The central feature in Kant’s moral philosophy is the categorical imperative. He was also a major opponent of utilitarianism. Aesthetics Kant's aesthetics and teleology covered a very large scope. He wrote on the subject throughout his life but his most important work was the Critique of Judgement. He divides aesthetic judgments into three categories: judgments of the agreeable, judgments of beauty, and judgments of sublimity. Kant was responsible for resolving the discontinuity of the view that judgments of virtue equate to judgments of taste. Moreover, Kant himself is responsible for the term "aesthetic" becoming widespread, though he was not the first to use the term, and it was not his exact concept that became widespread. [7]. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Kant's aesthetic theory has always been extremely influential within philosophical aesthetics and the philosophy of art, and since the late 1970s there has been a rapidly expanding literature on Kant's aesthetics within Anglo-American Kant interpretation” [5]. I look forward to Con’s opening case. Sources[1] . http://www.iep.utm.edu...[2] . http://www.colorado.edu...[3]http://www.colorado.edu...[4]http://www.academia.edu...[5] . http://plato.stanford.edu...[6] . http://moralphilosophy.info...[7] . http://plato.stanford.edu...[8] . http://plato.stanford.edu...[9] . http://plato.stanford.edu...