Immanuel Kant

Extreme TL;DR summary

One of the fathers of modern philosophy. Among his many huge contributions:

• The categorical imperative: One should act so that if his action were turned into a general rule, it were a universal good.
• noumenon / phenomena distinction: The real world is noumenon, but it’s given to us through the faculties and categories of our mind as phenomena, so we can never know anything count it.
• The categories of understanding that actually do the above
• My god there are so much more

If he were in the modern software business

The uber-strict German manager (sorry, the stereotype still holds, because of course it does) that’s furious you didn’t use the company template for your slidedeck and didn’t update the presenter notes.

He buys everyone’s lunch at the mandatory monthly social gathering, and thinks himself a good person, though he’s insufferable and rambles on even longer than the posts in this blog.

He’s also the smartest person you’ve ever known and will ever get to know.