Spelled With A "K"

Today is the birthday of perhaps the most influential philosopher of the modern era, Immanuel Kant, born in 1724.  I remember reading his Critique Of Pure Reason, but I don't remember understanding it.

Some philosophers, even German ones--for instance, Nietzsche--can be fun to read, but Kant is full of jargon and can be grueling. (Of course, I'm reading him in translation.  Perhaps he's even harder in his own tongue.)

Kant is famous for a lot of stuff (at least to other philosophers) and I'm not the one to summarize it well.  He certainly wrote a lot about morality and how it comes from reason.  But let's just talk about one of his well-known concepts, the Categorical Imperative.

The CI is often explained that you should act in such a way that you would be satisfied if everyone acted this way.  It's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure if it works in practice or in theory.  But then, you don't have to agree with Kant.  You just have to try to understand him (if you're taking a philosophy class) and take it from there.