Philosopher Immanuel Kant is Coming to ‘Tekken 7’

The next character coming to Bandai-Namco’s Tekken 7 is both empirically and objectively a badass. That’s right, philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is joining the fight, ready to mix it up with the likes of Yoshimitsu and Devil Jin (both of whom have no notable philosophical works to speak of).

Immanuel Kant will play much differently than any other fighter in Tekken 7. His only ranged attack will be arguing that human knowledge is gained by sensory input but that it is reason which shapes that experience, leaving his opponent lost in thought and vulnerable.

Another big difference: Immanuel Kant will not be able to block. Instead, he will argue that while a punch exists, its nature is unknowable. Punches and all other physical attacks will still hurt him.

For his special Rage Art attack, Kant forces his opponent—and therefore the player—to read the entirety of his most important work, The Critique of Pure Reason. It can help to read Kant’s Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, a shorter book written by Kant to summarize and state the purpose of Critique, before his rage meter fills up.

Introducing a transcendental idealist will be a welcome change for Tekken 7, as the game is already full of empiricists like Heihachi and objectivists like Kazuya. And much like Kazumi can sick a tiger on her opponents with d/f+2, Immanuel Kant can send out his most noted disciple, Jakob Fredrich Fries (1773-1843), to not simply clarify Kant’s beliefs but to introduce the concept of intuition and therefore expand upon Kantian ideals without creating an entirely new school of thought like the German Idealists, by pressing f,f, 2+3.

The transcendental idealist will be available soon via DLC, and will come with his own stage—the library of East Prussia’s University of Königsberg. It was there that Kant did so much of his foundational philosophies on the nature of truth, and also where he practiced his airborne combos.

Images: Flickr, Wikipedia