Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) taught the first lectures on anthropology in the European academic world. He specifically developed a conception of "pragmatic anthropology", according to which the human being is studied as a free agent. At the same time, he conceived of his anthropology as an empirical, not a strictly philosophical discipline. Both his philosophical and his anthropological work has been one of the influences in the field during the 19th and 20th century. After Kant, Ludwig Feuerbach is sometimes considered the next most important influence and founder of anthropological philosophy.