International Phenomenological Society

The Lives of Kant

Immanuel Kant. Der Mann und das Werk by Karl Vorländer; Felix Malter; Konrad Kopper;
Wolfgang Ritzel; The Life of Immanuel Kant by J. W. H. Stuckenberg; Immanuel Kant by
Arsenij Gulyga.; Sigrun Bielfeldt; Kant's Life and Thought by Ernst Cassirer.; James Haden;
Stephen Körner; Kant, Eine Biographie by Wolfgang Ritzel
Review by: Rolf George
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 47, No. 3 (Mar., 1987), pp. 485-500
Published by: International Phenomenological Society
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Critical Notices

The Lives of Kant

Immanuel Kant. Der Mann und das Werk. KARL VORLANDER. Edited by
Felix Malter with Konrad Kopper, with an essay on Kant's Opus Postumum
by Wolfgang Ritzel. Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1977 (second edition).
The Life of Immanuel Kant. J. W. H. STUCKENBERG. London: Macmillan,
i88z. Reprinted Lanham, London: University Press of America, i986.
Immanuel Kant. ARSENIJ GULYGA. Translated into German from a Rus-
sian edition (Moscow 1977) by Sigrun Bielfeldt, with a postscript by Sigrun
Bielfeldt. Frankfurt am Main: Insel, i98i.
Kant's Life and Thought. ERNST CASSIRER. Translated by James Haden,
with an introduction by Stephen Korner. New Haven and London: Yale Uni-
versity Press, i98I. From the German Kants Leben und Lehre, Berlin i9i8.
Kant, Eine Biographie. WOLFGANG RITZEL. Berlin, New York: Walter De
Gruyter,i985.
The second edition of Vorlander's Kant Biography (I977) contains a selective
(!) bibliography by Felix Malter of 483 books, essays, notes, obituaries, etc.
that deal with Kant's life, or shed light on some aspect of it,' lending weight
to the rumor that more has been written about him than anyone else, except-
ing only Napoleon and Goethe. A closer look shows that most of the entries
ventilate matters of little interest to philosophers: twenty-two are about his
grave, forty-six (i8 by Vaihinger) describe engravings and pictures that were
discovered here and there, several deal with his skull, and at least a couple of
dozen with his ancestry. There are short notes on various details of Kant's
life, patriotic reflections, diaries and biographies of others in which he is men-
tioned, and books on his philosophy, like Jaspers's Kant, that deal briefly
with his life, usually in an introductory chapter. If all this is set aside, one is
left with only a half dozen early reminiscences, and four later full dress biog-
raphies.
There has been quite a bit of activity since 1977: Arsenij Gulyga's Imman-
uel Kant was published in Moscow that year. In i98i appeared its German
translation, and also the first English edition of Cassirer's important Kant's
Life and Thought. Wolfgang Ritzel's hefty Immanuel Kant, Eine Biographie
came out in i985, and last year saw the reprinting, by the University Press of
America, of Stuckenberg's splendid The Life of Immanuel Kant of i88z.
Vorlinder tells us (II, 345) that Kant's death in i804 "drew remarkably lit-
tle attention outside of Konigsberg." World events, no doubt, were largely
responsible for this: Napoleon crowned himself emperor in that year, and
won the decisive battle of Austerlitz in the next. But it also had to do with
the declining fortunes of Kantianism. The last small wave of publications on

Vorlander11/465ff.

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his life and thought occurredaround the time of his death, some of them
occasionedby it.
Among the latter are the three short biographiesof Borowski,Jachmann
and Wasianski.They are the source of most Kant anecdotes,and make very
good reading.Althoughthere is no questionof their authors'honesty, to say
nothing of their friendshipand devotion, they have created a false popular
picture. When the anecdotes are retold in philosophicalseminarsand Bier-
stuben,the sense is usuallylost that they portraythe habits and foibles of old
age. Consider,for instance,his regularityand punctuality.It is claimed' that
he interruptedhis daily routine only twice: when readingRousseau'sEmile,
in 176z, and twenty seven years later, on hearingof the fall of the Bastille.
This is utter nonsense;he was a pedantonly afterhe becameprofessor.In the
sixties one could still see him at irregularhours in the in the inn, over a glass
of wine, "if there was anyone to talk to," and sometimes, it seems, he
couldn'tfind his way home (cf. VorlanderI, p. 138). He was then not a man
to set one's clock by. And if Kant did indeed form the maxim never to enter
a carriagehe had not himselfrented,it was almost too late in life ever to act
on it.
The three pieces give no hint of Kant's intellectual achievements.Only
Borowski even lists his works, with brief and meaninglesssummaries:the
Critiqueof Pure Reason rates only two sentences.Jachmann'sis a sort of
characterstudy, and Wasianski'sreport is confinedto the last four years of
life.
An anonymous biographypublishedin Leipzig in the same year is not a
reliablesource. The only other piece even worth mentioningis the memoirof
Hasse, Letzte AuflerungenKant's, for the most part an unpleasantrecord of
his dotage, but also a source of furtheranecdotes.We learn from it (p. 4Z)
that in i8oz Kant sent a pair of his shoes to be displayed,with other famous
shoes, in the Raritatenkabinettin Dresden. He was concerned,evidently,to
assumehis place in this earlyGermanGrauman'sChinese.
During the next several decades not much was written about Kant. This
period of inattentionis punctuatedby two editions of his collected works,3
and a trickle of text editions and occasional pieces, many in the Preuflische
Provinzialblatterand its successor publications,which were devoted to the
furtheranceof East Prussianculture,and publishedin Konigsberg.
This neglectcan be illustratedin many ways: in i832 the assets of his pub-
lisher Nicolovius still contained i ioo unsold copies of the first edition of
Streit der Fakultatenof 1798 (VorlanderII p. 85); between fall of i807 and
the summerof i865 the Universityof Konigsbergoffered no courses exclu-
sively on Kant'sphilosophy.
Most telling is a classificationof the z9 Prussianphilosophy professors
made by Rosenkranzin i85I: one Platonist,two Aristotelians,one historico-
critical philosopher, one scholastic, two Guentherians(?), four Kantians,
three eclectics,three Herbartians,two followers of Schelling,and ten Hegel-
ians. In the rest of Germanythere was not a single Kantian,and in Konigs-

For instance by Anthony Arblaster,The Rise and Decline of WesternLiberalism

(Oxford:Blackwell's,i984), p. zo6.
Rosenkranzand Schubert(i838-4z), and Hartenstein(i838-39).

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berg there had not been one for twenty years. (Stuckenberg, p. 473). This
nose-count, taken during the period of "deepest decline of German philoso-
phy"4 is remarkable in several ways: the philosophers are divided by their
partisan roles: each is a "man of system," none is accorded the courtesy of
originality sufficient to have his own name associated with what he does, and
none is identified by a philosophical specialty. All this is the effect not of cen-
sorship and oppression, but of philosophical lassitude and fecklessness. We
must add, though, that the list does not do justice, for instance, to the great
Trendelenburg, who probably was one of the two Aristotelians.
Schubert's Immanuel Kant's Biographie was written during that period, and
published in i84z. One must have every respect for Schubert's sedulous
labors. He had collected a great deal of material, and had access to the
Konigsberg collection of Kant's literary remains. But he knew only 8o letters
(including, however, the important letters to Herz) compared with the Z88
printed in the Academy Edition, which also prints 6zi letters to Kant. Vor-
lander relies on him only three times in trivial matters, and has to correct him
twice. Kuno Fischer's Kant's Leben und die Grundlagen seiner Lehre (i86o),
though philosophically enormously more important, is similarly hampered by
the dearth of available biographical materials.
The great controversies and synergies out of which grew the neo-Kantian
movement in the 6o's and 70's also lent new impetus to the study of Kant's
life. Malter's list documents an enormous increase of activity after the middle
of the century. Among these works, however, was only one major biography.
The Life of Immanuel Kant by J. H. W. Stuckenberg, of Wittenberg Col-
lege, Ohio, was published in London in i88z, and, happily, was reissued by
the University Press of America in i986. Stuckenberg had spent some time in
Berlin and was well acquainted with the biographical materials then available.
In detail, accuracy, and documentation the book is no match for some of the
later work, but stands head and shoulders above anything that had gone
before, and is well worth reading even now. English readers who want to
learn about Kant's life, and find Cassirer's work (of which more presently)
too austere, could do no better. No one interested in Kant will regard this
book with anything but affection.
We learn here that Kant was once young. Stuckenberg, as he often does,
lets his source speak, here Kant's friend Heilsberg:
His only recreationconsistedin playingbilliards,a game in which Wldmerand I were
his constantcompanions.We had developedour skill almost to the utmost, and rarely
returnedhome without some gain . . . as a consequence,personsrefusedto play with
us, and we abandonedthis way of making money, and chose l'hombre,which Kant
playedwell (p. 51 f.).
Vorlander reports the same matter in his own words, without economy. We
note in passing that directly after Kant's death, his house was sold and turned
into a billiard parlor and student hangout under the name Au Billard Royal.
Stuckenberg notes it, and probably saw the irony in it.

Brentanoto Kraus,MarchZi, i9i6.

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 He regards with amused, if somewhat puzzled, detachment the effusions of
early Kant enthusiasts:
The KantianCriticismhad apparentlydeprivedmen of the power of criticism,and the
"Kritikof Pure Reason,"of the exerciseof reason.Those who called Kant the Master
of Philosophy,the Herculesamong thinkers,the modern Socrates,the GermanPlato
and Aristotleunitedin one person,were very moderate.One wrote, God said, Let there
be light; and therewas - Kant'sphilosophy(p. 374).
The result looks like irony; instead of propriety,a new fanaticismappearedwhich
seemedto be but the revengeof humannaturefor the effort to suppressits feelings(p.
377).
He insists that nothing could be more alien to the spirit of Kant than these
ravings. About the efforts to put Kant's philosophy into verse (one such was
published in 1794, and a poem in 348 Latin hexameters appeared shortly
before Kant's death) he remarks that it is "almost too much for human
nature to bear" (p. 37z), a fitting judgment, considering such efforts as this:

You carriedthe torch to the ground

Of the facultyof thought,and naturerecoiled
Whendeep in her darkworkings
Suddenlyyour light fell on her.5

What he would have said to Max Epstein's rendition of the Critique of

Pure Reason in German stanzas,6 God only knows. That he meant these
barbs to be aimed also at some of the ardor of the German Kant Kultur of
the i88o's is apparent from his Preface (p. vii).
Stuckenberg had a nice sense for the paradoxical and odd. Kant's reminder
to himself "I must forget the name of Lampe" struck him as worth mention-
ing, as did his remark to Hippel "I do not understand the Catechism, but I
understood it formerly" (p. lz7). His account of Kant's writings is intelligent
and craftsmanlike, if not always penetrating. There is disproportionate
emphasis on the deliverances on religion and theology. Some of this may be
skipped, and, anyway, if an intellectual biography is wanted, Cassirer's is to
be preferred.
Stuckenberg's book is generally, though not always, reliable. There is a
claim, for example, that Kant acquired his ease, culture, and polish while
tutor at the "Kayserling" (should be Keyserling) Estate, when it is almost cer-
tain that he was not a tutor there, though he knew and esteemed the countess
and the family. Stuckenberg is also just a bit too trusting of his sources. For
instance, he follows Reicke in the account of Kant's attempts at courtship,
which, so it is claimed, were once targeted upon a Westphalian maiden, but
pursued with such ineptitude (since "Kant's matrimonial skill did not surpass
his mechanical," p. i90) that she was already on the border of Westphalia
before Kant even knew of her departure.7 There is no evidence to support

MonatschriftXV, p. 377.
5 Altpreuflische

6Berlin 19z3. Epstein'sbook is only one of four translationsinto Germanof the First
Critiqueto appeararoundthat time; the others are prose translations:WilhelmSta-
pel (Hamburg
i9i9-zi), H. E. Fischer(Munichi9z0), andGeorgDeycke(Libeck
i9z6).

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this. A more realistic assessment of Kant's love life will be given below.
But Stuckenberg is a very good read: sympathetic, witty, and civilized, giv-
ing us a good, and in its outlines, though not in every detail, accurate, picture
of Kant.
In i9ii Karl Vorlander published Immanuel Kants Leben. In this brief and
dependable work he promises a more compendious biography, which
appeared in two volumes in 19z4 under the title Immanuel Kant. Der Mann
und das Werk. The second expanded edition was edited by Rudolf Malter
and published in one volume in 1977. In addition to Vorlander's work, it
contains a good account by Wolfgang Ritzel of Kant's Opus Postumum, as
well as Malter's extensive bibliography.
This is the most readable and, with respect to the details of Kant's life, still
the most extensive and accurate of the biographies. The author remarks in his
preface that he has sacrificed some Wissenschaftlichkeit to readability, and,
indeed, the work lacks much of the technical apparatus, footnoting, and
cross-referencing that German scholarship demands of a biography that is
truly wissenschaftlich. It is crammed with facts, some well known, others
recondite; but fluency of style, felicity of expression, and sensible commentary
make reading it a pleasure. Those who take biographies as their light reading
(and have the German) will find the 8oo pages no imposition. All others can
use the excellent analytical table of contents for quick orientation and nar-
rowly targeted reading.
As is common in this business, Vorlander promises an impossibility, namely
to show "how Kant's work grew of necessity from his outer and inner life,
his personality, and against the background of his time" (xvii). There are
indeed extensive discussions of the influences upon Kant, his reading, and
correspondence, but these only engender an illusion of necessity. One gets a
proper sense of the development of Kant's thought from before the Disserta-
tion to the First Critique, but there is no more necessity in this than in the
evolution of the horse. In general, Kant's major published work is treated
with too much brevity. Still, this is -an intellectual biography of rank, with
illuminating self-contained essays on Kant's political persuasion, his religion,
and vignettes on various topics.
The German translation of Arsenij Gulyga's Immanuel Kant appeared in
i98I. A special wrapper on it tells us that Professor Henrich, now of
Munich, thinks it the "most important (bedeutendste) Kant biography of our
century." At the time the century had produced really only two competitors,
some fifty years earlier: Cassirer and Vorlander. To whom might this book be
more important than either of these? Not, certainly, to the student of Kant
who looks for an intellectual biography: he had best turn to Cassirer. Nor to
the lovers of Kantiana: they should consult Vorlander. This leaves the intelli-
gent lay public, for whom this book is plainly meant. Cassirer and Vorlander
had expressed similar intentions, but the public has changed, perhaps also its
intelligence, and most certainly the background and interest on which an
author can rely.
In many ways Gulyga succeeds splendidly. He writes a spirited, almost racy,
style (at least that is how it comes out in the brilliant German translation of
Sigrun Bielfeldt). The book is most captivating, and more panoramic than any

Cf. W. Reicke,AltpreuflischeMonatsschriftXVI, p. 6o8.

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of the others. It is the very antithesis of the squat serviceabilityRussian
equipmentis reputedto have. Gulygabringshome the point, which cannot be
made too often, that Kantwas a Europeanfigurewho, as Hamanntells us in
a letter, "readeverything."All exegesis of Kant must start from the assump-
tion that the conceptualpreparationwith which he began the CriticalEnter-
prise was state of the art, if I may so put it, that is, influencednot only by
earlieror more local, but also by recent Frenchand Scottishthought. (More
of this anon.) This book is a useful antidote, if one is still needed, to the
"GermanKant"of Max Wund and others, and Vaihinger'sKant who com-
munesover the heads of crowdsonly with the Greats.
Gulyga also correctsthe picture of Kant's Konigsberg,drawn by Stucken-
berg and others (p. 38), as a learnedSiberia.Complaintsabout the remote-
ness of the city had to do, invariably,with delays, insignificanton the philo-
sophical time scale, in the transmission of news. The Enlightenment
progressedin Konigsbergas elsewhere,its momentumnot diminishedeven
underthe Russianoccupation,8which, in any case, broughtmore glitterthan
hardshipto the city. It was no backwater.
The book is rich in asides, historicaland literaryallusions, anecdotesnot
only about Kant, but about a panoplyof i8th centuryfigures.It is only natu-
ral that Gulygashould give largerscope to Russianthought than other biog-
raphies and works on Kant. One learns that Russia, too, was not spared
Kantian,or Neo-Kantianpoetry.Here is AndrejBelyj(i880-i934):

Shuddering upwardI remindmyself

Of theillusorynatureof space.

Gulygaearnestlyappreciatesthis; it is probablybetterin Russian(p. IZ5).

Thereis an episode in Kant'slife, interestingin itself, whose divergenttreat-
ment by Vorlanderand Gulyga illustratesthe style and characterof both. It
has to do with Kant'srelationto women, specificallyMaria CharlottaJacobi,
wife of a Konigsbergbanker.
She writes to Kant, in one of the earliestextant letters,that she had looked
for him in all corners of her (apparentlyextensive) garden. Unable to find
him, she busied herself by making a tassel or hanger for his rapier (Degen-
band).She continues:
I requestyourcompanytomorrowafternoon.Yes,yes I shallcome,I hearyou say.
Verywell,we expectyou. Andthen,too, shallmy clockbe wound- forgiveme this
reminder.. . . I sendyoua kiss...
. . .from thegarden,Juneiz, 176z. Jacobin.9
Vorlanderwas plainly uncomfortablewith this letter (I, p. i3zff). Although
he knew that Kant was then wearing a rapier, he suggests the emendation
Segenbandfor Degenband.It is not clear what kind of object that might be;
the nearest thing would be a prayer-shawl.However, what little we know
about the lady does not encouragethe thought that she was given to crafting
religiousarticles;and if she had, Kant would not have used them. Vorlander

8
DuringtheSevenYearsWar,knownhereas theFrenchandIndianWars,1756-63.
9 Akad.X, p. 39.

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thinks that nothing in the letter suggests more than close friendship:"As
everyoneknows, kisses had less meaningthen than they do now." The wind-
ing of the clock is explainedby a referenceto Kant'slectures:"(Women)use
their books in the same way as their watch; they carry them to show that
they have one." But this is from the Anthropologyof 1797,0 and, though
he probablymade the quip in earlierlectures,there is no reason to suppose
that MadameJacobiever went to one.
Gulyga, by contrast,takes the clock-windingto be an allusion to Tristram
Shandy,whose father dependablywound the large house-clockevery Sunday
night, and in time came to attend to other "domesticconcernments,"viz. his
matrimonialduties, at that same time, so that an associationof ideas was set
up in Mrs. Shandy,in keepingwith the theoriesof "the sagaciousLocke,who
certainlyunderstoodthe natureof these thingsbetterthan most men.""
The early 6o's mark the very beginning of Shandyismin Germany, the
dawn of the age of sentiment,and Kant'sgood friend Hippel was a force in
that movement,'"as were Hamann and Herder, all in Konigsbergat the
time, and all associatedwith Kant.'3 Kant himself knew Sterne well,'4 and
MadameJacobi was reputedto be well read. For what it's worth, June 12,
1762 was a Saturday.
Maria CharlottaJacobi was then z3 years old, and had been unhappily
marriedfor ten of them. We next hear from her in a letter to Kant from Ber-
lin, of Jan. i8, I766,15 asking him to apologize for not coming to Berlin to
travel back to Konigsberg with her (as he had promised? as she had asked?).
She regrets that she does not have the money to reward him according to his
deserts. In 1768 she was divorced, and there were "undeserved rumors" nam-

Akad. VII,p. 307.

Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy, Book I, chap. 4. Gulyga was not, however, the
first to note the allusion to Shandy. Th&pride of place must go to Wolfgang Ritzel,
Immanuel Kant, Zur Person, p. 42. See also his Immanuel Kant, pp. i izff.
I He wrote a novel in the style of Sterne: Lebensliufe in aufsteigender Linie, and is
usually mentioned, with Wieland and Jean Paul, as a representative of that style,
though not quite of their stature.
13 Tristram Shandy had been published in 1760. The German translations did not
begin to appear until 1763; however, Michelsen thinks that many of the German lit-
erary figures, including Herder and Hamann, read Tristram Shandy in the original
(Michelsen p. 63). It is therefore entirely possible that Kant and Madame Jacobi did
not have to wait for the first German Tristram to learn about the clock. Indeed,
given that three leading figures in the German Sterne reception were then on friendly
terms, probably with both of them, it is overwhelmingly likely that they knew what
had then appeared of the novel.
14 There are a number of references to Sterne in the Reflections (375, 479, 914, 9O0,
1486, 4669). None of them can be dated before 1764, but we should not expect to
find earlier entries: Sterne always shows up in connection with "wit," a subject Kant
had relegated to anthropology, and there are no early notes on the subject, at least
not in Akad. Sterne is also mentioned in the Anthropology VII, z04, z35, and the
Pddagogik IX, 469, and in VIII, I63 (all in Akad.).
I5 Akad. X, P. 57-

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ing Kant and Hippel.'6 She then married J. J. Goschen, master of the
Konigsberg Mint, who had been up to then, but was not thereafter, a close
friend of Kant's.
That Kant was sufficiently abreast of European literature to make the refer-
ence to Sterne plausible fits as easily into Gulyga's account as it jars with
Vorlander's. So also does the supposition that his relation to Madame Jacobi
was more animated than most Kant scholars allow themselves to think. If
things were as here suggested, then the character reform and "self-correction"
that Kant is said to have undergone in those years might be attributable not
to his encounter with Rousseau, but with a woman.'7 If one could show that
some of his moral views were the product not of abstract thought, but of an
affair of the heart: that truly would be a demonstration that life bears on
theory.
But to return to Gulyga's Kant. The book also has its flaws. It represents a
fashionable, a trendy Kant, useful as an antidote to the early biographers, but
sometimes misrepresented in detail. Gulyga reports that, when Magister Kant
was at table with some junior officers, a young lieutenant found himself much
embarrassed when he spilled some wine on the white table cloth. Kant, so it
is here claimed, took his own glass and calmly began to pour red lines depict-
ing the battle they were then discussing while excogitating upon it (p. 73).
Tracking down the probably apocryphal source'8 one finds that it was Mag-
ister Kant who spilled the wine, and General Meyer who carried on from
there. Stuckenberg got this episode right (p. 197).
Concerning matters of theory, what is one to make of such sentences as
"Kant's interpretation of time cannot be called anything other than poetical
." (it is thus no accident, he continues in nonchalant transition, that Rus-
sian poets waxed enthusiastic over the Transcendental Aesthetic). Or, con-
sider the following:

i6 Hippel to Scheffner,August iz, 1769; Vorlknder,I, p.136). Vorlanderdeals with

this by placingan exclamationpoint (!) behindthe name of Kant.That same letter
contains the Kant biographer'sanalogueof Fermat'slast theorem:Kant'sinvolve-
ment in the matter "is a comedy in five acts" (note that the classicalcomedy has
only three)"whichI cannotpossiblyreportto-day."
17 Cf. Wolfgang Ritzel, Kant, zur Person, pp. 33 ff., and his ImmanuelKant, pp.
iizff. Ritzelsuggests,without much reservation,that Kanthad an affairwith Mme.
Jacobi.There are, indeed,a numberof notes in Kant'scopy of the Observationson
the Beautifuland Sublimethat suggest as much, particularly"The path to a good
marriagegoes through promiscuity(Liederlichkeit),an unpleasantthought, espe-
cially since it is true." This is connectedwith the observationthat a man who is
enervatedby his early life, and depriveshis wife of maritaljoy, also takes away a
right that nature has given her. To expect from a woman in this position such
"greatvirtue" and "self denial" is "foolish"and "chimerical."(Akad. XX, p. 69;
Kant, zur Person, pp. 39 ff.) The description,as it happens,fits MariaJacobi and
her mucholder husbandexactly.
i8 Neue PreuflischeProvinzialbliitter, VI, p. I, Alcove III of the Libraryof Congress,
adjacentto the ReadingRoom. An incidentexactly like this is also reportedabout
Bismarck.

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On the whole, CriticalPhilosophyproceededfrom the existenceof an objectiveworld,
which is given as independentof our consciousness;man influencesthe course of the
world, but it can maintainitself very well without him. Accordingto Kant,philosophy
is actuallynothingbut a correctionof commonsense (p. 300).
The first statement, particularly, is nettling since it implies that one of the
deepest and best of Kant's arguments, the Second Analogy, is only so much
smoke. Gulyga is not successful in his account of the tough and tight Kantian
argumentation of the Transcendental Analytic, and the same holds for theo-
retical philosophy generally. He seems too convinced of the superiority of a
more modern approach - "scientific," as he calls it - to give Kant's argu-
ments much of a run. He is far better when it comes to aesthetic judgment,
and practical philosophy. This is in keeping, perhaps, with a Russian
tradition of emphasis, in Kant interpretation, on such matters as the produc-
tive imagination, phantasy, wit.'9
I have heard the book castigated as a propaganda effort. This allegation is
absurd in the extreme. There are technical flaws, and occasional distant
echoes of Official Philosophy, but this is above all an intelligent and humane
book. If it is propaganda for anything, then for these virtues.
Ernst Cassirer's Kant's Life and Thought was first published in i9i8 as the
eleventh volume of his Kant edition. We now have a handsome English trans-
lation by James Haden with an introduction by Stephan Korner. This classic,
unlike the other biographies, does not dwell upon the minutiae of Kant's life.
There is no recounting of anecdotes, no examination of his domestic econ-
omy; accounts of his friendships are limited to the intellectual company he
kept. Instead, the core of the book, more than half of the 4zo pages,
addresses Kant's writing of the Critical period, in what must surely rank as
one of the best synoptic discussions of Kant's system. Those who have spent
much time, a seminar, or years, in the line-by-line, rabbinical, study of the
texts will find in this book a clear and non-partisan survey of the grand
themes of Critical Philosophy.
It is a moot point whether one should call the development recorded in the
central section of the book, from the Critique of Pure Reason to the Critique
of Judgment "biographical": the press of system, the progression from one
problem to the next in those years was Kant's life. Cassirer, in fact, adheres
to Stuckenberg's pithy precept that "sometimes life is greater than theory,
sometimes immeasurably less" (p. 136). Not much can be said about Kant's
personal development in that period that would aid us in understanding his
work; there are no external influences to be recounted and, indeed, devotion
to the work itself left little room for other matters.
It is otherwise with the earlier years. Here we learn more about the person:
his studies, reading, correspondence, the thrust of his early work, and the dis-
covery of the Critical problem. The book as a whole seems to abide by a
tenet, stated in the introduction, that "the essential task of every biography of
a great thinker is to trace how his individuality blends ever more closely with
his work and seemingly vanishes entirely" (p. 6). Cassirer's biography begins
with the person and ends with the thinker.

'9 Cf. Bielfeldt'spostscript,p. 355.

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 The translation is accurate and literate. For longer passages from the Cri-
tique of Pure Reason, Haden relies on Kemp Smith. This is unfortunate, since
his own translation, where it occurs, is superior. There is, for instance, a
pregnant sentence in the first edition Transcendental Deduction (AiO5),
"Alsdann sagen wir: wir erkennen den Gegenstand, wenn wir in dem Man-
nigfaltigen der Anschauung synthetische Einheit bewirkt haben...." Cas-
sirer quotes this sentence twice, once in a larger context for which Haden
uses the received translation, "It is only when we have thus produced syn-
thetic unity in the manifold of intuition that we are in a position to say that
we know the object . . ." (p. 147). This wording not only has the condi-
tional run the wrong way, it also contributes to a certain confusion cast over
the whole Critique by rendering "Erkenntnis" as "knowledge." When the
quotation recurs (p.17z), Haden translates it himself, with much better suc-
cess: "Consequently we say that we recognize the object when we have
affected synthetic unity in the manifold of intuition."20
Only occasionally is Haden too literal, and therefore stilted. When Cassirer
says that in the Critique of Judgement all the moments of the Kantian spirit
are displayed in "glicklichster gegenseitiger Durchdringung" Haden translates
this Goethean phrase by saying that they show "most felicitous mutual inter-
penetration." It would, I think, have been better to say that they were dis-
played in happiest harmony, or happiest concert. There are a few minor
errors: the first book mentioned on p. z71 is the Critique of Practical (rather
than Pure) Reason, and the property of Christianity discussed p. 393 is
"worthiness of love" (Liebenswfirdigkeit), not "lovableness." None of this
distracts from the signal service Professor Haden has rendered.
Wolfgang Ritzel's Immanuel Kant, Eine Biographie is an imposing volume
of 736 large and literate pages, the work of a lifetime, it seems, and, unlike
Gulyga's, addresses a scholarly audience. Since Vorlander's work a great mass
of new source material has become accessible. The Academy Edition has
grown by a dozen or so volumes, which include the Opus Postumum, Kant's
extensive notes and sketches from his~own (interleafed) copy of the Observa-
tions on the Beautiful and Sublime, and volumes of lecture transcripts. Ritzel
shows exemplary knowledge and mastery of these things, uses them exten-
sively (one of the major virtues of the book), and excerpts and comments
upon them in detail and at length. This is, in short, a book so depressingly
voluminous and learned that the reviewer inclines to-praise rather than read it
- a temptation that was staunchly resisted.
Ritzel is more self-conscious than other Kant biographers. He includes an
excursus "How is a Kant biography uberhaupt possible" ("Wie ist eine Kant
Biographie uberhaupt m6glich?"), a version of an article published earlier."'
The answer is "Just barely." Ritzel epitomizes his problem in the question
"What if, according to Kant's doctrine, the biography of a philosopher is an
impossibility?" (p. 475). To bad for Kant's doctrine, one is inclined to say;
there are good biographies of philosophers, and so the doctrine must be
wrong. But wait, there is a twist: according to Ritzel the biographer must

20
For more on the subjectsee my "Vorstellungand Erkenntnisin Kant,"in Interpret-
ing Kant,ed. Moltke S. Gram(IowaCity: Universityof Iowa Press,i98z).
KS 6z, I971I, pp. 98-IZI.

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appropriatethe philosophy of his subject, and, since the anthropological
motif is here underdeveloped,CriticalPhilosophydoes not allow one to come
to gripswith individuality(including,presumablythat of Kanthimself).Thus:
To be able to write Kant'sbiography,one must accept his philosophy.If one
accepts Kant's philosophy, then one cannot write his biography.Ergo one
cannot write Kant'sbiography.
The argumentcarries,but there is a doubtfulpremiss(or so it seems in my
transatlanticallynaive view of such things), viz. that only fat cowherdscan
drive fat kine: why does one have to accept Kant'sphilosophyto describeit
and discuss it, biographicallyor otherwise?What is the logic of this thing
called Nachvollzug?I don't quite understandRitzel's resolution of his own
conundrum;whateverit is, it was splendidlyeffective,to judge from the size
of the book.
Unlike the other biographers,Ritzel also advances,and attemptsto estab-
lish, a thesis, which he had first formulated,as mentioned,in Kant, zur Per-
son,ZZ namely, that Kant's encounter with Rousseau lead to a moral and
intellectualreformthat explainsnot only much of his personaldemeanor,but
also determinedthe developmentof his thought, for instance, from the first
edition of CPR to the second and beyond. Kant's fascinationwith Rousseau
is well known, and it is true that he remarkedin the notes to the Observa-
tions that "Rousseauhas set me straight."But how much weight should the
biographerattach to Kant'sown testimony?And how certaincan one be that
it was not systematic considerations,but his early reading that lead to
changesin his philosophymore than two decadeslater?And how significant
were these changesanyway?
But this much is true: with discernmentnot found in earlier biographers,
Ritzel sees that in the 6o's a great change occurredin Kant. The student of
these matterswill at once appreciatethe importanceof this point: to under-
stand the CriticalTurn, one needs to know what it was a turn from, in what
directionKant was travellingbefore he changedcourse. The hackneyedview
that the Critical Philosophyis a combinationand repair of the systems of
"rationalism"and "empiricism"has mercifullylong since been laid to rest.
But what exactly was Kant up to in the 6o's? What can the biographer
uncoverthat helps us to see this? Rousseau,it would seem, was only one fac-
tor of many, and here are a few pointers in other directionsthat might be
worth furtherpursuit.
We recall that this was the period of his heady encounter with Mme.
Jacobi, and it is also at this time that he enteredin his copy of Baumgarten's
Metaphysica,as a commenton Sect. 436,
Perfectiomundiabsolutenon consistitin multitudine,
ordine,varietate
substantiarum,
sedin maximoet purissimo sensu.23
voluptatis
So there you are, Baumgarten.Accordingto ProfessorSchneewind(in a talk
recentlygiven at Pittsburgh)Kant was then immersedin the study of Pufen-
dorf. Possibly: We already heard that Kant read everything,and therefore

22
It wasadumbratedbyVorlinder,I, p. 17.
23 Refl.3804, Akad.XVII,p. z98.

CRITICAL NOTICES 495

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also that author.24But, more importantly,Kant then discoveredthat there is
more to life than Pufendorf.He is daily picked up in an equipageto deliver
lectures before GeneralMeyer and his retinue, he feasts (speist) every day,
and, if he keeps up this social whirl (says Hamann)he will never get his phi-
losophy written."5
The point of these remarksis not that we should go out and discovermore,
possibly salacious, detail. It is, rather,that this is a period of liberationfor
Kant, which left its imprinton his intellectualmake-up.He changeshis man-
ner of writing: the epigrammaticstyle of the Observationson the Beautiful
and Sublimeis sharpenedin the Remarkshe entered into his own copy of
that book - he beginsto resembleLa Rochefoucauldand La Bruyere,whom
he admired.The largest single theme is Women. Plainly he is tooling up to
become a Writerof Fashion, which tendencycontinues in the Dreams of a
SpiritSeer,and then ends when he discoversthe GreatProblem.Afterthat his
considerablegift for aphorismmanifestsitself only occasionallyin the system-
atic work, and more prominentlyin the polemics.
Style and substancego together.He is interestedin one of the more macho
themesof perception:the Molyneux problem.He has, so he had told Borow-
ski in a letter,z6 found an eye surgeonwilling to undertakethe operation;all
he needs now is a person born blind who could be made to see thereby,and
could Borowskihelp him to find one, this being one of the rare cases where
one can do well by doing good. He reads French authors, Condillac no
doubt, and Diderot, recommendsto Hamann that he should translate the
importantparts of the Encyclopedieto make a name for himself. He must
then have read, or been appraisedof not only Hume, but Reid, certainly
Sterne,Butler,Pope, Johnson perhaps,and he moved in a sharp, lively intel-
lectualgroup. (Verylittle evidenceof dogmaticslumberthere.)
There is a broad messagein this, and a sharp point. Broadly,this is when
Kant became a European,a participantin that intellectual ferment which
began to draw the morals from the earlier Enlightenment.Narrowly, Kant
became acquaintedwith the great tradition,then just beginningwith Condil-
lac et al., of ThoughtExperimentin epistemology,of sensationalismand con-
structivism,of which CPR was to become the most splendidexample. That
was the point from which the critical journey began. The many references
back to Leibniz,to Locke, etc., do not show that he was then based there,
but are reminiscentratherof a tendencyin some more restiveand discerning
contemporaryphilosophers,who, though rooted in currentthought and mas-
ters of its nuances,preferto take their themes from the classics.This under-
standingof Kant'smiddle period enjoins us to preparefor the study of CPR
by reading,not just Hume and Leibniz,but also those just mentioned,and a
host of other comtemporaries,and to see how he dealt with then current
problems.

Z4
Wald,in his funeraloration,adducedquitea bit moreindependent
and eloquent
testimonyto Kant'svoraciousreadinghabits:Neue Preu/fischeProvinzialbldtter,
3.
Folge,Vol.V, pp. I1I5- I8.
Z5 Feb.I,
Hamannto JohannGotthelfLindner, 1764.
26
Of March6, 176i.

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 But back to Ritzel. In a daring move Immanuel Kant, Eine Biographie rele-
gates Kant's early life, through the publication of the geophysical writings, to
an introductory chapter. Detailed discussion begins with the decade we think
so important. Much of the material above alluded to is there, and described
in a manner both sensitive and erudite, with the accents set perhaps not quite
in the way we think best.
As the book continues, and Ritzel settles down to draw on Kant's published
work, notes and lectures, he begins to employ a quotey and synopsysing style
that is sometimes tiring, especially when one loses track of just where all the
quotations come from. (He does not hesitate to jump from lecture notes of
the 7oies to the Anthropology of 1798 in the same context, on the assump-
tion, perhaps justified, that the material belongs conceptually together and
may well have originated in the same period.) Here is a sample in translation:
If it is the case that vanity and fashion "give a wrong turn to naturalimpulses,and
make many a male into a dandy but many a female into a pedant or amazon"still,
there is a tendency"on the part of naturealways to lead back to her own order"-
"All of the simple and crude emotion presentin sexual attraction"answersto a pur-
pose in nature,makes the lover happy, but degenerates"easilyinto intemperanceand
dissipation.""Refinedtaste" generallytames the wild inclinations,makes them "well
behavedand decent,"but generallymisses "the great ultimatepurposeof nature."(p.

In much of the book bits of Kant are thus presented with Ritzel's connect-
ing phrases. It would have been better, in a preponderance of cases, to send
the reader to the text itself. Sometimes the connections establish misleading
emphasis, as when it is said that Kant defines man as an animal that needs a
master (p. 543), when Kant merely says that man is such an animal. There is
a difference.
Logical subject matter, and what one may call the "analytic," tough minded
Kant, receive the least satisfactory treatment. For instance (p. 8z.) the
syllogism "All men are mortal; NN is a man: Therefore, NN is mortal," is
said to be of the form Darii; but the Aristotelian canonical dispensation,
which Kant followed, takes this as the singular form of Barbara, singular
propositions being associated with the universal, not with the particular (for
good reasons I won't go into). An example meant to illustrate categorical syl-
logisms (p. z98) instantiates two singular terms and can therefore not be a
syllogism at all, but is some other, more complex, form. Similarly, the exam-
ple for a disjunctive syllogism (p. z98) is really in modo ponente and merely
happens to have a disjunctive conclusion. Thus, of the four examples given of
logical form, three are deficient. This is not a negligible matter: if one does
not know that a disjunction, for Kant, is what is now called the partition of a
set, and does not get the arguments based on it right, one cannot hope to
understand, for instance, the Third Analogy - it's difficult enough as it is.
Predictably, then, the section on the Analogies is weak, and treatment of the
Paralogisms (pp. 300 ff.) does not allow one to figure out what manner of
logical fallacy a paralogism is.
Considerable effort is made to explain the difference in the Transcendental
Deductions of the first and second editions of CPR. But since, for some rea-
son, the discussion of the Metaphysical First Principles of Science occurs only

CRITICAL NOTICES 497

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later, together with that of the Opus Postumum, Kant's enormously impor-
tant gloss on the Deduction (MFPS A xvi f.), which preceded the second edi-
tion of CPR, does not inform Ritzel's discussion of the matter.
Immanuel Kant, Eine Biographie is a complex book. There is a main text,
establishing the thesis and articulating the main themes, there is subsidiary
argument, there is a wealth of documentation. One wonders why a book like
this must be made to look like a novel? Perspicuity would have been better
served if there were at least two levels of type, and copious, and perhaps
lengthy footnotes, and even notes on notes. Instead, the references, though
numerous, are exiguous and crammed into the back of the book, as if they
are somehow disreputable - pudenda in the root sense of that word. They
are also hard to find.
On p. 509 Kant is quoted as saying that he is a "researcher (Forscher) by
inclination." Suppose you are intrigued by this and want to find out just
where Kant said this. There is a number: "z3." This is one of the two thou-
sand references that are arranged in forty three independently numbered
blocks at the end of the book. What subdivision are we in? We page back.
On p. 5oz we discover that that we are in section 3 of something; but of
what? On p. 49z we come to section z of the same, and on p. 485 to section
i. Then on p. 48z we find that these are sections of CIII./B - still not
enough information: it is Book II, which starts on p. zi9. So the reference is
to BII/CIII/B/Sect.3, the thirty first of the blocks. Our item is on p. 717 and
reads "II zo8." This is a reference to the second volume of the Academy Edi-
tion. But what does that volume contain? Those unfortunates who do not
have this edition (and they need every one of the thirty or so volumes to
track down Ritzel's minimalist notes, if they still want to), are as much in the
dark as ever. This reviewer much prefers the less aesthetically pleasing, and
typographically more messy style of scholarly book production, still current
in his youth, with lots of notes, italics and varying type sizes.27
I apologize for finishing the discussion on this peevish note, but we do need
to reassert the primacy of scholarship in book composition, and defeat the
pestilent influence of Design, at least until we grow more thumbs to keep in
different parts of books.
But these really are minor matters. The reviewer despairs of giving an ade-
quate impression of the richness of Ritzel's book. Many parts of it will be
studied with great profit, and repay a second reading. I have in mind not pri-
marily the synopses (though they often come with astute commentary), but
most of all the straightforwardly biographical sections, which are reminiscent
of the elegant earlier Kant, Zur Person. They are sympathetic, warm, erudite,
polished, and sometimes moving. Every university library should have a copy
of this book.

Z7 ImmanuelKant does not have a bibliography.Some intriguingitems, like a late

piece of Kant's,Justificationof the Directioriumof the FrenchRepublic. . . (men-
tioned p. 690) remain untraceable.Where is it reproduced?The index of persons
seems complete,but the subjectindex is perfunctory.Thereis no analyticaltable of
contents.

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 One other study came to my attentionsome years ago, and deservesat least
to be mentioned.It is Kant und Kbnigsbergby Kurt Stavenhagen.This is a
charmingbook with a stock of anecdotes all its own. It is made plausible
here that Kant'spolitical views were influencedin part by the fiercelyrepub-
lican folks of Curland (i.e. the Baltic countries to the north and east of
Konigsberg).Some of these people, it seems, refused to keep bees on the
groundsthat they had queens, and replaced "Reich"with "Republik"at the
end of the Lord'sprayer.But mainly,the book introducesus, betterthan any
other, to Kant'scity and its daily and intellectuallife.
Finally, BernardEdelman'sLa maison de Kant (Paris, 1984), will shortly
appearin the superband subtle translationof GraemeHunter as The House
that Kant Built. It is a poetic-satiricalpiece about Kant's understandingof
human nature, and the regimen of his life that flowed therefrom.It is an
irreverent,thought provoking,sometimesannoying, and in the end moving,
compositionthat is worth readingfor its style alone.
This may be said in summation:Englishreadersare well servedby the two
works now availablein our language;they supplementeach other. Stucken-
berg'sbook, at long last obtainableagain, will do nicely as an accountof the
external circumstancesof Kant's life, his development,the outlines of his
thought,and his early influence.But it is to be read with some caution. For a
compendiousdiscussionof his philosophy,but not as a biography,Cassirer's
book might be preferred.
If pressedto state a preferenceamongstthe whole lot, I would continueto
place Vorlanderat the head of the list, even though he did not know some
importantsourcesthat have since become available.He gives a balancedand
well-organizedaccount of the events in Kant'slife, and reflectson them with
insightfuland unpretentiouscommentary.As for the rest, the Kant scholaris
advised to shelve Gulyga and Stuckenbergwith the biographies,if he is a
lover of these. Cassirer,Vorlander,and Ritzel go on the Kant shelf, the first
for enlightenment,the second for information, and the third for some of
both.28
ROLF GEORGE
Universityof Waterloo,Ontario

z8 Thisreviewwas writtenwhileI was a fellowat the Institutefor Philosophy of Sci-

enceat theUniversity I thanktheInstitute,
of Pittsburgh. andespecially
its Director,
NicholasRescher,for givingme the opportunity for manymonthsof uninterrupted
study,and allowingme this diversion.I cannotrefrainfromconcluding with the
retellingof yet anotheranecdote,not foundin anyof thebiographies.
It is evidently
a fabrication, in a piececalled"Kantiana,"
meantto be inspirational, by an anony-
mous author (Neue Preu/fischeProvinzialblatter,ist series, Vol. VI, i848, p. i6):
"A prisonerhad escapedfromthe fortressFriedrichsruh,
andwas hidingnearthe
Philosopers'Walk.He hadresolvedto shootthe firstpasser-by
witha riflehe had
obtained.It wasKant,innocently
walkingalong,benton hiscane.Thecriminal qui-
etlywaitedforhim,butwasso movedby thesightof thevenerable old manthathe
shotinsteada youngboywhohappened past."

CRITICAL NOTICES 499

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 REFERENCES
Akad. is the Prussian Academy Edition of Kant's works.
L. E. Borowski, R. B. Jachmann, and E. A. Chr.Wasianski. Immanuel Kant.
Kdnigsberg: Nicolovius, 1804. Frequently reprinted, most recently
Darmstadt (I974), Pfullingen (I974). (Cf. Vorlander, 11/474.)
Bernard Edelman. La maison de Kant. Paris: Payot, 1984. The English edi-
tion, The House that Kant Built, by Graeme Hunter to be published soon
by Canadian Philosophical Monographs.
Johann Gottfried Hasse. Letzte Ausserungen Kant's. Kdnigsberg, 1804;
reprintedBerlin,i9z5.
Karl Jaspers. Kant. Munich, 1957; English by Ralph Manheim, New York,
196z.
Peter Michelsen. Laurence Sterne und der deutsche Roman des I8. Jahrhund-
erts. Gdttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 197z.
Wolfgang Ritzel. Kant, zur Person. Bonn, 1975.
Kurt Stavenhagen. Kant und K6nigsberg. Gottingen, 1946.

Husserl, Perception, and Temporal Awareness. IZCHAK MILLER. Cam-

bridge: MIT Press/Bradford Books, 1984. Pp. xvi, s05.
This is an excellent book, a clear, concise, incisive study of Husserl's theory
of the phenomenological structure of perception and time-consciousness-
and, most important, their interrelation. I am in large agreement with Pro-
fessor Miller's interpretations of Husserl, and the Husserlian theory he so
carefully develops is rich and penetrating. Indeed, J. N. Findlay has deemed
Husserl's analysis of time-consciousness one of the finest achievements in
Western philosophy, and Miller's reconstruction of the analysis is sharp and
detailed. The result is an important contribution both to Husserl studies and
to the phenomenology of perception and of temporal awareness - and a
work of clear relevance to contemporary philosophy of mind and cognitive
science.
Husserl scholars will find the book carefully executed; interpretations are
precise, with well-focussed textual support. Readers unfamiliar with Husserl
will still find the book accessible, as Husserl's technical terms are developed
step by step with ample examples. Above all, the subject matter is
intrinsically interesting, and evidently so in Miller's treatment.
The table of contents tells the scope of the work:
Chap. i Intentionality,

Chap. z Perception and Perceptual Judgment,

Chap. 3 The Act of Perceiving,

Chap. 4 Horizon, Congruence, and Perceptual Evidence,

Chap. 5 Brentano's Account of our Temporal Awareness,

Chap. 6 Husserl's Account of Perceiving a Melody,

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