6

"All-Crushing" Critic

of Metaphysics (1780-1784)

T

HE EIGHTIES and early nineties were the years during which Kant
wrote most of the books for which he is now famous. During these
years he lived mostly for this work. The resulting body of work is awe-
inspiring. While much of it has its roots in his thinking and lecturing dur¬
ing the preceding twenty or so years, the dedication to his work during this
period was truly noble. Most of what people think when they hear the name
"Kant" was created during this period. Most of the stories about Kant can
also be traced back to this period. Still, the author of the three Critiques was
not simply the old man who wrote them. Kant had already lived a longer
life than most people in the eighteenth century could hope for, and his ma¬
ture work was just that: mature. It would have been unthinkable without the
preceding years; and that means both the earlier years, during which he
was a something of a dandy, a foppish man of society, and the silent years
of quiet resolution that resulted from his mental rebirth. William James
differentiated between those who are "once-born" and those who search for
a "second birth" that will "convert" them, will change their "habitual cen¬
ter of... personal energy."^1 Kant belonged to the "twice-born." Though
his conversion was not a conversion to religion but rather an areligious
moral conversion, it was important, for it was what ultimately determined
or informed his critical philosophy. Born of crisis, its effects are everywhere
in Kant's mature philosophy. Even if there remains little to be told about
this crisis, it shows that Kant's rationalism or intellectualism was not eas¬
ily achieved but the result of a struggle that continued during the years in
which he was creating his critical corpus.
Hypochondria remained a problem for Kant until his death. But whereas
he had to worry about heart palpitations during his earlier years, he now
was more anxious about the state of his bowels, as can be seen from one of
Hamann's letters to Herder in April 1783. He had visited Kant, who, he said,

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