240 Kant: A Biographya particularly amusing situation."^5 Philosophy, on the other hand, deals —
at least according to Kant — with what transcends the mere animal func¬
tions we perform. Whether we like it or not, this is what Kant's "second
birth" or palingenesis signified. It turned him away from the worries that
characterized his daily life, and made him the philosopher we know. His
philosophy was meant to help transform us into autonomous moral agents.
To speak with Alexander Pope, this autonomy makes man "the glory, jest,
and riddle of the world."The Critique of Pure Reason:
"Nothing More than Two Articles of Belief?"Kant claimed, as we have already seen, that he wrote the Critique within a
period of four to five months, "as if in flight." Other evidence supports
this. As late as June 11,1780, Hamann wrote to Herder: "Kant is still work¬
ing on his Morals of Healthy Reason and Metaphysics, and he is proud of
his being late because it will contribute to the perfection of the work."^6 On
August 15, he reported that Kant expected he would be finished with the
Critique by Michaelmas, then about six weeks away, and on September 7 he
wrote to Hartknoch that "professor Kant will keep his word and finish at
Michaelmas. He is on the fence as to whether to publish with you or with
Härtung. He really would like to have it printed here [in Königsberg]."^7
We may therefore assume that Kant began writing the final version in May
or June of 1780. It was probably written in the same way that most of his
other works were written. Borowski, who claimed that there was not much
to say about the way Kant wrote his works, described it as follows:He first conceived a general outline in his head; then he worked it out more explicitly;
added some passages here and there, writing on little pieces of paper, which he inserted
into the hastily written first draft. After some time, he revised the entire manuscript
again, and then copied it for the printer in its entirety in his clean and clear writing.^8Jachmann reported that "Kant himself assured [him] that he did not write
down a single sentence in the Critique of Pure Reason unless he had pre¬
sented it to Green and had his unprejudiced judgment which was not
bound to any system."^9 If this is true, and there is no reason to doubt it,
then Kant's Critique is not so much the work of a solitary and isolated
thinker as the product of a collaborative effort. Granted, all the ideas were
Kant's, and he was presenting his own system. Yet we may wonder how
Green's judgment changed the first draft of the Critique. Jachmann claimed