Prologue 13account against a wider variety of other sources than we can Borowski's,
he is also less important. Kant was already famous when Jachmann became
his student, drawing many visitors from outside Königsberg. His acquain¬
tances paid greater attention to him when he was famous than they had
when he was young and unknown.
Wasianski, regrettably, restricted himself to telling us about Kant's last
few years. Indeed, it is peculiar how little he had to say about the Kant who
taught him philosophy during the seventies. Since Kant's final years are
the least interesting for an understanding of the background of his phi¬
losophy, Wasanski's account of Kant's decline and death is almost irrele¬
vant for an understanding of Kant's life and thought. Wasianski cared
much for his former teacher, and his account of Kant's last days is truly
touching, but there are occasions on which he is less than discreet. His
anecdotes about Kant's peculiarities are not much better than those of
Hasse. Furthermore, insofar as he believed that he was not just polishing
the image of an old man, but also engaged in providing material "for some
anthropological and psychological reflections," he is playing to a different
audience. When he is writing in this mood, Kant is for him an object of
observation, an interesting "case," not a human being for whom he cared.
His "case history" of an old man's death reveals nothing of significance
about Kant the philosopher and his life in younger years.
Indeed, the greatest shortcoming of the picture painted by the three
biographies is that it is almost exclusively based on the last decade and a
half of Kant's life, that is, from about his sixty-fifth to his eightieth year.
There is very little about Kant during his thirties, forties, and fifties, and
almost nothing about the twenty-year-old Kant. All the claims about Kant's
almost mechanical regularity in life — his dinners, his relation with his ser¬
vant, his strange views on everyday matters, all the things that have become
part and parcel of the ordinary picture of Kant - really record more the
signs of his advanced age and the decline of his powers than they reveal
the character of the person who conceived and wrote the works for which
he is now known.
For better or worse — though mostly for worse — it is these three biog¬
raphical sketches that form the most extensive, if not always the most re¬
liable, sources of Kant's life. One can only regret that the authors of these
biographical sketches were not the most qualified or the most reliable wit¬
nesses. At times, the intentions of the authors are clearly revealed. When
Borowski finds, for instance, that "in its results, the Kantian doctrine of
morality coincides entirely with the Christian one," we know what makes