320 Kant: A BiographyTo say that "the trouble with Kant" was that he was "a wild and intel¬
lectually irresponsible arguer," whose "innate leaning that way must have
been enhanced by the intellectual isolation of Königsberg, which must have
preserved him from serious criticism," is clearly an exaggeration.^203 For one
thing, Königsberg was not intellectually isolated, and for another, his ar¬
guments are not all that bad. The mature Kant was not any more a wild
thinker than any other philosopher. But he started out as a wild thinker.
His critical philosophy was just as much the result of self-discipline as was
his moral character. It was also more than that, raising, at the very least,
"a lot of fascinating questions."^204 Hamann said that he had "fought many
a hard fight with Kant," and that at times had been "obviously wrong" and
perhaps had even wronged Kant. Yet "Kant still remained my friend in spite
of this."^205 He could abstract from differences in philosophical argument
in his friendships, and he was a loyal friend. That the dispute with Herder
ended in bitter enmity was probably not of his choosing. Kant was proud
of his achievement, and he was affected by his hard-earned fame as a
writer. If we can believe Hamann, then "his pride [was] of the most inno¬
cent kind in the world."^206 Herder's pride was not quite so innocent, as some
of his nasty comments about Kant show.
It was during this time that Herz, another one of Kant's former stu¬
dents, sent him a book, Über den Schwindel (On Dizziness). Kant seems to
have been indifferent. He did not read it and had the book put onto the
shelves as soon as it arrived, saying that he was not suffering from dizzi¬
ness.^207 Borowski suggested that Kant was no longer Herz's friend and
surmised that "Kant certainly never read the dedication, even though he
knew from Herz's letter that there was one."^208 Borowski's suggestion that
Kant was no longer Herz's friend, based on a sarcastic quip by Kant, need
not necessarily be taken seriously.^209 The exemplar Herz had sent did not
have a dedication. Kant's indifference was the result of his lack of interest
in purely psychological questions.
He also offered financial support to some of his former students who had
become friends. Jachmann, for instance, said that when his brother went
to study medicine in Edinburgh, Kant offered 500 Thalers to him, which
he, however, never took advantage of. Kant apparently was disappointed.^210
On the other hand, Kant also expected things from his friends. Thus he
enlisted the help of Kraus in an attempt to defend his philosophy against
Meiners's allegations that his philosophy led to immorality. Kraus wrote
in December of 1786 that he was working on "a defense of his friend Kant,
who was bitterly insulted by Meiners in Göttingen, and who asked me to