Kant: A Biography

The Old Man 409

already are or soon will be superseded by modern editions of Kant's lec¬

ture notes and the lecture notes taken by his students.

The Opus postumum: "Exceptional Combinations and Projects"

Kant's last work "and the only [surviving] manuscript" remained unfin¬

ished.^95 It is now known as the Opus postumum.^96 Plans for the work seem

to date back to the period immediately following the completion of the Cri¬

tique of Judgment, but he probably did not begin to work on it until after

he stopped teaching in 1796.^97 On the other hand, he could not have added

much of any significance after 1798, when he was "almost paralyzed" as

far as thinking went.^98 Kant believed that this work was necessary for the

completion of his critical system, but when he stopped working on it, he had

not yet decided on a final title. He called it by many names, such as "Tran¬

sition from Metaphysics to Physics," "Transition from the Metaphysical

Foundations of the Metaphysics of Nature to Physics," "Transition from

the Metaphysics of Nature to Physics," or as "Transition from the Meta¬

physics of Bodily Nature to Physics." At other times he even appears to

have thought that a title like "The Highest Point of View of Transcendental

Philosophy in the System of Ideas" would be appropriate. These different

titles betray different purposes, and they show at the very least that Kant

himself had not yet decided what his projected work ultimately was to in¬

clude, and what its ultimate function in his system was to be. Wasianski's

remarks about Kant's attitude toward the work make clear that Kant him¬

self was not clear on what the manuscript amounted to:

As freely as I could speak about his death and everything he wanted me to do after his
death, so reluctant he was to talk about what should be done with the manuscript. At
times, he believed that he could no longer judge what he had written, that it was com¬
pleted and only needed to be polished. At other times, it was his will that the manu¬
script should be burned after his death. After his death, I showed it to H. P. S. [Herrn
Pastor Schulz], a scholar, whom Kant considered to be the best interpreter of his work,
second only to himself. His judgment was that it represented only the beginning of a
work, whose Introduction was not yet finished, and which was impossible to edit (der
Redaktion nicht fähig). The effort, which Kant expended in working it out, consumed
the rest of his strength more quickly. He declared it to be his most important work, but
it was probably his weakness that was largely responsible for this judgment."

Some scholars have argued that these fragments are interesting mainly as

evidence of the deterioration of Kant's mind. This view goes back at the very

least to Kant's colleague Hasse, who claimed that Kant himself at times