Kant: A Biography

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Notes to Pages 314-317 491

besides Herz, the most important. He also had a great effect on the Jewish com¬
munity in Königsberg, founding a Society of Hebraic friends of Literature in
1782, which published beginning in 1784 the journal Ha Measef(The Collector).


  1. Hamann, Briefn>echsel,YIl, pp. 47, 50/.

  2. Euler and Stiening,"'... und nie der Pluralität widersprach'?", pp. 5gf. This was
    by no means the only trouble that the deanship carried with it. Kant also had to
    examine whether those who wanted to enter the university were ready for it. In
    1786 he failed two students. See Ak 10, pp. 439-440.

  3. Rink, Ansichten, pp. 48f. Rink claims that this was the only time he was rector.
    This is false, for in 1788 he held that office again. (Even though the normal tur-
    nus took five years, there were often exceptions because someone among the
    seniors died.)

  4. Vorländer, Kant, II, pp. 4of. Vorländer's description of this matter is not entirely
    correct. See Euler, "Kant's Amtstätigkeit," pp. 61, 64f.

  5. Euler, "Kant's Amtstätigkeit," pp. 6sf., does a good job of sorting this out. Since
    it is not necessary to know all the details, I will not report them here.

  6. Ak 10, pp. 434, 435; Ak 13, pp. 166-168.

  7. Hamann, Briefwechsel, VI, p. 330.

  8. Rink, Ansichten, pp. 49f.

  9. Euler, "Kant's Amtstätigkeit," pp. Ö7f See also Ak 13, p. 589, and Borowski, Leben,
    p. 44; and see Hamann, Briefa>echsel,Yll, p. 15: "Our deserving (verdienter) critic
    was received with special honors by the Minister Herzberg as well as by the king,
    who, it is said, has decided to give him a place in the academy."

  10. Euler and Stiening, "'... und nie der Pluralität widersprach'?", p. 61.

  11. Hamann, Briefwechsel, VI, pp. 38f.

  12. Malter, Kant in Rede und Gespräch, p. 299.

  13. Rink, Ansichten, pp. 47f. See also Baczko, Geschichte meines Lebens, II, pp. I37f.
    He claims, obviously relying at least to some extent on Rink, that he found these
    administrative duties "bothersome (lästig)" and that he never "contradicted the
    plurality."

  14. See Maker, Kant in Rede und Gespräch, p. 395; he actually said this of both Kant
    and Kraus.

  15. The extent and importance of Kant's administrative work has not been thor¬
    oughly investigated yet. There are beginnings of such investigations, however.
    See Euler and Stiening "'... und nie der Pluralität widersprach'?"; see also
    Werner Euler, "Immanuel Kants Amtstätigkeit. Aufgaben und Probleme einer
    Gesamtdokumentation," in Autographen, Dokumente und Berichte, ed. Brandt
    and Stark, pp. 58-90, and Werner Stark, "Kants Amtstätigkeit," Kant-Studien 85
    (IQ94), PP- 47°-472-

  16. See pp. 314-315, this volume, for instance.

  17. Rink, Ansichten, p. 60. Rink also reports that Kant sent all of this yearly bonus
    to the family of his brother after he died in 1799 and left his family without
    support.

  18. Rink, Ansichten, p. 60.

  19. Rink, Ansichten, pp. 40-43 (Maker, Kant in Rede und Gespräch, pp. 289^. Mal¬
    ter thinks that the person Rink has in mind was Metzger. This is doubtful. It must

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