Silent Years (i 770-1780)
The Inaugural Dissertation: "Genuine Metaphysics
without Any Admixture of the Sensible"I
N JANUARY OF I770 Kant was offered a position at the University of
Jena. Given his response to the University of Erlangen, it would have
been very surprising if he had accepted. In any case, later that year the
long-awaited opportunity for advancement in Königsberg came closer. On
March 15,1770, Langhansen, professor of mathematics, the man who had
administered his entrance exam to the university, passed away. Kant lost
no time. In a letter dated March 16, Kant submitted a request to Berlin
for consideration in the matter. He did not want Langhansen's position.
Instead, he suggested an exchange. Christiani, who had taught moral phi¬
losophy as well as mathematics until then, and who was the son-in-law of
Langhansen, should take over the free position. Kant adduced as a further
reason for this the fact that the professor of mathematics was traditionally
also the inspector of the Collegium Fridericianum, and that Christiani had
the greatest claim to this position. Since this position came with good ben¬
efits, as well as with a free apartment at the school, Christiani would likely
be interested. Kant was not. Should a switch between himself and Chris¬
tiani not be possible, he suggested a switch between himself and professor
Buck, who held the position of professor of logic and metaphysics, and
who was also associate professor of mathematics. Pointing out that Buck
had obtained this position "only at the occasion of the Russian gouverne-
ment," and that he himself had "all the recommendation of the academy,"
he thought that such a switch would be harmful neither to justice nor to
public utility.^1 It seems clear that he would have rejected the professorship
in mathematics, just as he had earlier rejected the professorship in poetry,
1885