Prologue 19III
Biographies of philosophers have been relatively scarce in the recent past.^64
One of the most important reasons for this has to do with the way philos¬
ophy is being done in America, Australia, and England. To an analytically
minded philosopher, the biography of a thinker is simply irrelevant, since
it says nothing about the truth of his position and adds nothing to the
soundness of his arguments. While this is, strictly speaking, true, the lack
of context — or perhaps better, the substitution of an anachronistic con¬
text — often stands in the way of appreciating what a philosopher wanted
to say.
Biographies of philosophers are difficult to write. They must strike a
balance between representing the biographical details and discussing the
philosophical work. They must neither turn into a mere tale of the philoso¬
pher's external life nor become a mere summary or general discussion of
his books. If a biography concentrates too much on the accidents that make
up its subject's life, it may turn out to be trite and unexciting (if only be¬
cause philosophers usually did not — and do not — live exciting lives). If a
biography concentrates too much on the work, it can easily become boring
for another reason. The work of most philosophers does not lend itself to
easy summary or general discussion. In any case, it is highly unlikely that
such a summary treatment of the life work of any philosopher would add
in any significant way to the philosophical discussion. Ideally, a biography
of any philosopher would be both philosophically and historically inter¬
esting, and would integrate the story of the philosopher's life with a philo¬
sophically interesting perspective on his work.
While both life and thought need to be addressed, this cannot mean that
these two different concerns should simply be given equal time. Matters
are more complicated. A biography must integrate the two in some way. It
must make clear how the life and thought of a philosopher are connected.
Though it is a difficult and perhaps impossible task to establish why a cer¬
tain philosopher held the views he held and wrote the works he wrote, any
biography that does not address this question will probably be of limited
interest.
Kant's biography would appear to be especially difficult to write. His
life was that of a typical university professor in eighteenth-century Ger¬
many. His philosophical work is so dense, abstruse, and technical that it is
difficult to make it accessible to the general reader. This would seem to be