Privately, Kant is considered a bore. Not true, says expert Marcus Willaschek. An interview about the philosopher as a college dropout, skipper of church services and host of men’s groups.
Heinrich Heine has the evil sentence: “The life story of Immanuel Kant is difficult to describe because he had neither life nor history.” And the prejudice that Kant was a cheerless, hard-working couch potato, after whose daily afternoon walk his fellow citizens of Königsberg would set their clocks, persists. Not only that, according to Kant expert Marcus Willaschek, is probably pure invention. Time for a clarifying conversation about Kant as a man and his actual living conditions.