The life of Immanuel Kant, I have long thought, would
provide excellent material for an entertaining yet thought-provoking film. But
who would believe such a far-fetched claim, given Kant’s almost universal
reputation for having lived a boring, ultra-regulated life? The idea could
never pass beyond the stage of idle musing without a significant and accessible
body of documentation to substantiate such a hunch. That lack has now been
fulfilled.

Manfred Keuhn’s exhaustive new English biography is more
than just the story of Kant’s life. It is a thoroughly researched account of
the context that nurtured Kant’s genius. Although Kuehn provides concise
summaries of nearly all Kant’s published writings, these take a back seat in
his overall strategy to reflections on Kant’s personality, character, and
personal relationships. Careful attention is given to how each writing arose
out of the real issues Kant and his contemporaries were struggling with. To
support this strategy, the book provides brief – and sometimes not so brief –
character sketches of many of Kant’s contemporaries, as well as so much other
information about life in 18th Century Europe that this feature sometimes comes
close to being a fault. The chapter on Kant’s so-called "silent
decade", for example, is so packed with material about numerous of Kant’s
students, teachers, colleagues, and friends that the apparent intent to
"fill in" the silence only ends up accentuating how little we really
know about Kant during that period. The dramatic strategy is enhanced by the
selected "Cast of Characters" that appears at the beginning of the
book, providing short paragraphs describing each of 26 important persons.

Most chapters provide material on aspects of Kant’s life
and/or personality that have rarely, if ever, been given their due regard.
Readers of Chapter 1, for instance, can almost smell the leather as Kuehn
describes how the young Kant’s moral outlook would have been profoundly
affected by being raised in the home of a respected member of the harness
makers’ guild. He exaggerates the case, no doubt, by portraying Kant’s mature
moral outlook as being rooted primarily in the guild ethos, discounting the
influence of his mother’s devout Pietism. Perhaps this was necessary to drive
home the point. A skilled screenwriter would be able to draw numerous leads
from this emphasis – though it ought to be balanced with a fairer account of Kant’s
profound respect for his Pietist upbringing. For the interplay between these
two forces in Kant’s childhood may be more significant than either on its own.

Among the other revealing insights Kuehn provides into
"the real Kant" is the fact that during his University years there is
little, if any, reliable evidence that Kant made a significant impression on
his teachers. Contrary to what was assumed by Kant’s earliest biographers, who
had only known Kant in his mature years, his genius was not recognized by his
teachers. Kuehn unveils the behind-the-scenes "politics" of
university life – all-too-familiar to those of us who share the same profession
as Kant – whereby the Pietists controlled the University of Königsberg during
Kant’s years as a tertiary student, with those students who "towed the
party line" being placed promptly into the line of succession. Indeed, a
virtual "blacklisting" appears to be what forced Kant to become a
private tutor for over a decade, instead of going straight into university teaching.
But what goes around comes around, and Kant himself eventually learned to
"play the politics game" to such a degree that one cannot avoid
wondering whether his philosophy would have been so well received had it not
been for his own somewhat manipulative self-promotion. Perhaps the silent
decade itself was, at least in part, an intentional ploy to whet the appetites
of his contemporaries! In any case, there is now no shortage of material for
intrigue in a film version of Kant’s life.

Despite the excessive length of this book (544+xxii pages ,
including the Notes, Works Cited, and Index), there are omissions. Kuehn gives
considerable detail about the first of Kant’s three placements as private tutor
(enough for one or two moving, character-setting scenes in the film version),
comments briefly on the second placement, and then totally skips over the third
without so much as a sentence of explanation. Likewise, far too little is said
about the influence of Swedenborg on Kant, with Kuehn’s summary of the highly
significant Dreams of a Spirit-Seer leaving much to be desired. (Hume’s
influence, by contrast, is over-emphasized (e.g., 253).) Moreover, Kuehn
totally neglects the crucial role of "architectonic" in Kant’s
conception of philosophy, mentioning it only once in passing (346). But the
most significant omission is one that pervades the entire book in such a
systematic manner that it clearly reveals the biographer’s personal bias rather
than reflecting accurately on Kant: Kuehn consistently downplays the role of
God and religion in Kant’s life and thought.

That Kuehn has a bias against religion and theology, whereby
he sets out to downplay Kant’s interest, becomes evident at the very
outset (e.g., 12): the Prologue is mainly devoted to discrediting the three
authoritative German biographies on the grounds that the religious disposition
of their authors renders them unreliable. This antireligious bias continues
throughout the book, as Kuehn misses no opportunity to paint a dark,
unattractive picture of Pietism and to distance Kant from the movement in
historically inaccurate ways (e.g., 22, 94, 110), preferring to attribute
Kant’s emphasis on obviously religious concepts such as "holiness" to
his father’s involvement in guild-life (42-4), rather than to the likelihood
that his parents raised young Immanuel to be naturally religious. Kuehn derides
as "absurd" any suggestion that Pietism had any positive influence on
Kant’s thinking, or that Kant ever regarded himself as "converted"
(p.54) – claims that simply ooze with signs of a hidden agenda. Kant did critique
religion in general and his own Pietist background in particular; but this does
not mean he outright "rejected the religious way of life of [his]
parents." Not surprisingly, when Kuehn is forced to consider Kant’s views
on religion by describing Kant’s 1794 book on the subject, he adopts the now
widely discredited reductionist interpretation (370-1). Or, where that is not
possible, he calls into question the sincerity of Kant’s own explicit affirmations
(e.g., 105, 382). In voicing such negative opinions so loudly (e.g., 250),
Kuehn inadvertently accentuates the illegitimacy of his own bias. Thus,
ignoring the myriad of voices that have expressed a contrary opinion, Kuehn
claims on the flimsiest of evidence that Kant completely lost his faith in God
in old age (138).

Despite this major flaw, Kuehn does a surprisingly good job
of getting "under the skin" of the man Kant really was, showing us
aspects of his personality that are not immediately evident from reading his
Critical writings. We see a man who seeks to live by principle, yet who
repeatedly ends up acting in ways that some regard as conflicting with the
"respect for persons" rule, a man who, like various of the other
characters in this historical drama, was "conflicted" in various ways
– a claim Kuehn repeats on several occasions. We see with perfect clarity why
Kant would prefer to stay in Königsberg, why Kant’s alleged sexism is not as
blameworthy as many have claimed (399), etc.

Kuehn gives more attention to the romantic interests and
sexual orientation of Kant and his friends than most biographers have. For
example, he tells how the young wife of Kant’s friend Jacobi, Maria Charlotta,
was obviously hitting on Kant and relates how Kant never seems to have
recovered emotionally when she jilted him for another man (163-70). Kuehn
naively assumes Kant never experienced any significant emotional attachment,
leaving unexplained why he appears to have lost interest in marriage from this
time forward. A bit more imaginative license would be required for the film
version, of course. Not much, however, for Kant’s repeated failures in matters
concerning love, like his neurotic worry over his health (from his heart
trouble in youth to his fart trouble in old age) and his deep questioning about
the role of God in human life, is already reminiscent of a certain modern-day
film director who is as attached to New York as Kant was to Königsberg.

Kuehn announces in his Prologue that he is writing for the
general reader rather than for the Kant scholar (21). In this he is only partly
successfully, for the author’s scholarly disposition remains abundantly clear
throughout. Nevertheless, his book should succeed in convincing scholars
that Kant’s life was as interesting and as worthy of public awareness as, for
instance, that of Benjamin Franklin. The general reader will therefore be
attracted to this book, I predict, only after the film version appears.
At least, this is likely to be the case if the full extent of my longstanding
dream comes true some day, and a modern-day director of tragi-comedy par
excellence could be convinced to produce the film. And what better candidate
for this role could there be for such a film than ("Woody") Allen
Stewart Konigsberg himself?

© 2001 Stephen Palmquist

Stephen Palmquist,
Hong Kong Baptist University