How Friendship Transformed Kant’s Life |
Kant’s famous daily routine was inspired by his closest friend, Joseph Green.
Kant discussed every single sentence of the Critique of Pure Reason with Green.
After Green died, Kant became more housebound, and wrote down his thoughts on friendship.
In his youth and middle age, the sharply dressed Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) moved in Königsberg’s most refined circles and often stayed out into the small hours. In this period, his student Johann Gottfriend Herder described him as “the most urbane fellow in the world.”
But when Kant turned forty, he underwent a midlife transformation. He quite literally sobered up, abandoning carefree carousing for the disciplined life of the mind. This profound change owed to the early death of a close friend, the dissolute Johann Daniel Funk, together with the making of a new friend, the English merchant Joseph Green, who lived his life by the clock. Kant essentially adopted Green’s way of life.
Kant’s Daily Routine, and How It Helped Him
Thereafter, Kant employed a retired solder, Martin Lampe, to wake him up at precisely five-to-five every morning. Lampe would stride into his master’s bedroom and cry out, “Herr Professor, the time is come!”
Kant worked at his desk in his nightclothes until his lectures began at seven. At eleven, he would change back into nightclothes and return to his desk. The working day effectively ended at one, when he would take lunch in company in a public inn or restaurant.........