IMMANUEL KANT

In the town of Koninsberg in what was called Prussia,there once lived a man called Immanuel Kant. His name is associated with reverence for intellectual achievement and with a dedication to his goals that has come to almost legendary. It is rumoured, for example, that people used to set their clocks by his movement to and from home. Others dispute that and argue that he was a great lover of company. Another view sates that he was a quintessential bachelor who had a low opinion of women and did not marry and so always dined out in an inn, where when he became famous crowds would congregate in the hope of being bale to talk to him. This claim of worshipful adoration is particularly striking in relation to repeated assertions about his writings that he is one of the most difficult to read of philosophers. This difficulty is understood to emerge not only from the sophistication of his ideas but from his idiosyncrasies in expressing them. He is reputed to favour long sentences, with sentenc...