Kant’s Εarly Βiographies and Τheir Significance for Understanding His Philosophy

Abstract

For a long time, there have been disputes about the importance of philosophers’ biographies for understanding their philosophical ideas. Some scholars have defended radical positions, from a complete denial of the necessity of taking into account the life circumstances of a thinker to the attempts to absolutize these circumstances and perceive philosophical ideas exclusively through the optics of the life path of their creator. This paper will focus on the example of the first Russian edition of Kant’s early biographies (which includes biographies of Borowski, Wasianski, Jachmann, Rink and a fragment from Reike’s “Kantiana”). Using this example, we will demonstrate the connection between the philosopher’s life and his philosophical views, the importance of biographical essays for a better understanding of philosophical ideas, and the necessity to take them into account as an auxiliary source for our understanding of the philosophical system of a particular thinker.