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Philosophical Haiku

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

by Terence Green

Look without seeing
Know, yet comprehend nothing
From reason, duty

Immanuel Kant led a stupendously uneventful life. Born in Königsberg, then the capital of Prussia (now Kaliningrad in Russia), he never travelled more than forty miles from his birthplace. As a young man, he enrolled as a student at the University of Königsberg, and aside from a spell as a private tutor, he spent the rest of his career at the University. He was awoken by his valet every day at precisely the same hour, breakfasted every day at precisely the same hour, took his lunch at precisely the same hour, and went to bed each night at, you guessed it, precisely the same hour.

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