Saturday, July 29, 2006
(7:48 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
On the old saw, "Kant was so consistent that people set their clocks by his daily walk"
If this were the case, wouldn't it allow Kant to deviate from his schedule undetected? Inconsistencies on Kant's part would be dismissed as impossible and blamed on faulty clocks. Paradoxically, every failure to adhere to his strict schedule would thus serve to reinforce his aura of punctuality. All of this assumes that Kant went for a walk around the same time every day, which I find to be plausible -- but this big legend about him being more accurate than a clock has to be put to rest.Of course, I've long had a vendetta against Kant, because my great-great-great-grandfather was the guy the murderer was looking for, and Kant wouldn't lie in order to save his life.
