**ГЕНИЙ ДИСЦИПЛИНЫ — Transcript & Summary | SozAI**
Source: https://sozai.app/transcript/genius-discipline/

A detailed exploration of Immanuel Kant's disciplined life, focusing on his daily routine, health practices, and time management as a genius of self-discipline.

## Key Takeaways

- Kant’s disciplined daily routine was key to his longevity and intellectual productivity.
- Consistent management of body, psyche, and time can enhance creative and intellectual work.
- Empirical self-observation and adaptation were central to Kant’s health and lifestyle choices.
- Social interaction and routine physical activity were integral parts of Kant’s day.
- A structured life does not preclude intellectual greatness; it may in fact foster it.

## What the video covers

- The video examines biographies of great thinkers, highlighting the unique and disciplined life of Immanuel Kant.
- Kant lived a highly repetitive and monotonous life but was a genius in self-discipline and time management.
- Despite poor health and early poverty, Kant lived to 80, outliving many contemporaries with better conditions.
- Kant divided his day into three parts: 7 hours of sleep, 8 hours of creative work before lunch, and the afternoon/evening for social lunch, walks, and light reading.
- His strict schedule rarely changed, demonstrating remarkable consistency throughout his life.
- Kant’s morning routine included waking at 5:00 a.m., drinking weak tea, smoking a pipe, and preparing for lectures and writing.
- He experimented with health and lifestyle practices empirically, adjusting habits based on personal observation.
- Kant valued social interaction during his long lunches and maintained a philosophical walking path in Königsberg.
- He emphasized the importance of caring for the body, psyche, and time to optimize thinking and productivity.
- The video also touches on Kant’s teaching career, social habits, and his legacy as a disciplined philosopher.

## Chapters

1. 00:00 Introduction to Philosophical Biographies
2. 04:00 Kant’s Longevity and Health Mystery
3. 07:42 Kant’s Daily Routine and Lunch Habits
4. 11:29 Morning Routine and Health Experiments
5. 14:44 Teaching Career and Workload
6. 17:55 Social Life and Philosophical Walks
7. 21:40 Kant’s Personality and Habits
8. 24:24 Final Reflections on Kant’s Discipline and Legacy

Answers

## Questions about this video

What was unique about Immanuel Kant’s daily routine?

Kant’s day was divided into three strict parts: 7 hours of sleep, 8 hours of focused teaching and writing before lunch, and the afternoon/evening dedicated to long social lunches, walks, and light reading. He maintained this routine consistently throughout his life.

How did Kant’s lifestyle contribute to his longevity?

Despite early health issues and poverty, Kant’s disciplined management of his body, psyche, and time, along with empirical self-observation and adaptation of his habits, contributed to his long life of 80 years.

Did Kant’s social habits influence his work?

Yes, Kant valued social interaction, especially during his long lunches with guests, which was an important part of his daily routine and mental well-being, complementing his rigorous intellectual work.

## Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

00:02

Speaker A

Hello, dear friends. Those interested in the history of thought, especially the history of philosophical thought, always pay attention to the biographies of outstanding thinkers. Indeed, they offer a whole palette of different life paths and journeys. For example, Plato

00:23

Speaker A

tried to re-educate a tyrant. On the other hand, Descartes followed a very complex path from a prophetic dream, from military service, well, sort of, to the shortest path of a philosopher, mathematician, and amateur scientist.

00:45

Speaker A

Or, for example, Ludwig Wittgenstein, who, in fact, never completed a PhD, didn't write a PhD, and didn't read many outstanding philosophers, yet became one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century. We can find everything in these biographies:

01:05

Speaker A

traditional academic careers, the constant travels and teaching of the thinker Scott Lefamaquinsky. But perhaps the most surprising and, at the same time, the most ordinary biography is that of Immanuel Kant. I've read many biographies and studies of him,

01:28

Speaker A

and I'm always amazed by the combination of incompatible things. On the one hand, as you know, Kant lived, from an external perspective, a rather monotonous, repetitive life. He didn't travel, he didn't experience any particular upheavals, he wasn't married

01:53

Speaker A

, and, in fact, he simply lived day after day, teaching, thinking, writing, eating lunch, and taking walks. And then there was time for sleep. On the other hand, we can't help but marvel at what Kant did with his body, his psyche

02:16

Speaker A

, and his time. I'd even call Kant a genius of self-discipline and perhaps the most outstanding time manager of all time. Judge for yourself. When Kant was born, his mother wrote down in her diary, discovering that the child

02:38

Speaker A

wasn't breathing, touching words addressed to God, who had taken his little Emmanuel, her little Emmanuel, from her. Well, the child began to breathe. He was born small in stature, er, with a narrow chest. His spine was curved his entire life because he led a

02:58

Speaker A

sedentary lifestyle. Basically, he lost his parents early on and was poor early in life. Everything was destined to pass quickly, um, in poverty, ah, and fraught with various illnesses.

03:20

Speaker A

Everything was there for it. All the makings were there: poverty, ah, health problems, and so on, so on, so on. Yet Kant lived to be 80 years old. If we talk about, say, German philosophy and consider the names of Fichte, Hegel,

03:37

Speaker A

Schelling, and before that—Leibniz, for example, or Christian Wolff, yes, or subsequent thinkers of the 19th century—we'll be surprised to discover that many of them enjoyed excellent health, looked great, and had completely different financial and, indeed, material living conditions.

04:00

Speaker A

They lived much shorter than Kant. What's the secret here? Another mystery. Kant subjugated this control over the body, psyche, and time to thinking.

04:16

Speaker A

There's probably no person in the history of thought who, in order to think and think well, has been able to devote so much attention to these basic material conditions of thought—the body, as I said, the psyche, and time.

04:36

Speaker A

And if we talk about the biographies of outstanding thinkers up until the 20th century, we don't have so many details about the physical state of the body, the properties of the organism, or all the smallest details of life's

04:51

Speaker A

manifestations. Just like Kant. In 1924, not a book, but, let's say, a series of early biographies of Kant were translated into Russian. This book, published in Kaliningrad, formerly Königsberg, features biographies by Borovsky, Yakhman, Vasyansky, Rink, and Kontiano Reike. Mm. And when we read

05:17

Speaker A

these biographies—and, in fact, when we were still university students, we read a lot about this—we finally have a collection of these biographies. It's no surprise how much we know about the details of Kant's life. Let's ask ourselves a few questions. How did Kant

05:37

Speaker A

manage this? How was he able to create such a discipline of body, mind, and time? How did his day flow? How did he organize it? And what did he pay primary attention to? I'll start with something simple. Kant's day can be

06:01

Speaker A

divided into three parts. First, sleep. He always went to bed at 10:00 p.m. and woke up at 5:00 a.m. He believed that 7 hours of healthy sleep were necessary for the normal functioning of the body and for feeling well and not getting

06:23

Speaker A

sick. It must be said that Kant slept well, right up until the last years of his life. And finally, if we discard the 7 hours of sleep, there are two parts left. What do we have left? We have the first 8 hours before lunchtime

06:43

Speaker A

, from 5:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. It was this time that was creatively scientific for him. We'll go into this in a little more detail now, but after waking up, there was tea, a pipe, and then preparation for lectures, lectures, and

07:00

Speaker A

then several hours of writing until 1:00 p.m. And then there was the second part of his waking hours, from 1:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. It breaks down into a long lunch. Kant's lunch lasted from four to six hours. He began lunch at 1:00 p.m.,

07:23

Speaker A

always in company. We'll talk about that now, too. And if the lunch was quick, in quotes, it lasted from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Kant's lunch usually lasted from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. But, for example, Yakhman says that if there

07:42

Speaker A

were slightly more guests than usual, lunch could last until 6:00 p.m. That is, from 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., lunch, then an hour-long walk along roughly the same route. Sometimes he changed it, the so-called Kantian philosophical path in Königsberg. And after a walk, a

08:07

Speaker A

few hours of light reading and meditation, reflection. This included newspapers, ticket sales, and sometimes friends visited him. And at 10:00 p.m., he went to bed. As you can see, three parts. And this routine followed him throughout his life. So, from 5:00 a.m.

08:30

Speaker A

to 1:00 p.m., teaching and writing, from 1:00 p.m. until bedtime, lunch, and evening time for reading light literature, educational literature, and so on. That's the first thing. And what's surprising here is that he didn't change this schedule. Only a few

08:52

Speaker A

times throughout his life did he change his schedule. For example, on the day of the French Revolution, the schedule was slightly off. And that's the first thing that's surprising. A person can act according to this main schedule throughout his entire life, day after

09:14

Speaker A

day, year after year. Now let's go into a little more detail about his schedule. So, 5:00 a.m. One morning, Kant's servant, the retired soldier Lampe, enters his room, his bedroom. And he says to Kant, "It's time, it's time."

09:41

Speaker A

Kant sometimes grumbled, asking Lampe to lie down for a bit. He would say, "Just five minutes, just five minutes." But Lampe had strict orders to wake Kant under any circumstances. Therefore, he insisted until the last minute

10:00

Speaker A

that Kant get up. And Kant did. Winter and summer, he always got up at 5:00 a.m. What did he do after that? In a dressing gown, a nightcap, and a small triangular hat, he would go to the kitchen and drink two cups of weak tea,

10:25

Speaker A

which always contained a few leaves, and smoke a pipe. This was his only tea and cigarette of the entire day. Kant was very fond of coffee. But Kant, in addition to great philosophical texts, personally created an entire theory of

10:47

Speaker A

the correct way of life. How to drink water, what to eat, what not to eat, how to behave, how to hold your body, what temperature it should be. We'll touch on this now. Sometimes he experimented on himself and observed.

11:03

Speaker A

He acted like an empiricist. In philosophy, he was a critic, and in regards to health, he was an empiricist. And, for example, if some experiments failed, he abandoned them. For example, he once had a theory that the most

11:17

Speaker A

important thing when consuming water is oxygen. And so, when he started drinking water, he would take a deep breath and then pour it into himself.

11:29

Speaker A

But after some observations, he realized that no, no, no, it wasn't very good for his health. So, about coffee. He loved coffee. He especially suffered when he passed by hotels or houses where they brewed delicious, aromatic coffee. He suff...

11:50

Speaker A

but restrained himself, since, according to his theory, coffee contains certain oils that are harmful to health. And this, by the way, is a kind of body management that kept him from this addiction. So, we left Kant in his bedroom. He had just drunk two

12:11

Speaker A

cups of lightly brewed tea, practically colored water, a few leaves here and there. That's it. He smoked a pipe.

12:18

Speaker A

Smoking a pipe had two functions. The first was to tune the brain, to satisfy one of its pleasures. And the third was to get the stomach going, because that's important to it. You need to live the whole day on a high note.

12:38

Speaker A

After smoking his pipe, Kant prepared for his lectures. For a long time, he taught as a Privatdozent. This means he wasn't paid at Königsberg, the University of Königsberg, but lived off the students 'money. There are lectures, there's money; no lectures,

13:03

Speaker A

no money, he gets sick, dies of hunger. He knew this from his youth. And for a long time, his classrooms were various halls. For example, when he rented an apartment from a bookseller, one of the halls was a quasi-study space.

13:23

Speaker A

Incidentally, I visited the University of Jena several times. This is an important university center, where great German philosophers began their careers, where the young Heigl Schelling taught, and where Kahn Fichta —sorry, Fichta—began his career.

13:39

Speaker A

And there's the so-called Romantic House, the little green one. And this is the house Fichta bought just after receiving his appointment at the University of Jena. It was a reflection of how much he was paid, that he bought

13:51

Speaker A

the house. Perhaps it was partly due to his wife's devotion, but nonetheless. And there, when you enter, on the ground floor of level zero, in German, you turn right and there's this small classroom space where Fichta lectured.

14:07

Speaker A

There wasn't such a building, the University of Jena; there were different spaces. And we can see from this space that it's very small. It could fit, well, at most, 10, 12, maybe 15, if it was packed, people. So Kahn

14:24

Speaker A

didn't lecture in auxim rooms like those at large universities, but in different rooms. And I'll now show you how much time a lecture took and how that affected the daily routine. So, morning hours, preparing for lectures.

14:44

Speaker A

At the beginning of his teaching career , Kahn lectured daily, and his daily workload was 4.5 hours. Honestly, when I began my career as a young teacher, I think I had somewhere around 10, 12, or even 15 hours. In the morning, I ran to

15:08

Speaker A

Mogilyanka, reading classical German philosophy, for example. Then in the afternoon, I ran to the university, because there was a second shift there, the Red Building. And in the evening, I quickly ran to the Thomas Kvinsky Institute and lectured. There might be

15:23

Speaker A

three lectures in the morning, two or three in the afternoon, and two more in the evening. Well, you can calculate how much that came to per week. So, Kahn, at his initial stage, lectured for 4-5 hours. By the way, a lecture is

15:39

Speaker A

two academic hours today, so you don't get confused by the numbers. But later, Kant began giving lectures in this order. He lectures four times a week from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m. That is, two hours from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m., Monday,

15:55

Speaker A

Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Those are the four days. And from 8:00 to 10 a.m., he lectures twice a week on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Also, as you can see, two hours work out to two hours four times a week and two hours

16:12

Speaker A

twice a week. Sometimes on Saturdays there was what was called a tutorium in the schedule, that is, a review of the material covered or preparation for the end of the course, a course summary, or exams. You see the schedule, that is,

16:30

Speaker A

lectures from about 7:00 to 9:00 or from 8:00 to 10:00 a.m. After the lecture, Kahn would come home, put on his dressing gown, his nightcap, and his slippers again, and begin working on his texts. You can assume he worked

16:48

Speaker A

from 9:00 to 1:00, or from 10:00 to 1:00. Three hours at most, three, sometimes a little more. And if it ended at 9:00, 10:00, I don't know, four hours maybe. But for him, these were the two, three, or four most

17:06

Speaker A

golden hours. It was during this time that all his major texts were written. It was during this time that the Critique of Pure Reason, Practical Reason, and his other major mature treatises were written. Many of these texts that he wrote arose from the

17:24

Speaker A

margins of books. He did not read his own lectures, as you know, but from classical textbooks, such as Maier's logic, Baumgarten's ethics, or Christian Wolff's metaphysics. And since he sometimes disagreed with authors or wanted to improve them, with

17:42

Speaker A

or without quotation marks, he wrote his thoughts in small print in the margins of the larger ones. This was later published as reflections, a kind of prelude to the creation of the Critique of Pure Reason. In other words

17:55

Speaker A

, he largely wrote his thoughts in the margins of other authors. So, observing Kant's life, we arrived at 1:00 PM, at one o'clock. By one o'clock, guests begin to arrive. According to Kant's theory, a philosopher should never eat

18:18

Speaker A

alone, otherwise he will become a hypochondriac, he will become depressed . And in general, it's bad for one's tone. Therefore, according to his theory, there should be no fewer guests than the number of Graces, three, and no more than the number of Muses, nine.

18:39

Speaker A

On average, a servant kept six place settings for six guests, but sometimes there were many more. So, the numbers fluctuate between three and nine. Well, after that, when guests came into his room, into the living room, he obviously entertained them easily, but

19:01

Speaker A

he was already hungry, because eight hours had passed; he got up at 5:00 in the morning, ate nothing, drank only tea. And do you know what kind? Then Lampier would invite everyone into the large dining room with the words, "Soup

19:19

Speaker A

is served." And the famous Kantian dinner would begin. There were three courses. I'll describe them to you in detail now. He had favorite dishes, his preferences. They sometimes changed, but his tastes were roughly the same.

19:37

Speaker A

And there was also water and wine. In front of each guest was a bottle of wine, somewhere around 0.3 liters, and in other sources about half a bottle of wine. He preferred red wine, and sometimes he diluted red wine with

19:56

Speaker A

white wine, but, in principle, these were light red wines. And he drank water. Well, there were also desserts.

20:05

Speaker A

For Kant, desserts were butter, raw vegetables, and, if it was summer, well , fruit from the garden. Fruit from the garden. The guests chatted. The routine , you know, is Kant's famous theory, according to which conversation at the

20:22

Speaker A

table should be strictly regulated. I won't repeat this well-known story. You need to move smoothly from topic to topic, but you also need to understand what to say at each course. When Professor Preobrazhensky, in his dog's heart, says that a well-mannered,

20:41

Speaker A

educated person knows what to say at dinner, this is a Kantian tradition. First, there's a warm-up course, then more serious conversations move on to the second and third courses. And dessert is already a joke, and the audience should laugh, according to

20:58

Speaker A

Kant. This promotes a good digestion of the dinner. So, as I said, dinner lasts until 5:00. Sometimes, rarely, until 6:00. And Kant begins his stroll. The stroll lasts about an hour, give or take. Usually, it's an hour. One day he

21:18

Speaker A

was walking, he walked the same path for a long time. This philosophical path. Sometimes he got tired of the beggars there, for example. He sees Kant coming. And Kant needs to be approached. He's a moralist, after all.

21:30

Speaker A

All the beggars had read the Critique of Practical Reason. And he wrote there what was needed. And so they said: " Here's the categorical imperative, and here we want you to give us a little money, but otherwise you'll suffer

21:42

Speaker A

morally." And so as not to suffer morally, he decided to avoid this place where the beggars congregated and took other routes. He walked for about an hour. And there was a theory here too.

21:54

Speaker A

If the weather was good, he walked for more than an hour. If there was wind, rain, snow, he always went out for a walk, regardless of the weather. But since Königsberg, can you imagine, is in the north, yes, there's also this

22:10

Speaker A

seaside. The seaside. Of course, he tried to go faster then, but the weather is good in the summer.

22:19

Speaker A

According to his theory, one had to walk slowly to avoid sweating. You see, he had a theory for every step of life.

22:27

Speaker A

One had to walk slowly in the summer. When he was already of a certain age, he would sit on a bench, and thoughts would still overcome him, and he would write something down, or ponder some of his ideas along the way. So he would

22:45

Speaker A

return home, accordingly, by 6:00 or 7:00 in the evening, and until 10:00 pm , 910, yes, 7 8 9 10 3 hours, give or take, he would read this ticket-writing , light reading, or receive some friends. At 10:00 pm, he went to bed

23:07

Speaker A

without fail. Now, when we get to know his daily schedule better, we will ask ourselves: "Well, wow, Kant refused when he didn't yet have a stable income , and he did have a stable income." You know, he was lucky he didn't get

23:27

Speaker A

married. Well, he himself said—he had his own saying on the subject—that at first he couldn't provide for his wife, so he didn't marry. By the time he could, he no longer needed a wife. But it's true, he didn't have a steady

23:39

Speaker A

income. And he received his first government money, so to speak, from his position as a librarian when he was already over 40. Can you imagine? What a lucky match, yes, such a husband, over 40, hurray, his first fixed salary

23:56

Speaker A

as a librarian. But then, of course, things improved for him. He became a tenured professor and served as both dean and rector there. Plus, he received a salary for his books. But nevertheless, this path was quite difficult for him. So, if we pay

24:13

Speaker A

attention to this schedule, we see that he rejected lucrative offers from more advanced universities. This is especially evident in Kant's letters during the period when he was beginning to trace his legacy, and he understood that moving, finding a home,

24:35

Speaker A

acclimatization, would take a long time , and time was short, and he had to think about creating his own philosophy , writing his own texts. Therefore, Königsberg was a happy place for him, where he realized himself. You could

24:53

Speaker A

say that Kant was not only a genius of self-discipline, but also a genius of place. And when we say Kant, we mean Königsberg. Well, now, I think, we'll move on to the next step of our conversation. And I'll share a few

25:07

Speaker A

details from Jachmann's biography. Jachmann wasn't just one of the many biographers—Vasyansky, Barovsky—who were also his students. For example, speaking of Borovsk, he was also, rare among Protestants, an archbishop himself. Usually, these were called clergy, theologians. These were Kant's

25:32

Speaker A

students. And Yakhman was even Kant's secretary for a time. Kant even invited Yakhman to dinner. And so, when we read one of his letters, a recollection of his daily routine and what he had for dinner, he even allows himself to say

25:49

Speaker A

something like this: "But I never tried game at Kant's. There was no game at Kant's dinner. That is, it was always a Kantian feast." M. And now I will try, together with Yakhman, to visit Kant more closely and see what they served

26:06

Speaker A

there and how everything was done. And we will touch on a few more of Kant's habits. His physical discipline, his mental discipline, and I have already mentioned time. So, it should also be said that Kant was a terrible news

26:24

Speaker A

lover. And if he were alive today, I think he, like his passion for coffee, would really need it to fight his addiction to gadgets. Look, he loved the news so much, loved newspapers so much, that he would send lamps for

26:43

Speaker A

fresh ones. They're supposed to be arriving, but he doesn't have time, so he quickly runs for the newspapers.

26:48

Speaker A

Kant brought these newspapers, and Kant consumed them in large quantities. Incidentally, Kant was a very curious man, this gallant professor. At the table or when friends gathered at his place, they would talk about politics, geography, the customs of peoples, all

27:06

Speaker A

the news. In other words, he was always a man of company. And Yakhman even said : "Whoever hasn't visited Kant and knows him only from his texts, like you and me," doesn't know Kant fully. He only knows Kant 50%. Kant is a

27:28

Speaker A

storyteller, the life of the party, a man who, like a little dog, is interested in everything and is always sniffing around, spying on everything.

27:38

Speaker A

So, I've talked about his dependence on the news, and now we'll move on to the details. I'll allow myself to quote a few excerpts from Yakhman. Here. So, morning. Kant got up every day, summer and winter, at 5:00 a.m. At exactly 3/4

27:54

Speaker A

past midnight, a servant stood by his bedside, waking Kant and not leaving until his master had risen. I've already briefly told you this. Kant considered seven hours of sleep, from 10:00 PM to 5:00 AM, the basis of all

28:10

Speaker A

diet and well-being. As soon as he was dressed, Kant would head to his study in his nightclothes—well, a dressing gown, as they translated it into Russian—and a nightcap, topped with a small triangular hat, where he would have breakfast, consisting of two cups

28:25

Speaker A

of tea and a pipe of tobacco. The volant, who, according to Bulgakov, was present at Kant's breakfast, had to make do with weak tea and a pipe of tobacco. So, in reality, it wasn't really breakfast, but, I don't know,

28:40

Speaker A

refueling the car before driving all day. And so, well, I mentioned the pajamas, the tea was very weak, right?

28:48

Speaker A

And I've already mentioned the coffee. Well, and so on. Until 7:00 a.m., Kant worked and thought through the upcoming lecture, then got dressed and went to the classroom. You know, it either started at 8:00 or 7:00. At 8:00 or

29:02

Speaker A

7:00. At 9 o'clock, he changed into his nightgown again, and when he returned, he put on his nightcap, slippers, and worked like that until a quarter to one . Then he dressed for dinner, returned to his study, where at one o'clock he

29:18

Speaker A

received guests, who were then invited to the dining room, where Kant stayed with them, as a rule, until four, and if he had more guests, sometimes even until six. So, four or six. Well, my friends, do you dine for four hours

29:33

Speaker A

straight? No, not again. And it happens that you dine for six hours straight. Well, you see, that means you are not Kant. And you cannot write a critique of pure reason. Anyone who dines for at least six hours is capable of this,

29:48

Speaker A

mind you. Soon after, he would take an hour-long walk, or even a longer one if the weather was good. I've already said that he walked slowly. Well, now we've been invited to Kant's house for lunch.

30:02

Speaker A

What are we being treated to? Let's see what they're serving, what dishes. Kant ate only once a day, at noon. Well, noon, for five or six hours straight.

30:14

Speaker A

But he ate very heartily and with a great appetite. For the rest of the day , he ate nothing except water. That is, after lunch, until bedtime, he ate nothing at all. Only water. Again, friends, you dine once a day, you eat

30:31

Speaker A

once a day. If not, then you're not Kant; you haven't dreamed of the Critique of Pure Reason. Kant's lunch consisted of three courses, along with side dishes of butter and cheese, and in the summer, even fruit from the

30:43

Speaker A

garden. The first course was always meat. Typically, it was veal soup with rice, pearl barley, or vermicelli. Kant had a habit of crumbling his soup, and even adding buns, to make it thicker.

31:01

Speaker A

By the way, can you imagine this picture? The soup is already thick. Veal, then add buns, until it turns into this kind of mush. Kant ate with obvious pleasure, I think even making certain sounds while doing so. The

31:19

Speaker A

second course alternated between dried fruits with various additives, pureed legumes, and fish. Incidentally, Kant's favorite dish was cod. All his biographers write this. The third course was some kind of roast. However, I don't remember. You see, writes Yakhman. I don't remember ever eating

31:42

Speaker A

game at his place. Kant used mustard with almost every dish. Incidentally, while he was waiting for guests, he personally made mustard. There's even a famous caricature of Kant being made.

31:59

Speaker A

You can see him standing there, hunched over. It's a caricature. A caricature of him pounding his mustard. He used this mustard with everything. He also loved thickly whipped butter, adding it to vegetables and meat dishes. Butter and cheese were his main desserts. Kant

32:23

Speaker A

ate twice-baked, finely ground rye bread. Cheese was often served finely grated. Of all the types of cheese, he liked English the most. And not red. He thought it was dyed, but a white, hard kind. If there were a lot of guests, an

32:43

Speaker A

additional course in the form of pie was served. Kant's favorite dish, as I already said, was cod. And furthermore, interestingly, Kant paid almost no attention to his eating habits. I'll skip what Yakhman reports, because we're talking about aesthetics. I even

33:00

Speaker A

have a handkerchief, because Yakhman describes, well, terrible things, like a gallant professor, sparkling blue eyes, wonderful conversation. Oh, there were such horrors on his plate that I will refrain from. This is not a thriller, after all. Let's continue.

33:18

Speaker A

Kant drank nothing but wine and water. Incidentally, he didn't like beer and considered it not a drink, but food, a product that was not part of his diet.

33:28

Speaker A

Well, not at all. As a rule, he drank light wine, red. Usually dog. Yakhman even reports the type of wine, like this. And in front of each of the guests, a small bottle of wine, a quarter of a decanter, about 0.3 liters

33:45

Speaker A

, was placed. And usually no more than this small amount was drunk, although several more bottles were nearby. It was as if to hint that if you want, go ahead, but the law is the law. Kant was considered, especially by women, a man

34:02

Speaker A

with very subtle and refined taste. Besides, Kant generally loved to talk about the culinary arts. What did Kant like to talk about, anyway? That's the question. He loved to talk about everything, but he especially loved to talk about being an Italian. Italians

34:18

Speaker A

can spend half a day discussing what's for lunch, dinner, and breakfast. And some of our Italian friends said their parents often call them. What do they talk about with their parents? About what they ate this morning or last

34:31

Speaker A

night. This could go on for hours. That's the kind of Kant he was. Moreover, he was well-versed in cooking ; he even wanted to write a book, but he wrote about experiments on headaches . He wrote about health. Well, he could

34:48

Speaker A

have written about cooking, but for some reason he didn't have time. And he expanded his knowledge of cooking by talking with women. By talking with women, he sought to enrich his knowledge. And then Yakhman again writes about his whole theory, about

35:05

Speaker A

how he loved communicating with women. And his theory was this: playing music, writing poetry, dancing. It's wonderful . A woman should be elegant and graceful, but a woman should also be a good cook. He even elaborated in one

35:23

Speaker A

conversation—yes, I think it was more than one, his thoughts were often repeated—on the idea that, well, how can it be that if a husband wants to eat well, and his wife dances and recites a poem for him, the husband

35:36

Speaker A

won't be able to indulge in such gracefulness? He wants to eat, and he wants to eat well. Therefore, every wife and every girl, while receiving an education, must undergo rigorous culinary training. This, you see, is all Kant's theories. Besides, Kant

35:58

Speaker A

generally loved to talk about various topics. He was very fond of snuff. He usually mixed it. It wasn't strong, but he mixed it. He had it in two jars. But he considered it impolite to carry a jar of snuff to a lecture. So, if

36:16

Speaker A

someone in the audience sitting close to him took out a snuff stick and sniffed it, Kahn would be very displeased, since he, too, really wanted some, and it was a great temptation for him. Incidentally, these omitted details in the biography also

36:35

Speaker A

provide me with a rich field for understanding how lectures were delivered and how the audience behaved.

36:44

Speaker A

For example, the audience could yawn wildly. Well, I'm a teacher, I know, I know. But Kahn would monotonously tell the student that they should cover their mouths with their hands because it was indecent. And these were young people, because, if I'm not mistaken,

37:05

Speaker A

Vasyansky was 15 years old when he signed up for Kant's lecture. Essentially, can you imagine–these were teenagers sitting there, sniffing tobacco, yawning. And what they did with their bodies and faces is even scary to imagine. But nevertheless, this is this lecture. Oh, and Kant also

37:26

Speaker A

slept in the cold under a light blanket . And although his bedroom was far from the heated living room—you've probably been to museums and houses of that time, and you know that not all rooms had such stoves, only those

37:41

Speaker A

closer to the kitchen and so on—Kant ordered that his bedroom not be heated, except on frosty, especially frosty nights. He believed that cold and living in the cold were good for your health. And now I'll touch on something

38:00

Speaker A

I'd call a kind of manager of your body and psyche. It's very interesting, because it, well, doesn't fit with the image of a gallant professor, enlightenment, or critique of pure reason. It seems a bit of a fixation.

38:14

Speaker A

Listen. The state of the air and the weather had a very significant impact on Kant's well-being. This prompted him to keep detailed observations of the weather. Kant very often looked at a weather vane throughout the day to determine the direction of the wind. He

38:37

Speaker A

checked the thermometer, barometer, and hygrometer and accurately calculated the phases of the moon. He opened the window for a few seconds to inhale the air and determine its state. The thing is, he, like me, was haunted by the

38:58

Speaker A

sound of flies. And so, when you write, you concentrate, like this, I begin to enter here. There. And that's why the lamp had strict instructions not to ventilate the rooms. You always have to keep the window closed. But the lamp,

39:17

Speaker A

secretly—I can imagine what the air was like there—secretly from the gentleman, he opened the window and ventilated it. Apparently, it was hard for him to clean the room with the only closed window. Well, let's get back to it. Such a weirdo, yes, look. Wind,

39:34

Speaker A

moon phases, barometer, thermometer. Why does he need to write, to create? Ideas. Therefore, for him, the body, breathing, nutrition, habitat are necessary conditions for functioning.

39:52

Speaker A

That's why I call him a genius of superdiscipline. Let's get back to these habits of his. He wanted to live a long life. And how did he express this? Perhaps no one has ever lived in the world, says a biographer, who paid

40:11

Speaker A

more attention to his body and everything concerning it than Kant. Kant was interested in the achievements of old age. He kept a whole list of elderly people in his memory, including even older men from the Königsberg upper classes, and was pleased that he

40:36

Speaker A

was gradually moving up the list, with only a few older people ahead of him.

40:45

Speaker A

But even this wasn't enough for Kant. For many years, he requested monthly lists of the dead from the Königsberg police department in order to then calculate the probability of his own life expectancy. I'll skip a few more of these trashy paragraphs below.

41:11

Speaker A

Despite all the changes in his body, Kant's disposition remained calm and cheerful. Well, let's see. Now we'll finish this calm conversation. Firstly, he was very polite. Even when it was difficult for him to get up when guests arrived, he did. Secondly, he always

41:32

Speaker A

listened attentively, although he loved to talk a lot at the table, to be the life and soul of the party, the center of the group. At the same time, he was engaged in scholarship. He read, wrote, taught. But you see, Kant's life was

41:47

Speaker A

also devoted to a thousand details. Travelers would arrive, and he would question them all. As it's described in Gulyga's biography, I'll tell you now about the aesthetics of conversation.

42:03

Speaker A

And he attached great importance to dinner. An acquaintance of Kant's from work and lectures claimed: "Jachmann only knows half of him." That's what I said. But consider the case of the German Count Purksthal. Purksthal.

42:17

Speaker A

Those accustomed to being the center of attention might, indeed, not appreciate Kant's manner of being the life and soul of the conversation. Such a soul.

42:24

Speaker A

And the young Count Purckstall, who arrived in Königsberg with a letter of recommendation from Reinhold, a renowned philosopher and also a Freemason who had a book on the philosophy of Freemasonry, was annoyed that his guest, the young Count, didn't

42:41

Speaker A

want to discuss intelligent matters with him, but was increasingly making jokes. This, by the way, is a trait of the young. I know this from experience too. If you meet a philosopher with an intelligent air, a 16-or 18-year-old

42:55

Speaker A

starts to talk nonsense. You try to laugh it off, but the person gets offended, because you need to talk to him seriously. But then at dinner, according to the Count, Kahn talked nonstop. And this young Count is quoted

43:08

Speaker A

further. He knew better than I did. What kind of poultry do we have in Staehrmark? What is the country like?

43:18

Speaker A

To what extent is a Catholic priest educated? On all these issues, he contradicted me. This is how I want to defend myself with Kant against some of my critics on YouTube. They say, "You know nothing about the world, you just

43:36

Speaker A

read your books and that's it." Listen, I know, I've talked to thousands of people, I travel a lot. And yet, well, it's all the same, well, you haven't seen life. Well, okay. Kant didn't travel, he never went anywhere, he

43:51

Speaker A

never saw anything. His knowledge comes mainly from books, from books. Well, newspapers. Newspapers, of course. And do you know what kind of newspapers there were? And small groups of people.

44:04

Speaker A

Well, how many, okay, he lived a long time. Well, how many people could he have had visiting him over all those decades? Well, probably at most. Well, calculate for yourself how many there could have been, mathematically. That is, Kant got basically everything from

44:20

Speaker A

books. Books are the main source of his knowledge. Well, and finally, you know that Kant's death is mainly a memoir by Vassiansky or a biography by Osiansky, a biography of Kant's last years. There are different opinions about this

44:43

Speaker A

biography, but we know that life and vitality in general slowly left Kant. And when Jachmann visited him in August 80, he died in 804, and he no longer recognized him. Such was the extent of his dementia. Kahn would instantly

45:02

Speaker A

forget what was said to him, would often repeat himself, and, well, he looked very ill. And he faded away practically painlessly. That's how his biographer, Jachmann, describes it. He says that Kant passed away painlessly.

45:19

Speaker A

Here he literally writes like this: “ On February 2, 1804, at about 12:00 noon, very quietly, with a calm expression on his face, without the slightest sign of suffering and even as if willingly, Kant gave up the ghost

45:34

Speaker A

and left this world. Having caused a sigh of relief in those who valued and loved him and to whom he was dear. Why a sigh of relief? Because the great thinker, who gradually gradually became a child. What conclusion can be drawn

45:52

Speaker A

from what I have told you here and gesticulated? You see that Kant’s biography stands apart. This is something inhuman, certainly not angelic or divine. This is some special type of life. If I were engaged in wit, I would say that a person can lead

46:13

Speaker A

three ways of life: human, animal and Kantian. Now, Kant’s way of life is unique, only he has captured it. His whole life is subordinated to philosophy, his whole life is subordinated to teaching, and most importantly, the creation of

46:31

Speaker A

philosophical texts. But this small body, he was small in stature, Hunched over, with stomach problems, occasional migraines, and otherwise never sick.

46:48

Speaker A

Imagine a man living in Königsberg for 80 years in the 15th century and never getting sick. It's a miracle, really.

46:57

Speaker A

It's a wonderful life. But this life might seem terrifyingly scary to some, like our Alexander Blok, who ridiculed Kant in such an ironic poem. He views Kant as a puppet mechanism, in which there's nothing human left. On the

47:17

Speaker A

other hand, you can learn from Kant this self-discipline; you certainly shouldn't repeat the race. You need to travel, you need to enjoy life. People get sick, suffer, get married, get divorced. These are also conflicts and so on. This is the fullness of life,

47:35

Speaker A

too. But you still need to learn this disciplinary approach. You need to feel your body, feel your psyche. Look, today is the era of psychotherapists and various mental, let's say, states that are not very healthy. Again, you see, I hesitated so much, because

48:01

Speaker A

There's always a struggle for politically correct phrases. Kant didn't need a psychotherapist. Kant didn't need psychotherapists. Kant rarely, if ever, had friends who were doctors, and he talked to them like that. But he didn't resort to doctors.

48:19

Speaker A

He didn't need psychotherapists, he didn't need coaches. He was a man who educated himself on his own personal path. He not only educated all of humanity, creating beautiful, profound texts, but he also wrote his own personal philosophy of life, which he

48:41

Speaker A

tailored specifically to himself. And he told everyone that everyone should take care of their body, psyche, state, and health, because everyone's is unique. And by observing yourself, you need to build exactly the kind of mental health, the kind of life path

49:00

Speaker A

that suits you best. You could say that Kant was a great teacher of life in this regard. And here we see, in the final phrase, that philosophy plays the role of a true mentor of life.

49:15

Speaker A

Philosophy as a practical guide to what was, for him, a happy life. It was a happy and long life. Well, as you can see, it's been a while since I've posted a video, almost a month. Some people have even started writing me

49:32

Speaker A

comments asking what's wrong. Yeah, well, it's all about trips, meetings, discussions, getting ready for the school year. On September 22nd, we start the new school year at Architect Smyslov School. Stay tuned for announcements, they'll be coming soon.

49:50

Speaker A

On the evening of the 15th, that is, tomorrow, September 15th, there will be an open meeting, workshop, and consultation on a new path of self-discovery at our school. If you have the time and opportunity, please join me. I'll give the link under this

50:06

Speaker A

video. So join me. And also subscribe to my channel, like, comment, and give examples of lifestyles that are closer to you. I understand that Kant and his path aren't for everyone. But give us your examples, your models. What are

50:27

Speaker A

your ideals? What does it mean to you to live a full and happy life? So, I said to Kanti: "And what about you personally?""Well, besides school, we also have Polis. And you can join now.

50:42

Speaker A

There will be some very serious, interesting announcements and updates. Life begins. We recently held another meeting with Polis citizens. And don't forget about the Patreon channel. There are always new publications there from my travels, my observations. Because I

50:59

Speaker A

don't post the most personal, intimate things on this channel. Well, because people are different, it's in the public domain, they often use it, and so on. Many things don't end up on this channel. So subscribe to Patreon or

51:16

Speaker A

Polis. And I hope to see you again.

Topics: Immanuel Kant self-discipline time management philosophy daily routine health practices biography history of thought philosophical lifestyle Königsberg

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