A Fine Bromance: Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) and Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527)

Abstract

Immanuel Kant awoke with a sense of something having changed radically overnight. First, the confusion and incapacity that had dogged him these past few years had lifted and he felt restored to the full extent of his intellectual powers. Those powers led him to his second insight of the morning: he was not in his bed and judging by the flora and fauna that surrounded him, nor was he in his house. Quickly, he rose to his feet. That rascal Lampe was no doubt behind this practical joke, Kant fumed, but then he remembered that Wasianski had already dismissed Lampe. Perhaps this was his idea of revenge? Whatever the motivation of whoever had placed him in this strange position, Kant realized that his motivation was fairly clear and simple: to return home and to resume his ordered existence. With his powers newly restored, it was time to finally complete the project of unifying and systematizing all the threads of his philosophy.