Rendez-Vous — I. Kant

— Cornelis de Bondt

The day before yesterday, I banged my left thigh hard against a corner of the old metal stove while passing by with some dirty dishes. Yesterday, after I got up, it began to hurt quite badly; I couldn’t walk properly. Today it’s worse — I can hardly limp along, and going up and down the stairs is torture. So sleep was out of the question; I can’t find a single position without pain. I spent most of the night lying on my back, now with a small pillow under my left knee and a rolled-up towel around my neck to give my head more support. None of it really helps; I lie awake for hours.

To distract myself from the pain in my leg, I made a journey to Königsberg to try to get an audience with Immanuel Kant. I decided to visit him in the year 1794, one year after the publication of his remarkable text Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason. I chose to call on him at four in the afternoon, when he would have returned from his daily walk. His servant, Lampe, opened the door and asked what I wanted. When I told him I had an important question for his distinguished master, he replied, “Ein Moment mal,” and closed the door in my face. A few minutes later the door opened again: “Please follow me,” he said, and led me into a salon, pointed to an armchair, and instructed me to sit down. He was wearing white silk gloves, gesturing toward the chair with his right hand while keeping his left behind his back. He left the room and returned about fifteen minutes later carrying a tray with a jug of water, a pot of tea, two glasses, and cups.

The old thinker entered the salon. I immediately stood up to shake his hand, but he kept his distance. His probing eyes pierced mine. He motioned toward my armchair and took the one opposite me.

Kant poured water into our glasses and tea into our cups, without asking whether I wanted any.

“Who are you? Should I know you? Are you a philosopher?” he asked.

“You don’t know me, and I wouldn’t call myself a philosopher, but I do a great deal of thinking.”

“Where do you come from? You speak quite good German, but with a strange accent.”

“I come from the Netherlands, from The Hague.”

“Ah, the Low Countries of the merchants.”

I nodded but wisely kept silent.

“I was reminded of your country when, working on my Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, I used the example of the merchant who, out of inclination, charges his customers honest prices,” Kant continued. “Have you read it?”

“Oh yes,” I replied, “but the question I wish to ask you concerns another work — the Critique of Judgment.”

“As you wish,” he said curtly. He finished his tea and poured himself another cup, then made an impatient gesture.

I hurried to ask my question: “Do you hold that Truth, like Beauty, is not bound to any interest?”

“I take it you yourself would answer that question in the affirmative,” he said, fixing me with an intense gaze. “On what grounds?”

I hesitated — this was beginning to feel like a third-degree interrogation, as if I didn’t have enough to endure already. I tried to turn onto my right side but immediately abandoned the idea. Best to grit my teeth; there are worse things in life. I couldn’t possibly explain all this to him — he didn’t strike me as a man overendowed with empathy.

“It seemed a logical conclusion to me,” I said at last, “since we don’t desire truth. The statement 1 + 1 = 2 is a disinterested one.”

I had the feeling that the philosopher looked at me somewhat pityingly, though that might of course have been a projection on my part. One doesn’t often find oneself opposite a man of such formidable intellectual powers, and I don’t consider myself an above-average thinker.

Kant took his time; he was now on his third cup of tea. I sipped mine slowly. I didn’t want to embarrass him by asking to use the toilet. Tea and beer, a pleasure to my bladder.

“I understand your argument,” he began after a while, “but I believe truth has nothing to do with your question of whether it is disinterested or not.” He emptied his cup, glanced at mine, shook his head slightly, and continued: “Unlike the beautiful, truth is grounded in concepts. When we wish to consider, for example, gravity, we employ concepts. That applies to all natural laws, but also to mathematics. For the judgment of beauty, as you yourself indicated, this is not the case.” He paused and took a sip of water. “Judgments of taste cannot be debated, since no determinate concepts exist for them; yet they can be disputed — we do that all the time. The disinterestedness of such a judgment is crucial, since it shows us which arguments in our disputes are meaningful and which are not. It directs our conversation.” He eyed my half-full glass and teacup. “Why don’t you drink?”

I feel a certain urge to relieve myself, but the pain in my leg holds me back, so I decide to ignore the pressure on my bladder. I pull up both legs, hoping that might help.

Since I didn’t answer his question, he went on: “For the argument about truth, this principle is irrelevant. It concerns not taste but logic and consistency — the criteria by which we determine whether something is ‘true’.”

He looked at me like a predator about to pounce. Fortunately, he reached for his glass of water instead. “I still don’t quite understand,” I ventured. “If something is true, isn’t that an objective, verifiable statement, and therefore free from subjective interest? It stands apart from all desire.”

“In my Third Critique,” he replied, “in paragraph 40, ‘On Taste as a Kind of Sensus Communis,’ I distinguish between three maxims of human understanding: 1) To think for oneself — that is, to think without prejudice; the maxim of the understanding. 2) To think from the standpoint of another — that is, from a universal standpoint; the maxim of judgment. 3) To think consistently with oneself — that is, coherently; the maxim of reason. Unlike judgments of taste, common sense is indeed based on concepts, and on that basis we can arrive at a logical judgment of truth. But it would be wrong to regard that judgment as ‘absolutely objective’. Every truth we posit is grounded in our interpretation of our sensory perception; it does not concern the thing in itself.”

“But surely the statement 1 + 1 = 2 is objectively true,” I countered. “The numerical system doesn’t come from nature but is a human construction. Within that construction, the statement is objectively demonstrable.”

“Indeed,” he said, “that statement is objectively true, but not absolutely so. Truth is phenomenally objective, but not noumenally — it belongs to the world of appearances, not to the world of things existing beyond our perception, the ‘things in themselves.’”

“But in paragraphs 40 and 41 of your Critique of Judgment you distinguish between, on the one hand, the disinterestedness of the judgment of taste, and on the other, its interest — what you call empirical interest. Even in the case of reason there is an intellectual interest. Why, then, is this interest ultimately ‘irrelevant’?” I asked.

“The intellectual interest is rooted in reason, yet it can also relate to the judgment of beauty, when that judgment appeals to our moral sense. But only then — the judgment of taste has no interest as determining ground. For truth, since it belongs to reason, the matter is different. Reason is founded on necessity; beauty on the free play of our imagination. The tension between, on the one hand, the disinterestedness of beauty as determining ground and, on the other, its empirical interest, gives us the necessary instruments for an adequate analysis of judgments of taste. For truth, this is not the case; hence the interest is ultimately irrelevant.” He cast a final benevolent glance at my untouched tea.

I awake from my state of dreaming and half-sleep; the pain in my leg is unbearable. I turn onto my back and place the small cushion under my left knee. Kant had vanished. What a know-it-all, I think irritably. Was he a narcissist? Would he classify the pain — pain he would undoubtedly also feel if he were to bump into a stove — as ‘objective’ but not ‘absolute’? Not that he would ever go near a stove; that’s what Lampe was for. In any case, he had made things rather comfortable for himself. Still, this wasn’t the result of narcissism, I finally conclude — he simply had trouble dealing with people who couldn’t keep up with his intellect. Congratulations, De Bondt. Would others think the same of me? I had often had the impression that the people I’d worked with saw me as a stubbornly principled, excessively headstrong figure. Amateur psychology. So much unseen beauty gets lost.

— Bonnemort, August 22, 2025