Solomon Maimon was unkempt. Maimon was dirty. That's what I always protest to W. when he reprimands me for my personal habits. But Maimon was a genius!, W cries. A genius driven out of his home city for daring to philosophise. A beggar-genius, living on alms as he wandered for years, before being offered a position as a live-in tutor.
Was it in those years that Maimon formulated the most decisive criticisms of Kantian thought ever made? Was it then, his begging bowl before him, Kant's three Critiques in his knapsack, that the ideas came to him which, in his final years, he would publish in a series of essays?
Only Maimon understands me, Kant said, after reading his unkempt admirer’s Transcendental Philosophy in manuscript. And when Kant died, it was suspected that among the causes of his death was Maimon's devastating criticism of his work. How could he, Kant, survive an attach by the ragged philosopher?
But Maimon never succeeded in penetrating academic circles, or even the salons of enlightened Berlin Jews. To them he was of the Ostjude, his manners too rough, his jerks and tics too disconcerting, his speech stammering and garbled. And he was a difficult man, lacking in manners, brusque and intolerant when he should have been diplomatic.
And he smelt awful, everyone said that. Maimon stinks! Get him out of here!: that's what you'd hear in Berlin salons. And out he went, back onto the frozen streets, back outside with the three Critiques in his knapsack. He was an alcoholic, of course. He drank like a madman, W. says. He drank himself to death even when he found employment, even as great essay after essay poured forth from his pen.
Is that what's going to happen to me? Am I going to produce a great stream of books in my final years, which can't be far off?, W. says. He's offered me support, and now he's waiting. He brought me in from the cold, and now he's sitting by expectantly. But he thinks he's going to be disappointed.
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