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Christian Garve HERR PROFESSOR CHRISTIAN GARVE “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Herr Christian Garve HDT WHAT? INDEX HERR PROFESSOR CHRISTIAN GARVE HERR CHRISTIAN GARVE 1742 January 7, Thursday (Old Style): Christian Garve was born into a family of manual workers. He would study at the universities in Frankfurt an der Oder, and in Halle (Saale). NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT Herr Christian Garve “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX HERR CHRISTIAN GARVE HERR PROFESSOR CHRISTIAN GARVE 1766 Christian Garve received the Master’s Degree in Philosophy. LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Herr Christian Garve HDT WHAT? INDEX HERR PROFESSOR CHRISTIAN GARVE HERR CHRISTIAN GARVE 1769 Publication at Berlin, as a “Prize Essay” (Preisschrift), of Christian Garve’s OB MAN DIE NATÜRLICHEN NEIGUNGEN VERNICHTEN, ODER WELCHE ERWECKEN KÖNNE, DIE NATUR NICHT ERZEUGT HAT: UND WELCHES MITTEL SEYN, DEN NEIGUNGEN, WENN SIE GUT SIND, KRÄFTE ZU GEBEN, ODER, WENN SIE BÖSE SIND, ZU SCHWÄCHEN. VERSUCH ÜBER DIE VON DER AKADEMIE AUFGEGEBENE FRAGE. DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD. Herr Christian Garve “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX HERR CHRISTIAN GARVE HERR PROFESSOR CHRISTIAN GARVE 1770 Immanuel Kant became a Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at the University of Berlin. Christian Garve became Extraordinary Professor of Mathematics and Logic at the University of Leipzig. CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT Herr Christian Garve “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX HERR PROFESSOR CHRISTIAN GARVE HERR CHRISTIAN GARVE 1772 Professor Christian Garve translated Professor Adam Ferguson’s INSTITUTES OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY: FOR THE USE OF STUDENTS IN THE COLLEGE OF EDINBURGH (Edinburgh: Printed for A. Kincaid & J. Bell), as GRUNDSÄTZE DER MORALPHILOSOPHIE (Leipzig). He became a bookseller in Breslau. The greatest part of his short life would be spent with his mother, in that area. He would become a member of the Masonic Lodge “Friedrich zum goldenen Zepter” (“Frederick with the Golden Scepter”) in the municipality. He would be composing psychological, moral, and economic texts and reviews for the Neue Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften und der freyen Künste (New Library of the Beautiful Sciences and Free Arts). The reputation he would acquire would be that of a “Popularphilosoph” (accessible philosopher) rather than that of a system- builder with a seemingly endless supply of nonce vocabulary, such as for one fine instance Professor Immanuel Kant.1 THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT 1. How insolent it seems of him to have insinuated that any major system-building philosopher ever might agree about anything with any other — that’s so not what system-building philosophy was all about! HDT WHAT? INDEX HERR CHRISTIAN GARVE HERR PROFESSOR CHRISTIAN GARVE 1773 Hannah More became one of the aspiring writers of London. She would become associated with Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dr. Johnson, Edmund Burke, and William Wilberforce. She would engage David Garrick to produce her plays. Professor Christian Garve translated Edmund Burke’s 1759 A PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS OF THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL WITH SEVERAL OTHER ADDITIONS, as ÜBER DEN URSPRUNG UNSERER BEGRIFFE VOM ERHABENEN UND SCHÖNEN (Riga). The family of Gasparo Grimani was still in London, for they were godparents at an Italian christening. (They seem to have been in Paris as well, for the daughter is said to have been kidnapped there and never found. The wife Antonia Fabbri Grimani is said to have fallen ill shortly after this, and she would die in Paris in about 1776.) THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Herr Christian Garve HDT WHAT? INDEX HERR PROFESSOR CHRISTIAN GARVE HERR CHRISTIAN GARVE 1776 Christian Garve translated Alexander Gerard’s 1774 AN ESSAY ON GENIUS (London) as VERSUCH UEBER DAS GENEI (Leipzig: Weidmanns Erben & Reich). HDT WHAT? INDEX HERR CHRISTIAN GARVE HERR PROFESSOR CHRISTIAN GARVE 1782 On account of an anonymous review of the CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON that he had prepared for the Zugabe zu den Gottischen Anzeigen von Gelehrten Sachen, Christian Garve found that he was dragged into an extended argument with Herr Professor Immanuel Kant. He had committed the major sin of interpreting Professor Kant’s position as the same as the one that had been taken by Bishop George Berkeley, which was of course quite preposterous — Professor Kant the system-builder was not the fellow to merely repeat somebody else’s ideas! However, what Professor Garve had prepared had been shortened by about two-thirds prior to the publication of this, and had then been considerably augmented by the Göttingen philosopher Johann Georg Heinrich Feder, and in consequence his controversial review would need to be republished in the Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek, this time in full and without those supplemental materials that had actually been supplied by Feder. Professor Kant would be, however, still so much displeased, as to author an Anti- Garve response — which response would then after a time be expanded by Kant until eventually it would become his renowned PROLEGOMENA TO ANY FUTURE METAPHYSICS THAT WILL BE ABLE TO PRESENT ITSELF AS A SCIENCE (1783). WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF Herr Christian Garve “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX HERR PROFESSOR CHRISTIAN GARVE HERR CHRISTIAN GARVE 1783 Herr Professor Immanuel Kant’s PROLEGOMENA TO ANY FUTURE METAPHYSICS THAT WILL BE ABLE TO PRESENT ITSELF AS A SCIENCE. July 13, Sunday: Christian Garve identified himself to Herr Professor Immanuel Kant as the author of the anonymous 1782 review of the CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON to which Professor Kant had objected, the guy who had opinioned that Kant’s idea was merely Bishop George Berkeley’s idea warmed over. He attempted to explain that two-thirds of what he had prepared had been deleted by the editor, and that about a third of the material actually published had been created not by him but instead by a third party, Johann Georg Heinrich Feder. He conceded to the aggrieved system-builder, nevertheless, that “I bear some responsibility for it.” HDT WHAT? INDEX HERR CHRISTIAN GARVE HERR PROFESSOR CHRISTIAN GARVE 1784 Herr Professor Immanuel Kant’s essay “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” At the request of Frederick the Great, Christian Garve translated Cicero’s DE OFFICIIS (ON THE DUTIES OF LIFE, three volumes; the king would in consequence bestow upon Garve a pension of $200). HDT WHAT? INDEX HERR PROFESSOR CHRISTIAN GARVE HERR CHRISTIAN GARVE 1786 Christian Garve published a treatise on the Character of the Peasantry. HDT WHAT? INDEX HERR CHRISTIAN GARVE HERR PROFESSOR CHRISTIAN GARVE 1788 Christian Garve published a treatise on the relationship between Morality and Politics. HDT WHAT? INDEX HERR PROFESSOR CHRISTIAN GARVE HERR CHRISTIAN GARVE 1792 Volume I of Christian Garve’s collection of essays VERSUCHE ÜBER VERSCHIEDENE GEGENSTÄNDE AUS DER MORAL, DER LITTERATUR UND DEM GESELLSCHAFTLICHEN LEBEN (Breslau) (ESSAYS CONCERNING A NUMBER OF OBJECTS IN MORALITY, LITERATURE AND SOCIAL LIFE). HDT WHAT? INDEX HERR CHRISTIAN GARVE HERR PROFESSOR CHRISTIAN GARVE 1793 Christian Garve’s DISCOURS SUR L'UTILITÉ DES ACADÉMIES (Berlin). HDT WHAT? INDEX HERR PROFESSOR CHRISTIAN GARVE HERR CHRISTIAN GARVE 1794 Christian Garve’s translation into German of Professor Adam Smith’s 1776 AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF THE WEALTH OF NATIONS (its four volumes would be complete by 1796). From this year until 1800, Jean-Baptiste Say would be editing La Decade philosophique, litteraire, et politique, a periodical favoring the doctrines of Professor Smith. WALDEN: If I wished a boy to know something about the arts and PEOPLE OF sciences, for instance, I would not pursue the common course, WALDEN which is merely to send him into the neighborhood of some professor, where any thing is professed and practised but the art of life; –to survey the world through a telescope or a microscope, and never with his natural eye; to study chemistry, and not learn how his bread is made, or mechanics, and not learn how it is earned; to discover new satellites to Neptune, and not detect the motes in his eyes, or to what vagabond he is a satellite himself; or to be devoured by the monsters that swarm all around him, while contemplating the monsters in a drop of vinegar. Which would have advanced the most at the end of a month, –the boy who had made his own jack-knife from the ore which he had dug and smelted, reading as much as would be necessary for this, –or the boy who had attended the lectures on metallurgy at the Institute in the mean while, and had received a Rodgers’ penknife from his father? Which would be most likely to cut his fingers? –To my astonishment I was informed on leaving college that I had studied navigation! –why, if I had taken one turn down the harbor I should have known more about it. Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges. The consequence is, that while he is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably. ADAM SMITH DAVID RICARDO JEAN-BAPTISTE SAY HDT WHAT? INDEX HERR CHRISTIAN GARVE HERR PROFESSOR CHRISTIAN GARVE 1796 Volum e II o f Christian Garve’s collection of essays VERSUCHE ÜBER VERSCHIEDENE GEGENSTÄNDE AUS DER MORAL, DER LITTERATUR UND DEM GESELLSCHAFTLICHEN LEBEN (Breslau) (ESSAYS CONCERNING A NUMBER OF OBJECTS IN MORALITY, LITERATURE AND SOCIAL LIFE).
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