Immanuel Kant famously said this:
“Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.”[1]
And this:
“The history of *nature*, therefore, begins with good, for it is God’s work; the history of *freedom* begins with *badness*, for it is *man’s* work.”[2]
And he regularly makes other slights against human nature. So how do we get from that to descriptions such as the following?
“Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), the emblematic philosopher of the European Enlightenment and a true believer in the possibility of human perfectibility if ever there was one”.[3]
Even on the most basic aspects of their philosophies, Kant is one of those thinkers — Plato, Nietzsche, and Rand are in this category too — who inspire the most diametrically opposed interpretations.
Sources:
[1] “Idea for a General History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose” (1784), Proposition 6.
[2] “Speculative Beginning of Human History” [1786], H49-60.
[3] Christopher Phillips, Ph.D., The Philosophy of Childing: Unlocking Creativity, Curiosity, and Reason through the Wisdom of Our Youngest, Skyhorse 2016, p. 32.