Kant’s joke, according to Nietzsche

Thus spake Friedrich:

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Kant’s joke. — Kant wanted to prove, in a way that would dumbfound the whole world, that the whole world was right: that was the secret joke of this soul. He wrote against the scholars in favor of popular prejudice, but for scholars and not for the people.”

Nietzsche, *The Gay Science*, section 193)

By “popular prejudice” Nietzsche means beliefs in God, freedom of the will, and the immortality of the soul, all of which Kant defends.

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(Nietzsche’s title reminds me of an anecdote told by my colleague in political science, Jules Gleicher, who said that when he was a graduate student at the University of Chicago in the 1970s he learned the hard way that reading The Gay Science while riding public transportation was not advisable.)