Re: Max Hayward’s article in The Atlantic:

It is quite true that Kant thought little of “feasts and grand banquets,” for the events he had in mind tend be “festive entertainments” that amount to little more than boasts by the one throwing them and stupefacients for the ones attending them (Anth. 7: 278).

To such spiritually empty distractions, however, he explicitly opposed “the good living that still seems to harmonize best with true humanity,” namely, “a good meal in good company” (ibid.), complete with some wine or beer, which “open the heart” and stimulate “reciprocal communication of thoughts” (ibid., 7: 170-1).

Yes, Kant said some risible things about dinner parties (and, of course, about other things). And, yes, he probably moralized aspects of life that shouldn’t be moralized.

But you and I have each partaken in something like a “festive entertainment” and each partaken in something like “a good meal in good company.” And we’ve probably enjoyed the stupefaction brought by the former. (I know I have.) But you’re a liar, a dullard, or a boor if you deny the nourishment brought by the latter. Its peculiar and characteristically human union of physiological and spiritual sustenance is just what Kant thought so lovely and worthwhile.

My point is this: Kant was a human being, for fuck’s sake.

He committed some grave errors in judgment, as human beings do. But more to the point — and this shouldn’t have to be said — he was perfectly aware of human vulnerabilities, needs, desires, and pleasures. He might have interpreted some of them idiosyncratically, maybe incorrectly. But only one with a pre-formed caricature in mind could think it’s at all faithful to Kant’s philosophy to present him as coming down against enjoying each other’s company over some food and drink.

The caricature of Kant as nothing more than a “dour moralist,” as Hayward puts it, discourages one from looking for the very human phenomena that Kant was trying to characterize and prevents one from finding anything reasonably human in what he says about them.

Unfortunately, writing with the caricature in mind only works to promulgate the caricature, so some other dilettante can come to misinterpret Kant and promulgate the caricature — which happens not only in too many popularizations of Kant but in too many journal articles as well.