That fastidious 18th century German professor Immanuel Kant told us many important things, most of which may be false and all of which are relentlessly obscure. Although he was a man of modest and regular habits--it is said the good citizens of Konigsburg set their clocks by his appearance on his daily constitutional--he nevertheless could write prose so dense not even his fellow Germans could follow it. And the German standard for a well-crafted word is one which uses every letter in the alphabet more than once, so dense prose is a German specialty. Indeed, it is Kant's writings, along with those of a few others, that have given philosophy such a bad name. After Kant, can we blame anyone for seeing philosophy as an impenetrable thicket, far too arcane for sensible folks.

But we do owe good Herr Kant an important debt of gratitude. Not because of his writings (God forbid). No, it is not his writing which is his contribution, but the fact that he didn't even begin producing his most inscrutable works until he was almost 60! And he was still at it, with undiminished vigor, into his 70s. Which should give some hope to those of us past the bloom of youth. Kant is a icon of sorts for me, he is a reminder that creativity, like folly, is not the exclusive province of the young.