Immanuel Kant was born in 1724 in Königsberg, Prussia (since 1946 the city of Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia), as the fourth of nine children (four of them reached adulthood). Baptized 'Emanuel', he changed his name to 'Immanuel'[5] after learning Hebrew. Contrary to a widespread myth that in his entire life he never traveled more than 10 miles (16 km) from Königsberg,[6] he worked between 1750 and 1754 as a "Hauslehrer" (tutor) in Judtschen[7] (now Veselovka, Russia, approx. 20 km) and in Groß-Arnsdorf[8] (now near Elbląg, Poland, approx. 105 km). His father, Johann Georg Kant (1682–1746), was a German harnessmaker from Memel, at the time Prussia's most northeastern city (now Klaipėda, Lithuania). His mother, Anna Regina Reuter (1697–1737), was born in Nuremberg.[9] Kant's paternal grandfather, Hans Kant,[10] had emigrated from Scotland to East Prussia, and his father still spelled their family name "Cant".[11] In his youth, Kant was a solid, albeit unspectacular, student. He was brought up in a Pietist household that stressed intense religious devotion, personal humility, and a literal interpretation of the Bible. Kant received a stern education – strict, punitive, and disciplinary – that preferred Latin and religious instruction over mathematics and science.[12] Despite his upbringing in a religious household and still maintaining a belief in God, he was skeptical of religion in later life; various commentators have labelled him agnostic.[13][14][15][16][17][18] The common myths concerning Kant's personal mannerisms are enumerated, explained, and refuted in Goldthwait's introduction to his translation of Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime.[19] It is often held that Kant lived a very strict and predictable life, leading to the oft-repeated story that neighbors would set their clocks by his daily walks. He never married, but did not seem to lack a rewarding social life — he was a popular teacher and a modestly successful author even before starting on his major philosophical works.
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