Abstract

Kant’s mourning letter or necrology for his student Johann Friedrich von Funk (1760) has hardly been received. This study attempts to change this by explaining the contexts of the short missive. In the first part this concerns in particular the influence that Gottsched exerted on the style of such printed speeches or necrolo­gies. Kant’s references therefore to the ‘Royal German Society’ in Königsberg and its founder Flottwell, a friend of Gottsched’s, are described. The influence of the Roman Stoa then becomes much clearer through the influence of Gottsched’s rhetoric textbook. All in all, Kant attempts to present rational arguments for dealing with death, which can suddenly strike human life; he writes under the obvious influence of a Stoic mindset (see the second part). Most of the comments by Kant scholars on the little work to date have been negative or vague. Here, the text is to be made fruitful for the development of Kant’s thought by shedding light on its historical contexts. On this basis, the little treatise appears as an important link for Kant’s early thinking. It shows how he makes ancient tradition fruitful again for the Enlightenment as a substitute for rapturous and irrational mysticism as we know it from Jacob Böhme, for example.