another strange parallel biography

And while we’re at it, here’s a parallel biography I will definitely never, ever write:

Casanova: 1725-1798
Kant: 1724-1804

That’s about as different a pair of animals as you’ll ever find, despite the near-total overlap of birth and death dates.

What on earth could these two have talked about if they had met? It’s possible for us now to appreciate both of them for what they were, but they’re as weird a match in their own right as Popeye and HAL.

But here’s an interesting question… If you had put the two side-by-side as newborn babies, little difference would have been discernible. At age 5 also not. So, at what age did the paths of Casanova and Kant first diverge so greatly that they reached Popeye/HAL status as completely unmixable?