Joseph Green

Joseph Green (1727 – 27 June 1786) was an English merchant who became the "best friend" of Immanuel Kant.

Biography Green was born in Kingston upon Hull. He settled in Königsberg, Germany, and traded grains, coal, herring, and manufactured goods. Around 1752 Green hired Robert Motherby who also came from Hull as his assistant. Motherby later became his business partner and successor. Green never married. Green shared with Kant a deep appreciation of the ideas of David Hume and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in addition, Green could provide a perspective on the outside world that was helpful for Kant. Green's sense of order and resulting pedantic punctuality inspired Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel to write a comedy: Der Mann nach der Uhr. This sense of order, regularity, and punctuality also had an effect on Kant. Kuehn remarks that "Green's effect upon Kant cannot be overestimated."

Green's death in 1786 deeply affected Kant.