Kant’s Criticism of Swedenborg:Parapsychology

and the Origin of the Copernican Hypothesis

Prof. Stephen Palmquist, D.Phil. (Oxon)

Department of Religion and Philosophy

Hong Kong Baptist University

(stevepq@hkbu.edu.hk)

 

Human reason was not givenstrong enough wings to part clouds so high above us, which withhold from oureyes the secrets of the other world.[1]

 

1. The Traditional Myth of Kant’s‘Awakening’

 

            Kant’slife is traditionally portrayed as falling into two rather distinct periods.The years prior to 1770 form the ‘pre-Critical’ period, while thosefrom 1770 onwards form the ‘Critical’ period. The turning-point isplaced in the year 1770 because this is when Kant wrote the Inaugural Dissertationfor his newly gained position as Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at theUniversity of Koenigsberg. In this work, entitled On the Form and Principlesof the Sensible and Intelligible World,[2] he proposed for the first time that space andtime should be regarded as "forms of intuition" that human subjectsread into experience, rather than as self-subsisting attributes of nature that weread out from the objects we experience. The typical‘textbook’ account of Kant’s life usually declares that the‘pre-Critical’ Kant was a Leibnizian dogmatist, trained in theschool of Wolffian rationalism, and was interested as much in natural scienceas in philosophy, but that sometime around 1770 Kant was suddenly"awakened" from his "dogmatic slumbers" by his reflectionon David Hume’s philosophy.[3] Some commentators, such as Kuehn (1983),go so far as to say not only that "Kant and Hume aim at the very samething", but that "all the specific doctrines of Kant’s criticalenterprise are intimately bound up with Hume’s influence on Kant."(p.191)

            Althoughit is difficult to determine the exact nature and date of this dra­maticawakening, there is no doubt that Kant was familiar with Hume’s ideas bythe early 1760s; indeed, so the story goes, in 1766 he published a book thatadopts Hume’s empiricist standpoint almost completely.[4] This book,entitled Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, Illustrated by Dreams of Metaphysics [hereafter Dreams], is typicallyinterpreted as a minor work of an exceedingly skeptical nature, and ofrelatively little importance in understanding Kant’s mature thought. This"strangest and most tortured of Kant’s writings"(Ward 1972,p.34) is, at best, a stage he passed out of as quickly as he passed into it,and at worst, an embarrassment for Kant and Kant scholars alike. The embarrassmentcould come not only as a result of the rather unorthodox subject-matter –what we would now call parapsychology (i.e., studying the nature ofvisions and various types of mystical experiences – but because of theflippant attitude Kant adopts from time to time throughout the book (see note25, below). Indeed, regardless of how we interpret the philosophical content ofthis book, the psychological disposition of its author, who had recentlyentered his fifth decade, would appear to be that of a man in the midst of whatwe might nowadays call a mid-life crisis.[5]

            Thetraditional account contains at least as much error as truth. While it is truethat Kant never mentions his mature theory of the transcendental ideality ofspace and time before 1770, it is not true that he owes the theory to Hume(whose theory of space and time bears little resemblance to Kant’s). Noris it legitimate to equate this doctrine (expounded in its official form in theAesthetic of the first Critique) with the term ‘Critical’, as is impliedby the dating of the Critical period from 1770. On the contrary, Kantassociates his "new method of thought, namely, that we can know apriori of things only what we ourselves put into them", not with the Criticalmethod, but with the new ‘Copernican’ insight he believes willenable him to revolutionize philosophy.[6] His description and use of Criticismas a philosophical method is quite distinct from its application to problems inmetaphysics by means of the Copernican hypothesis. Thus, when Kant instructedthe editor of his minor writings to ignore all those written before 1770, (seeSewall 1900, p.x) he was not defining the starting point of his application ofthe Critical method, but rather that of his application of the Copernican hypothesisto the task of constructing a new philosophical System. If we must divide hislife into two periods at 1770, we should therefore avoid using the term‘pre-Critical’ (as others have advised, but without giving a viablealternative [e.g., Beiser 1992, p.36; Dell’Oro 1994, p.174]) and referinstead to the ‘pre-Copernican’ and ‘Copernican’periods. Adopting this new label will protect us from making inconsistentstatements such as Gulick’s (1994), implicitly conflating these two formsof revolution: "Kant’s self-designated Copernican revolution usheredin his critical period" (p.99). Since Kant exhibited ‘Critical’ tendencies throughout hislife, his mature years should be named the ‘Copernican’ period.

            Beforewe proceed it is crucial to have a thorough understanding of Kant’smature conception of ‘Criticism’ or ‘Critique’ (Kritik), as elaboratedin CPR. In the first edition Preface, Kant describes his era as "the ageof criticism", during which reason accords "sincere respect ... onlyto that which has been able to sustain the test of free and openexamination" (CPR, Axin). But this enlightened "habit ofthought" can be trusted only if it submits to its own "tribunal"of Criticism (Axi-xii). Thus "the subject-matter of our criticalenquiry" (i.e., of the entire Critical philosophy) is reason itself(Axiv), and its "first task" is "to discover the sources andconditions of the possibility of such criticism" (Axxi). This means thequestions addressed to reason cannot be answered by means of

 

…a dogmatic and visionaryinsistence upon knowledge ... that can be catered for only through magicaldevices, in which I am no adept. Such ways of answering them are, indeed, notwithin the intention of the natural constitution of our reason; and ... it is theduty of philosophy to counteract their deceptive influence, no matter whatprized and cherished dreams may have to bedisowned.(CPR, Ap.xiii, emphasis added)[7]

 

Instead, only by first examining "the very natureof knowledge itself" can we answer reason’s questions in such a wayas to provide solutions to the problems of metaphysics (Ap.xiii-xiv).

            Inthe second edition Preface Kant not only describes more fully thesubject-matter of the particular type of Critique he plans to engage in, butalso explains more clearly the nature of the Critical method. Metaphysics willbe "purified by criticism and established once for all": thepurification is "merely negative, warning us that we must neverventure with speculative reason beyond the limits of experience"; but theestablishment is positive inasmuch as it "removes an obstacle which standsin the way of the employment of practical reason" (CPR, p.xxiv-xxv). Inother words, the scope of reason’s speculative (i.e., theoretical)standpoint is narrowed by tying it to sensibility, but this frees metaphysicsto be established on the firmer foundation of reason’s practicalstandpoint — i.e., on morality (p.xv). The Critical method,therefore, is intended to establish limits, but to do so for both negative andpositive purposes. The former can be seen when Kant refers to "ourcritical distinction between two modes of representation, the sensible and theintellectual" and immediately adds "and of the resulting limitation..."; (CPR, p.xxviii)[8] likewise, he argues thatnon-contradictory doctrines of freedom and morality are "possible only inso far as criticism ... has limited all that we can theoretically know to mereappearances" (p.xxix). The positive benefit of such limitations is thatthey enable us to avoid "dogmatism" (defined here as "thepreconception that it is possible to make headway in metaphysics without aprevious criticism of pure reason"), which "is the source of all that[skeptical] unbelief ... which wars against morality" (p.xxx). Indeed,Kant goes so far as to say that "all objections to morality and religionwill be for ever silenced" (p.xxxi), because his Critique will "severthe root of materialism, fatalism, atheism, free-thinking, fanaticism, and superstition ... as well asof idealism and scepticism" (p.xxxiv).

            Throughoutthe rest of CPR Kant repeats many of these same claims about thenature of Criticism in its special, philosophical form. In most of theiroccurrences the words ‘critical’, ‘criticism’, and‘critique’ are used in close connection with some mention of the limitations of knowledge.[9]The only interesting exception is that on several occasions he adds thatCriticism serves as a middle way between the opposite extremes of dogmatism andskepticism (CPR 22-3, A388-9, 784-5, 789, 797). Indeed, thisepitomizes Kant’s association of the Critical method with synthesis, which he claimsalways takes the triadic form of "(1) a condition, (2) a conditioned, (3)the concept arising from the union of the conditioned with its condition"(CJ, p.179n).  And of course, the most basic exampleof his use of this pattern is his exposition of the Critical philosophy in theform of three Critiques.

            Thisbrief analysis of Kant’s understanding of the Critical method revealsthat he never associates it directly with the Copernican hypothesis but,instead, with several key distinctions. The Critical method is, for Kant, themethod of striking a middle way between two extremes ("a third step",as he calls it in CPR 789 [see also 177, 194, 196, 264, 315, 760-1, 794]).It operates by trying to locate the boundary between what can be known (and proved) and what cannever be known (yet remains possible) — the boundary line beingdefined in terms of "the limits of all possible experience" (e.g.,p.121). Thus it is closely associated with "the distinction between thetranscendental and the empirical" (p.81), as well as with that betweenspeculative (theoretical) and practical (moral) "employments of reason",or standpoints.[10] Although certain apparently skeptical claimshave to be made on the way, the ultimate purpose of Criticism for Kant ispositive: to provide a means of constructing the foundation for metaphysicsupon solid (non-speculative, moral) grounds.

            Acareful reading of Kant’s works reveals that traces of this Critical wayof doing philosophy are evident throughout most of his writings, from theearliest essays on metaphysics and natural philosophy to the latest essays onreligion, political history, and other subjects.[11]  Indeed, the fact that he uses this method todevelop and expound the implications of his Copernican hypothesis is what giveslasting value to the theories that arise out of it, and not vice versa. There is noneed to provide here a thoroughgoing proof of the ubiquity of the Criticalmethod in Kant’s writings.(for this see KSP, II.2, pp.32,39, passim).  Instead I shallconcentrate on Dreams because, in proportion to its importance, it is themost neglected and/or misunderstood book in the corpus of Kant’swritings. The next section sketches the contents of this book, after which Ishall draw attention in §3 to its Critical character and discuss its rolein Kant’s discovery of the Copernican hypothesis. Finally, I shall offersome brief suggestions in §4 as to the relation between Dreams and Kant’smature System of Perspectives. In so doing we shall find that Kant’sassessment of Swedenborg and his unusual experiences was far from beingentirely negative; on the contrary, it provides us with a level of insight intothe nature and limits of parapsychology that is highly appropriate for aFestschrift honoring John Beloff, one of the most respected contemporaryphilosophical researchers into the mysteries of this topic that fascinated Kantso much.

 

2. Kant’s Criticism of Swedenborg’sMystical Dreams

 

            InDreams Kant examines the nature and possibility of mystical visions, payingspecial attention to the claims of a Swedish writer and accomplished scientistnamed Emanuel Swedenborg.[12]  Kantexamines these visions not only to explore the limits of his own commitment toa belief in the spirit world,[13] but also (and more importantly) in order todraw attention to the dangers of speculative metaphysics by comparing it withfanatical mysticism. This analogy, present as it is in the very title of thework, will prove to be of utmost importance in understanding how Dreams relates to thelater development of Kant’s System. As noted earlier, Dreams is commonlyinterpreted as evidence of a radically empiricist stage in Kant’sdevelopment, where he is supposedly adopting something of a Humean position.But his actual intention, as we shall see, is to encourage a Critical attitude: whilehe comes down hard on the misuse of reason by spirit-seers and metaphysicianswhen they regard their respective dreams "as a source ofknowledge"(Sewall 1900, p.146), he expresses quite clearly his own dreamthat a properly balanced approach to both mysticism and metaphysics willsomeday emerge.[14] A detailed examination of Kant’s views onparapsychological phenomena as presented in Dreams can thereforeprovide some helpful clues as to Kant’s motivations for constructing theCritical philosophy itself.

            Themystical experiences considered in Dreams are not experiences of the presenceof God (i.e., "of infinite spirit which is originator and preserver of theuniverse" (Dreams p.321n[44n]), but experiences of lower spiritualbeings, who are supposed to be able to communicate with earthly beings invisions and apparitions. Although Kant ridicules those who have suchexperiences at several points in Dreams, he reveals his private view ofsuch experiences in two important letters. In a letter to Charlotte vonKnoblock (dated 10 August, probably 1763) he admits he "always consideredit to be most in agreement with sound reason to incline to the negative side..., until the report concerning Swedenborg came to my notice" (Sewall1900, p.158).[15] After recounting several impressive stories, Kant tells howSwedenborg was once able to describe in precise detail a fire that "hadjust broken out in Stockholm", even though he was fifty miles away inGöteborg. He says this "occurrence appears to me to have the greatestweight of proof, and to place the assertion respecting Swedenborg’sextraordinary gift beyond all possibility of doubt."(Sewall 1900,p.158)  In a subsequent letter (8April 1766) to Mendelssohn Kant explains that he clothed his thoughts withridicule in Dreams in order to avoid being ridiculed by otherphilosophers for paying attention to mystical visions (hardly taken seriouslyby most philosophers in the Enlightenment (see Dreams 353-4[91-2])).He admits:

 

…the attitude ofmy own mind is inconsistent and, so far as these stories are concerned, Icannot help having a slight inclination for things of this kind, and indeed, asregards their reasonableness, I cannot help cherishing an opinion that there issome validity in these experiences in spite of all the absurdities involved inthe stories about them ...(Sewall 1900, p.162)

 

            Elsewherein the same letter he draws a Critical conclusion: "Neither thepossibility nor the impossibility of this kind of thing can be proved, and ifsomeone attacked Swedenborg’s dreams as impossible, I shouldundertake to defend them." (Rabel 1963, p.74)[16]  Clearly, Kant believed somethingsignificant is happening in such parapsychological experiences –significant enough to merit a comparison with the tasks of metaphysics,"the dream science itself", to which he admits to being hopelessly "inlove"(Zweig 1967, p.55; see also KCR I.2).  The problem this set for him was to describe "just whatkind of a thing that is about which these people think they understand somuch" (Dreams p.319[41]).

            Inthe Preface to Dreams Kant hints at the Critical nature of his inquiry byasking two opposing questions, but offering a "third way out": heasks (1) "Shall [the philosopher] wholly deny the truth of all theapparitions [eye-witnesses] tell about?"; or (2) "Shall he, on theother hand, admit even one of these stories?"; and he answers that (3) thephilosopher should "hold on to the useful"(p.317-8[38]).[17]  The treatiseitself consists of seven chapters, grouped in two parts: Part One contains four"dogmatic" chapters and Part Two contains three"historical" chapters. The correspondence between these two parts andthe structure of the System he was soon to begin elaborating is evident by thefact that Part One ends with a chapter on "Theoretical Conclusions"and Part Two ends with a chapter on "Practical Conclusions" (Dreams pp.348[85],368[115]), thus foreshadowing the division between the first and second Critiques.

            Thetheoretical part begins in Chapter One, under the heading "A complicatedmetaphysical knot which can be untied or cut according to choice" (Dreams p.319[41]), bydiscussing what a spirit is or might be. Kant confesses:

 

I do not know if thereare spirits, yea, what is more, I do not even know what the word‘spirit’ signifies. But, as I have often used it myself, and haveheard others using it, something must be understood by it, be this somethingmere fancy or reality. (p.320[42])

 

            Tothis rather Wittgensteinian remark he adds that "the conception ofspiritual nature cannot be drawn from experience", though its "hiddensense" can be drawn "out of its obscurity through a comparison ofsundry cases of application" (p.320n[42-3n]). He then argues that a spiritmust be conceived as a simple, immaterial being, possessing reason as aninternal quality (pp.320-1[43-5]). After considering some of the difficultiesassociated with this concept, he adopts an entirely Critical position: "Thepossibility of the existence of immaterial beings can ... be supposed without fearof its being disproved, but also without hope of proving it by reason"(p.323[46-7], emphasis added). If one assumes "that the soul of man is aspirit", even though this cannot be proved, then the problem arises as tohow it is connected with the body (pp.324-5[48-9]). Kant rejects the Cartesianfocus on a mechanism in the brain in favor of "commonexperience":[18]

 

Nobody ... is consciousof occupying a separate place in his body, but only of that place which heoccupies as a man in regard to the world around him. I would, therefore, keepto common experience, and would say, provisionally, where I sense, there I am.I am just as immediately in the tips of my fingers, as in my head. It is myselfwho suffers in the heel and whose heart beats in affection (Dreamspp.324-5[48-9]).[19]

 

            Thechapter concludes with the confession "that I am very much inclined toassert the existence of immaterial natures in the world, and to put my soulinto that class of beings" (p.327[52]). Although he concedes that thevarious questions concerned with such a belief are "above myintelligence" (p.328[54]), he does suggest in Dreams that"Whatever in the world contains a principle of life, seems to be ofimmaterial nature. For all life rests on the inner capacity [cf. freedom in thesecond Critique] to determine one’s self by one’s ownwill power." (p.327n[52-3n])

            Afterconfirming the metaphysical possibility of (and his personal belief in)spirits, Kant presents in Chapter Two "a fragment of secret philosophyaiming to establish communion with the spirit-world" (Dreams p.329[55]). Hebegins by positing an "immaterial world" that is conceived "as agreat whole, an immeasurable but unknown gradation of beings and active naturesby which alone the dead matter of the corporeal world is endued withlife." (Dreams p.330[57]).[20] As a member of both the material and the immaterial world, a human being"forms a personal unit" (p.332[60]). Kant conjectures that purelyimmaterial beings may "flow into the souls of men as into beings of theirown nature, and ... are actually at all times in mutual intercourse withthem", though the results of such intercourse cannot ordinarily "becommunicated to the other purely spiritual beings", nor "betransferred into the consciousness of men" (p.333[61]). As evidence forsuch a communion of spirits, Kant examines the nature of morality. Using one ofhis favorite geometrical metaphors (that of intersecting lines), he says in Dreams  (pp.334-5[63]): "The point towhich the lines of direction of our impulses converge is ... not only inourselves, but ... in the will of others outside of ourselves." The factthat our actions are motivated not only by selfishness, but also by duty andbenevolence, reveals that "we are dependent upon the rule of the willof all" (p.335[64]); and "the sensation of this dependence"– i.e., our "sense of morality" – suggests that "thecommunity of all thinking beings" is governed by "a moral unity, and asystematic constitution according to purely spiritual laws." Thus,"because the morality of an action concerns the inner state of thespirit", its effect can be fully realized not in the empirical world, but"only in the im­mediate communion of spirits"(p.336[65]).

            Inreply to the possible objection that, given this view of the spirit-world,"the scarcity of apparitions" seems "extraordinary", Kantstresses that "the conceptions of the one world are not ideas associatedwith those of the other world"; so even if we have a "clear andperspicuous" spiritual conception, this cannot be regarded as "anobject of actual [i.e., material] sight and experience." (Dreamspp.337-8[67-9]).[21] However, he freely admits that a person, being bothmaterial and immaterial, can become

 

…conscious of theinfluences of the spirit-world even in this life. For spiritual ideas ... stirup those pictures which are related to them and awake analogous ideas of oursenses. These, it is true, would not be spiritual conceptions themselves, butyet their symbols.... Thus it is not improbable that spiritual sensations canpass over into consciousness if they act upon correlated ideas of the senses.(pp.338-9[69-70])

 

            Even"our higher concepts of reason" need to "clothe themselves"in, "as it were, a bodily garment to make themselves clear", as when"the geometrician represents time by a line" (p.339[69-70]). Anactual apparition, which might "indicate a disease, because it presupposesan altered balance of the nerves", is unusual because it is based not on asimple metaphor, but on "a delusion of the imagination", in which"a true spiritual influence" is perceived in imagined "pictures... which assume the appearance of sensations" (p.340[71]). Kant warns thatin an apparition "delusion is mingled with truth", so it tends todeceive "in spite of the fact that such chimeras may be based upon atrue spiritual influence" (p.340[71-2], emphasis added).

            Intruly Critical fashion Kant now adopts the opposite perspective in ChapterThree, presenting an "Antikabala" – that is, "a fragmentof common philosophy aiming to abolish communion with the spirit-world" (Dreams p.342[74]). HereKant first states the analogy between metaphysicians("reason-dreamers") and visionaries ("sensation-dreamers"):in both cases the dreamer imagines a private world "which no other healthyman sees", yet "both are self-created pictures which neverthelessdeceive the senses as if they were true objects" (pp.342-3[75]). In orderto help such dreamers "wake up, i.e., open their eyes to such a view asdoes not exclude conformity with other people’s common sense"(p.342[74]), he proposes an alternative description of what is happening in anapparition. The problem is to explain how visionaries "place thephantoms of their imagination outside of themselves, and even put them inrelation to their body, which they sense through their external senses"(pp.343-4 [77]). He suggests that in external sensation "our soul locatesthe perceived object at the point where the different lines, indicating thedirection of the impression, meet", whereas in a vision this "focusimaginarius" is located not outside of the body but "inside of thebrain" (pp.344-5[77-9]). The difference between the fantasy of a saneperson (see p.346n[81n]) and the delusions of an insane person is that only thelatter "places mere objects of his imagination outside of himself, andconsiders them to be real and present objects" (p.346[80]). So "thedisease of the visionary concerns not so much the reason, as a deception of thesenses" (p.347[82]). Kant concludes that this simpler interpretation"renders entirely superfluous the deep conjectures of the precedingchapter ... Indeed, from this perspective, there was no need of going back asfar as to metaphysics" (pp.347-8[82-3]).[22]

            Thefourth and final chapter of Part One presents the "theoretical conclusionfrom the whole of the consideration of the first part" (Dreams p.348[85]). Kantbegins with a penetrating description of his own method of philosophizing(i.e., the Critical method), according to which "the partiality of thescales of reason" is always checked by letting "the merchandise andthe weights exchange pans" (pp.348-9[85]). He uses this metaphor to maketwo points. First, it suggests the importance of being willing to give up allprejudices:

 

I now have nothing atheart; nothing is venerable to me but what enters by the path of sincerity intoa quiet mind open to all reasons ... Whenever I meet with somethinginstructive, I appropriate it.... Formerly, I viewed common sense only from thestandpoint of my own; now I put myself into the position of a foreign reasonoutside myself, and observe my judgments, together with their most secretcauses, from the standpoint of others. (p.349[85-6])

 

Kant’s exposition in Dreams exemplifies thisCritical (perspectival) shift by opposing the merchandise of his own prejudicesconcerning the spirit-world (Chapter Two) with the dead weight of areductionist explanation (Chapter Three). The second point of the analogy is,however, the crucial one: we must recognize that "The scale of reason isnot quite impartial" and so move the merchandise from the speculative panto the pan "bearing the inscription ‘Hope of the Future’"(i.e., from the standpoint of the first Critique to that of thethird[23]), where "even those light reasons ... outweigh the speculationsof greater weight on the other side" (Dreams p.349[86]). Hereat the threshold of his mature philosophical System, then, Kant stresses theoverriding importance of what I call the ‘judicial’ standpoint (seenote 23): "This is the only inaccuracy [of the scales of reason] which Icannot easily remove, and which, in fact, I never want to remove"(pp.349-50[86]).

            Onthis basis Kant concludes that, even though "in the scale of speculationthey seem to consist of nothing but air", the dreams of spirit-seers (andmetaphysicians!) "have appreciable weight only in the scale of hope" (Dreams p.350[86-7]).While admitting "that I do not understand a single thing about the wholematter" of how the immaterial can interact with the material, he claims"that this study ... exhausts all philosophical knowledge about[spiritual] beings ... in the negative sense, by fixing with assurance thelimits of our knowledge" (pp.349-50[88-9]). The assumed spiritualprinciple of life "can never be thought of in a positive way, because forthis purpose no data can be found in the whole of our sensations"(pp.351-2[89]).[24] He is therefore constrained by ignorance to "deny thetruth of the various ghost stories", yet he maintains "a certainfaith in the whole of them taken together" (p.351[88]).[25] As I haveargued elsewhere (KSP, V.1), this subordination of speculative knowledge topractical faith is the key to the justification of the Copernican Perspectiveitself. Thus, when Kant concludes Part One by saying "this whole matter ofspirits" will "not concern me any more", because "I hope tobe able to apply to better advantage my small reasoning powers upon othersubjects" (p.352[90]), he may be hinting that he is already beginning toformulate a plan for constructing a System of Perspectives based on Criticalreasoning.

            Havingpromised not to philosophize on spirits any longer, Kant recounts in the firstchapter of the second ("historical") part three stories concerningthe spiritual powers of Swedenborg, "the truth of which the reader isrecommended to investigate as he likes" (Dreams p.353[91]). Heclaims "absolute indifference to the kind or unkind judgment of thereader", admitting that in any case "stories of this kind will have... only secret believers, while publicly they are rejected by the prevalentfashion of disbelief" (pp.353-4[92]).

            Inthe second chapter of Part Two Kant provides a summary of Swedenborg’sown explanation of his "ecstatic journey through the world ofspirits" (Dreams p.357[98]) and notes its similarity to "theadventure which, in the foregoing [i.e., in Part One], we have undertaken inthe balloon of metaphysics" (p.360[102]). The position Swedenborg develops"resembles so uncommonly the philosophical creation of my own brain",Kant explains, that he feels the need to "declare ... that in regard tothe alleged examples I mean no joke" (p.359[100]). To cover up his owninterest in Swedenborg’s work, Kant ridicules his ‘hero’ forwriting an eight-volume work "utterly empty of the last drop ofreason" (pp.359-60[101]) – a good example of the occasional harsh orfrivolous statements that later embarrassed him (see note 16). The extractturns out to be so close to the views Kant had expounded in Chapter Two of PartOne that he concludes his summary by reassuring the reader that "I havenot substituted my own fancies for those of our author, but have offered hisviews in a faithful extract to the comfortable and economic reader who does notcare to sacrifice seven pounds [closer to seven hundred these days!] fora little curiosity" (p.366[111]).

            Thechapter ends with an apology for leading the reader "by a tiresomeroundabout way to the same point of ignorance from which he started", butadds that "I have wasted my time that I might gain it. I have deceived thereader so that I might be of use to him" (Dreams p.367-8[112-3]).After confessing his unrequited love of metaphysics, Kant insists thatmetaphysics as a rational inquiry "into the hidden qualities ofthings" (i.e., speculative metaphysics) must be clearly distinguished from"metaphysics [as] the science of the boundaries of human reason"(i.e., Critical metaphysics):

 

Before ... we had flownon the butterfly-wings of metaphysics, and there conversed with spiritualbeings. Now ... we find ourselves again on the ground of experience and commonsense. Happy, if we look at it as the place allotted to us, which we can leave withimpunity, and which contains everything to satisfy us as long as we hold fastto the useful. (p.368[114])

 

Far from indicating a temporary conversion fromdogmatic rationalism to skeptical empiricism, as is usually assumed about Dreams, this passage, interpretedin its proper context, reveals that Kant already has a clear conception of theCritical method, and is nurturing the seed that was to grow into hiscomplete philosophical System.

            Anydoubt about the Critical character of Dreams is dispelled bythe "practical conclusion from the whole treatise" given in the finalchapter of Part Two (p.368[115]). Kant begins by distinguishing between whatscience can understand to achieve knowledge and what reason needs to understand toachieve wisdom – a distinction that pervades the entirety ofhis mature System. By determining what is impossible to know, science canestablish "the limits set to human reason by nature", so that"even metaphysics will become ... the companion of wisdom" (p.368[115-6]).He then introduces (what I call) the principle of perspective as the guidingprinciple of this new way of philosophizing: once philosophy "judges itsown proceedings, and ... knows not only objects, but their relation toman’s reason", thus establishing the perspective from which theobject is viewed, "then ... the boundary stones are laid which in futurenever allow investigation to wander beyond its proper district"(pp.368-9[116], emphasis added). This is followed by a warning against thefailure to distinguish between philosophical relations (i.e., those known byreflection) and "fundamental relations" (i.e., those that "mustbe taken from experience alone") – the distinction that forms thebasis for all other Critical distinctions.[26] That Kant is here referring toimmediate experience, not to empirical knowledge, is evident when he says"I know that will and understanding move my body, but I can never reduceby analysis this phenomenon, as a simple [immediate] experience, to anotherexperience, and can, therefore, indeed recognize it, but not understandit" (p.369 [117]). He reaffirms that our powers of reflection provide"good reason to conceive of an incorporeal and constant being"; butbecause our immediate experience as earthly beings relating to other earthlybeings depends on "corporeal laws", we can never know for certainwhat "spiritual" laws would hold if we were "to think ...without connection with a body" (pp.370-1[117-8]). The possibility ofestablishing "new fundamental relations of cause and effect" –i.e., of having an immediate experience not of corporeal nature but ofspiritual nature – "can never ... be ascertained"; the"creative genius or ... chimera, whichever you like to call it",which invents such spiritual (later called noumenal) causality cannot establishknowledge (much less scientific ‘proof’) precisely because the"pretended experiences" are not governed by corporeal (later called apriori) laws, which alone are required for a knowledge-claim to be"unanimously accepted by men" (pp.371-2[118-9]).

            Thisfinal chapter of Dreams ends with a concise (and entirely Critical)explanation of the positive aspect of this otherwise negative conclusion. Thefact that "philosophic knowledge is impossible in the case underconsideration" need cause no concern (neither for the metaphysician norfor the mystic) as long as we recognize that "such knowledge isdispensable and unnecessary", because reason does not need to know suchthings (p.372[120]). "The vanity of science" fools us into believingthat "a proof from experience of the existence of such things" isrequired. "But true wisdom is the companion of simplicity, and as, withthe latter, the heart rules the understanding, it generally renders unnecessarythe great preparations of scholars, and its aims do not need such means as cannever be at the command of all men." The true philosophy, which Kantalways believed would confirm common sense and therefore would be attainablefor everyone (unlike a speculative dependence on theoretical proofs or mysticalapparitions, each available to only a few individuals), should be based on"immediate moral precepts" — that is, on a "moralfaith" that "guides [the ‘righteous soul’] to his trueaims" (pp.372-3[120-1]). Thus he concludes (p.373 [121]) by defending theposition later elaborated in his practical and religious systems, that it ismore appropriate ‘to base the expectation of a future world upon thesentiment of a good soul, than, conversely, to base the soul’s goodconduct upon the hope of another world.’

 

3. Kant’s Four Major ‘Awakenings’

 

            Inthe preceding section we have seen that all the main characteristics ofKant’s Critical method, together with anticipations of several of hismature doctrines and distinctions, are present in Dreams. The method of choosingthe middle path between two extremes is exemplified by Kant’s advice inthe Preface to "hold on to the useful" — though this is notexactly how he would later describe his Critical means of steering between theextremes of dogmatism and skepticism [but cf. note 17]. The Criticaldistinction between the theoretical and the practical, whose most obviousapplication is to the distinction between the first two Critiques, is foreshadowedby the conclusions to the two parts of Dreams, the first beingtheoretical and the second, practical. The attitude expressed in the firstchapter, that ‘spirits’ are theoretically possible but can never beproved to exist, is reminiscent of the hypothetical perspective adopted in theDialectic of CPR, where all ‘ideas of reason’ are treatedsimilarly.[27]

            Eventhe second chapter, where Kant is letting his metaphysical imagination runwild, contains an interesting parallel: Kant’s suggestion that the innerstate of spirits is primarily important in its connection with morality is entirelyconsistent with his later decision to regard morality as the proper foundationfor metaphysics. (The same point is emphasized in the last chapter, where thetrue basis for belief in spirits is said to rest on morality rather thanspeculation.) And the skepticism Kant adopts in Chapter Three is not unlike theversion he sometimes adopts in the Dialectic of the first Critique (in both casesas a temporary measure to guard against unwarranted speculation).[28] Thesubordination of the theoretical (i.e., speculative) to the practical and thejudicial (see note 23), as hinted by Kant’s expressed preference for the"useful", is forcefully emphasized by his reference to the"scales of reason" in the fourth chapter. His use of this metaphor toemphasize the philosophical legitimacy of hope for the future in spite of ourtheoretical ignorance foreshadows both the third Critique and Religion.[29] ThroughoutPart One, and again in the second chapter of Part Two, Kant describes his newview of the first and foremost task of metaphysics in exactly the same terms ashe would use some fifteen years later in CPR: metaphysicsmust begin as a negative science concerned with establishing the limits ofknowledge. And in the book’s final chapter we meet not only thedistinction between immediate experience and reflective knowledge, which is socrucial to Kant’s System [see note 26], but also the equally importantnotion that reason does not need to have a theoretical understanding ofmystical experiences (or metaphysical propositions), as long as we take intoconsideration the common moral awareness of all human beings.

          IfKant was in full possession of the Critical method by 1766, why, it might beasked, did he take fifteen more years to write CPR? This is particularlyperplexing in light of the fact that after 1781 Kant published at least onemajor work nearly every year until 1798. The typical explanation ofKant’s development renders this problem slightly less difficult, becausethe ‘Critical awakening’ is regarded as not happening until thelate 1760s or early 1770s. On this view Kant had a great deal of troubleformulating his ideas for CPR, yet after it was completed he suddenlyrealized the need for a second Critique, and after that, the needfor a third. However, the fact that Kant could apply all the Critical tools in1766 to write Dreams makes it very difficult to believe that he wouldfumble around for fifteen more years, and then suddenly turn into a prolificgenius. Rather, it suggests Kant may well have wanted to have the basic(architectonic) plan for his entire System more or less complete in his mind before even starting the long task ofcommitting it to paper. The need for a fifteen year gap (including his long‘silent decade’) between Dreams and CPR becomes moreunderstandable if we regard Kant as formulating in his mind during this timenot just CPR, but his entire System — though obviously, thedetails concerning the precise form it would take had not entirely crystallizedby 1781.[30]  The traditional viewfails to take account of the fact that writers do not always say everythingthey know about their plans for future undertakings, and also ignores theimportance of Kant’s emphasis on establishing and maintaining specificarchitectonic patterns.[31]

            Theone aspect of Kant’s transcendental philosophy that is conspicuouslyabsent in Dreams is the cornerstone of the whole System, the Copernican hypothesis(i.e., the assumption that a posteriori objectivity is based on a priori subjectivity,rather than vice versa [see KSP, III.1]). And this had begun to dawn on him by 1770,when he wrote Dissertation, where he regards time and space as "forms ofintuition" not inherent in the object itself. Thus the crucial questionis: if ‘Criticism’ was the original distinguishing character ofKant’s life-long philosophical method, what was the source of the suddeninsight he later called his ‘Copernican’ hypothesis? Copleston(1960, p.196) conjectures that the new insight might have come as a result ofhis reading of the Clarke-Leibniz Correspondence, newly publishedin 1768.  Others would cite Hume asresponsible for all such major changes in Kant’s position (see e.g., note4). What has long been ignored in English Kant-scholarship is the significantextent to which some of the details of the Critical philosophy, not the leastbeing the Copernican hypothesis itself, actually correspond to the ideasdeveloped by Swedenborg. Kant himself acknowledges this correspondence to someextent in Dreams, but repeatedly emphasizes that the ideas he presentsas his own were developed independently of his acquaintance withSwedenborg’s writings (Dreams p.359 [100], p.360[102], p.366[111]). However, theextent of the parallels between his subsequent theories (especiallythose in Dissertation) and Swedenborg’s is sufficient to merit theassumption that, in spite of his ridicule in Dreams, Kant actuallyadopted much of Swedenborg’s ‘nonsense’ (p.360[101]) into hisown thinking (see Dreams pp.357-8[98-9]; Sewall 1900, pp.24-7, 31-3)!

            Agood example of the similarity between Kant’s mature views andSwedenborg’s ideas is brought out in Kant’s summary ofSwedenborg’s position, highlighting the distinction between athing’s true or ‘inner’ meaning and its outer manifestation.How closely this coincides with the position Kant eventually defends in hiswritings on religion becomes quite clear in Dreams when he says:"This inner meaning ... is the origin of all the new interpretations which[Swedenborg] would make of the Scripture. For this inner meaning, the internalsense, i.e., the symbolic relation of all things told there to thespirit-world, is, as he fancies, the kernel of its value, the rest only theshell" (p.364[108]).  As Iargue elsewhere (KCR, VI.2), Kant uses precisely the same metaphor in hisown investigation of "pure religion", except that the "innermeaning" is derived from practical reflection (the Critical mode ofdreaming?) rather than from visionary "dreams" about the spirit-world.

            Amore detailed examination of Swedenborg’s epistemological distinctionswould reveal numerous other corresponding theories. For example, the Copernicanassumption itself, which marks the main difference between Dreams and Dissertation, has its rootsat least partially in Swedenborg. For, as Vaihinger puts it, the relationshipof Kant’s "transcendental subject ... to the Spiritual Ego ofSwedenborg is unmistakable"; indeed Kant may well have taken his"doctrine of two worlds from Swedenborg direct" (Sewall 1900, p.25;see also pp.12-14, 24).  Thus thereare good grounds for regarding Swedenborg’s ‘spiritual’perspective as the mystical equivalent of Kant’s transcendentalperspective in metaphysics. Such a perspectival relationship is hinted at bySewall (1900): "Neither of the two great system builders asks the supportof the other.... As Kant was necessarily critical, this being the office [orPerspective] of the pure reason itself, so was Swedenborg dogmatical, thisbeing the office [or Perspective] of experience"(pp.22-3).

            Sewallappends to the 1900 translation of Dreams (pp.123-54) various extracts fromSwedenborg’s writings, revealing that Swedenborg’s ideas oftenanticipate (from his own mystical perspective), and therefore may haveinfluenced, many of the key ideas Kant develops in his transcendentalphilosophy. The roots of Kant’s transcendental idealism can be seen inSwedenborg’s spiritual idealism: "spaces and times ... are in thespiritual world appearances"; "in heaven objects similar to thosewhich exist in our [empirical] world ... are appearances";"appearances are the first things out of which the human mind forms itsunderstanding" (Sewall 1900, pp.124-6).  The roots of Kant’s view of the intelligiblesubstratum of nature are also evident: "nothing in nature exists orsubsists, but from a spiritual origin, or by means of it"; "natureserves as a covering for that which is spiritual"; "there exists aspiritual world, which is ... interior ... to the natural world, therefore allthat belongs to the spiritual world is cause, and all that belongs to thenatural world is effect"; "causes are things prior, and effects arethings posterior; and things prior cannot be seen from things posterior, butthings posterior can be seen from things prior. This is order" (Ibid, pp.131-3).

            Evenviews similar to Kant’s "analogies of experience" in CPR are developed bySwedenborg: "Material things ... are fixed, because, however the states ofmen change, they continue permanent"; "The reason that nothing innature exists but from a spiritual origin or principle is, that no effect isproduced without a cause" (Ibid, pp.125, 132).  The parallels extend beyond thetheoretical to the practical and judicial standpoints as well: "the willis the very nature itself or disposition of the man"; "heaven is ...within man".(Ibid, pp.138, 135). Moreover, Kant’s Criticism of mystical visionaries as wronglytaking imagined symbols to be real sensations cannot be charged againstSwedenborg, who warns: "So long as man lives in the world he knows nothingof the opening of these degrees within him, because he is then in the naturaldegree ...; and the spiritual degree ... communicates with the natural degree,not by continuity but by correspondences and communication by correspondencesis not sensibly felt" (Ibid, p.135; see also p.141).

            Ofcourse, Kant’s use of such ideas often differs in important respects fromSwedenborg’s, as when Kant argues for the importance of phenomenal causality asbeing the only significant causality from the standpoint of knowledge.Nevertheless, given the fact that before reading Swedenborg he did not writeabout such matters, whereas afterwards such ‘Copernican’ ideasoccupied a central place in his writings, it is hardly possible to doubt thatSwedenborg had a significant influence on Kant’s mature thinking. I amnot claiming that Kant owes his recognition of the importance of the Copernicanhypothesis to Swedenborg alone, but only that his influence has been much neglected,and merits further exploration.[32]

            IfSwedenborg did exercise an important influence on Kant, then why does Kant seemto give Hume all the credit, for instance, in the oft-quoted passage from theIntroduction to Prolegomena (see note 3)? Swedenborg was far from being aphilosopher, so perhaps Kant did not feel constrained to acknowledge hisinfluence — indeed, ‘felt embarrassed’ might bea more appropriate expression, since Swedenborg’s reputation was hardlyrespectable among Enlightenment philosophers. Kant’s request that hiswritings prior to 1770 not be included in his collected minor writings (seenote 16) would therefore reflect his desire to protect his reputation from tooclose an association with the likes of Swedenborg. In any case, Kant’sclaim that the ideas he expresses in Dreams predate his reading ofSwedenborg leaves open the possibility that Swedenborg stimulated him to thinkthrough his own ideas more carefully, and in the process to adopt some ofSwedenborg’s ideas, or at least to use them as a stimulus to focus andclarify his own.

            Doesthe Prolegomena passage therefore represent a false‘confession’? By no means. But in order to understand that passageproperly, and so to give an accurate answer to the question of the relativeinfluence of Hume and Swedenborg on Kant, it will be necessary to distinguishbetween four aspects of Kant’s development that are often conflated:

 

  (1) Thegeneral Critical method of finding the limits that definethe ‘middle way’ between unthinking acceptance of the status quo(dogmatism) and unbelieving doubt as to the validity of the entire tradition(skepticism).

  (2) Thegeneral Copernican insight that the mostfundamental aspects of human knowledge (the ones making it objective) havetheir source in the human subject as a prioriforms, not vice versa. (That is, time, space, etc., are not absolute realitiesrooted in the object, as philosophers had previously assumed.) This, of course,was the seed that (when fertilized by the Critical method) gave rise to theentire System of ‘transcendental philosophy’.[33]

  (3) Theparticular application of (1) to itself (i.e.,reason’s Criticism of reason itself).

  (4) Theparticular application of (2) to the problem of thenecessary connection between a cause and its effect.

 

As stated above in §1, we can see (1) operatingin varying degrees in almost all of Kant’s writings (see note 11).Indeed, his lifelong acceptance of (1) is clearly the intellectual backgroundagainst which alone his great philosophical achievements could have been made (andas such, is the source of his genius). Although his ability to make conscioususe of this method certainly developed gradually during his career, receivingits first full-fledged application in Dreams, neitherSwedenborg (the dogmatist) nor Hume (the skeptic) can be given the credit forthis. The Critical method is not something Kant learned from these (orany other) philosophers, but is rather the natural Tao through whichKant read, and in reading, transformed, their ideas.[34] If anyone is to be thanked,it should be his parents, and in particular, his mother.[35]

            Kant’srecognition of (4) as one of the crucial questions to be answered by his newphilosophical System, is, by contrast, clearly traceable to Hume’sinfluence. In fact, his discussion of Hume’s impact on his development inProlegomena (p.260[8]) undoubtedly refers primarily (if not solely) to this narrowsense of "awakening": Kant is probably telling us nothing more thanthat his "recollection" of Hume helped him recognize that causality cannotbe treated as a purely intellectual principle (as he had done in Dissertation), but must bejustified (if at all) in some other way (viz., as atranscendental form of knowing, just as were space and time in Dissertation). The fact thatKant uses the term ‘recollection’ indicates a fairly late date(probably 1772 [see note 4]) for this dramatic event. For Kant is suggestingthat (4) came to him as a result of remembering the skepticismof Hume ("the first spark of light") that had begun influencing histhinking about ten years before. However, if Kant’s famous"awakening" is only a dramatized account of his discovery of (4),then such references to Hume do not answer the more fundamental question, theanswer to which we have been seeking here: Where did Kant get the idea of using(2) as the basic insight for solving all such philosophical problems?

            Kant’sdiscovery of (2) came in several fairly well-defined steps, mostly from 1768 to1772. Prior to 1768 there is little (if any) trace of such an idea. Between1768 and 1772 he applied the insight to intuitions but not to concepts. In 1772he realized that concepts too must be regarded from this Copernican(Transcendental) Perspective. As a result of this somewhat unsettling discovery(unsettling because in early 1772 he believed he was within a few months of completing CPR), he spent ninemore years (from 1772 to 1781) working out in his mind the thoroughgoingimplications of this insight for his entire philosophical System. It is plainenough to see how Hume’s ideas could have caused the final (and crucial)change in the extent of Kant’s application of (2) in 1772,because Hume employs some of his most powerful arguments to support hisskepticism regarding the a priori basis of the idea of necessary connection.Kant’s realization in 1772 of the full force of these arguments awakenedhim to an awareness of the incomplete nature of his application of (2) in Dissertation, and gave himthe idea of applying (2) to concepts as well as to intuitions.

            Butwhere did (2) come from in the first place? It could not have come from Hume,inasmuch as nothing like it appears in Hume’s doctrines of space and time(or anywhere else in Hume’s works). Hume’s explanation for ourbelief in all such ‘objective facts’ is always to reduce them tologic and/or an empirical kind of subjectivity (as he does in the finalparagraph of his Inquiry); he never so much as hints at the possibility of anythird way, such as is given by Kant’s theory of transcendental subjectivity.There are, to my knowledge, only two likely explanations, both of whichprobably worked together to awaken Kant to his Copernican insight sometimebetween 1766 and 1768. The first is his reading of Swedenborg’s writings,especially his massive work, Arcana Coelestia, which he readin 1766, just before writing Dreams (p.318[39]: Sewall 1900, p.14n); and the second ishis reading of the Clarke-Leibniz Correspondence,[36] togetherwith his consequent discovery of the antinomies of reason (see below). If thisaccount of Kant’s development during these portentous years is correct,then Kant’s description of (4) as an awakening from dogmatic slumber is asomewhat over-dramatized account, whose purpose is not to emphasize a suddenbreak from lifelong dogmatism (cf. note 34), but only to explain how Hume savedhim from settling for the half-baked form of (2) that he had originallydistilled from the ideas of two thinkers whom he regarded as dogmatists (Leibniz andSwedenborg). Thus, if we look at the overall picture, we see that Hume’sinfluence has, in fact, been overrated; it fulfils only one specific role inKant’s long process of development.

            Thisinterpretation of Kant’s development gives rise to two further questionsregarding Kant’s use of his sleeping/dreaming/awakening metaphor. For heuses it not only in relation to Hume’s influence, but also in many othercontexts. In a letter to Garve (21 September 1798), for instance, he confidesthat his discovery (c.1768) of "the antinomy of pure reason ... is whatfirst aroused me from my dogmatic slumber and drove me to the critique ofreason itself" (AA12:255[Zweig 1967, p.252]; see also note 7).  How can this account of Kant’s‘awakening’ be made compatible with his (better known) referencesto Hume? Although interpreters have often struggled with this question, theanswer seems obvious once we distinguish between the four aspects of Kant’sdevelopment listed above. Kant’s comments must refer to differentexperiences of awakening: the awakening by Hume refers to (4), while that for whichthe antimony is responsible refers to (3). Accordingly, Kant says the antinomyshowed him the need for a Critique of reason, whereas he says Hume’sstimulus gave a "new direction" (Prolegomena p.260[8]) to hisspeculative research (thus implying he had already begun working on thatCritique). The tendency to regard these as referring to the same experiencearises only because he uses the same metaphor to describe both developments.

            Thesecond question arises once we recognize the obviously close connection betweenKant’s metaphor of being awoken from sleep and the metaphor of dreaming that permeatesthe entirety of Dreams (even its title). Whether Kant’s awakeningreally happened only in 1768 (via the antinomies) or only in 1772 (viaHume’s skepticism) — or even at both times — Kant’scomments would seem to imply that Dreams itself dates from the period of"dogmatic slumber" from which he only later awoke. Yet eventhose who do not fully appreciate the Critical elements in Dreams agree that it isnot the work of a sleeping dogmatist! So how could Kant’s metaphor applyto anything that happened after he wrote this book? Without presuming to give thefinal answer to this difficult question, I shall venture to offer a plausiblesuggestion, based on the account of Kant’s development given above.

            Criticismis the middle path between dogmatism and skepticism. It is the tool Kantbelieved he could use to preserve the truth and value of both methodsand yet do away with the errors into which each inevitably falls. The Criticalmind will therefore always allow itself to be "tempted", as it were,by the two extremes it ultimately seeks to overcome; but in the process ofbecoming more and more refined, it will appear at one moment to be moredogmatic and at another to be more skeptical (just as we observed Kant’smind to be in the text of Dreams). In other words, the Critical method does not doaway with skepticism and dogmatism, so much as use them as opposing forcesto guide its insight further along the spiral path towards the central point ofpure Critique. Now, in order to stay healthy a human being needs both sleep andwaking; and in the same way, we could develop Kant’s metaphor one stepfurther by saying the healthy (Critical) philosopher needs regular doses ofboth dogmatism and skepticism. Skepticism functions like an alarm clock toremind philosophers when it is time to stop their dogmatic dreaming and returnto the normal waking life of Criticism. The Critical philosopher will naturallyhave many experiences of this type, just as a normal person is often surprisedto wake up in the middle of a dream, yet will dream again the next night. Thus,the confusion caused by Kant’s various references to his awakening fromdogmatic slumbers may be best explained by regarding each as equally legitimateand equally important milestones in his development.

            Wehave seen that Hume’s influence was never such as to convert Kant toskepticism, but served only as "the first spark of light" (Prolegomena, p.260[8]) tokindle his awareness of the need to reflect on the rationality of his cherishedbeliefs. This limited view of the influence of Hume on Kant comes out quiteclearly in almost all Kant’s references to Hume or skepticism. In CPR, for example,Kant again uses his favorite metaphor to describe the relation betweendogmatism, skepticism, and Criticism: "At best [skepticism] is merely ameans of awakening [reason] from its dogmatic dreams, and of inducing it toenter upon a more careful examination of its own position" (p.785).  Kant’s attempt in Dreams to examinemysticism and metaphysics with a Critical eye should therefore be regarded asresulting from one of his first major awakenings (perhaps largely as a resultof his initial reading of Hume, probably in the early 1760s).Ironically, although he disagreed with the dogmatic use to whichSwedenborg put his ideas, Kant seems to have recognized in them some valuable hypotheses that could bepurified in the refining fire of Criticism. The antinomies awoke him (in 1768)to the realization that reason’s Critical method must be applied not onlyto objects of possible knowledge (such as mystical experiences and metaphysicaltheories), but also to reason itself. And just when he thought he was onthe verge of perfecting this self-Criticism of reason (in 1772), Hume awoke himonce again to the realization that his Copernican insight must be used to limitnot only intuition but also the concepts arising out of human understanding. Wecan conclude, therefore, that although Hume was instrumental in awakening Kantto the limits of dogmatism, Swedenborg’s speculations wereresponsible in a more direct way for the initial formation of his Copernicanhypothesis.

 

4. The Dream of a System of Critical Philosophy

 

            Aclear understanding of the influence of Swedenborg on Kant, and of the functionof Dreams as a Critical prolegomenon to Kant’s mature System of transcendental Critique, makesit not so surprising to hear Sewall (1900) say mystics "from Jung-Stillingto Du Prel" have always "claimed Kant as being of their number"(pp.16-17, 32). Indeed, Du Prel (1885, Vol 2, pp.195-8, 243, 290) stressesKant’s positive attitude towards Swedenborg, and argues that in Dreams "Kant ...declared Mysticism possible, supposing man to be ‘a member at once of thevisible and of the invisible world’" (p.302).[37] He even suggeststhat "Kant would confess to-day [i.e., in the 1880s] that hundreds of suchfacts [based on various types of parapsychological experience] are proved"(p.198). This is probably going too far, but so is Vaihinger’s conclusionthat "Kant’s world of experience ... excludes all invasion of theregular system of nature by uncontrollable ‘spirits’; and the wholesystem of modern mysticism, so far as he holds fast to his fundamentalprinciples, Kant is ‘bound to forcibly reject’" (Sewall 1900,p.19). Kant is forced to reject mysticism only as a componentof his theoretical system (i.e., CPR); the other systems neverthelessremain open to nontheoretical interpretations of mystical experiences. Sewallreflects Kant’s purposes more accurately when he writes:

 

The great mission ofKant was to establish ... [that reason] can neither create a knowledge of thespiritual world, nor can it deny the possibility of such a world. It can affirmindeed the rationality of such a conception, but the realityof it does not come within its domain as pure reason.(pp.20-1)

 

            AsVaihinger himself admits elsewhere, Kant’s apparent rejection ofmysticism (and so also, parapsychology) therefore "refers only to thepractices (of spiritism), and to the Mysticism of the Feelings; it does notapply to the rational belief of Kant in the ‘corpus mysticum of theintelligible world.’"(Sewall 1900, p.25).[38]

            Kanttherefore has two distinct, though closely related, purposes in Dreams. The first is toreject unCritical (speculative or fanatical) forms of mysticism, not in orderto overthrow all mysticism, but in order to replace it with a refined, Critical version,directed towards our experience of this world and our reflection on it fromvarious perspectives. This perspectival element in Kant’s mysticism ishinted at by Vaihinger when he says Kant believes:

 

The other world is ...not another place, but only another view of even this world.... [It] is not aworld of other things, but of the same things seen differently by us.... Butthe wildly fermenting must of the Swedenborgian Mysticism becomes with Kantclarified and settled into the noble, mild, and yet strong wine of criticism.(Sewall 1900, pp.15,18)

 

Unfortunately, the general mystical thrust ofKant’s System of Perspectives has been grossly neglected by almost allEnglish-speaking Kant-scholars.[39] In Part Four of KCR (see note 13) Ihave attempted to set right this neglect by examining the extent to whichKant’s Critique of mysticism in Dreams paves the wayfor a full-blooded ‘Critical mysticism’.

            Kant’ssecond purpose in clearing from the path of metaphysics the obstructionscreated by the speculative claims of mystical experiences is to prepare the wayfor his own attempt to provide a metaphysical System that could do formetaphysics what Dreams does for mystical visions and all forms ofparapsychological experience.[40] For the Critical dream envisaged in Dreams was to serve asa seed planted in his reason, which eventually matured into the tree ofCritical philosophy; and only when this tree finally bears fruit does themystical seed that gave birth to the System appear once again (i.e., in OpusPostumum). Accordingly, Kant’s Critical labors can be regarded as anattempt to build a rational System that preserves the truemystical dream, thus putting mysticism and parapsychology in their true place,at the mysterious (yet nonetheless real) centre of metaphysicsand physics, respectively. In this sense, at least, Kant would agree with DuPrel (1885) when he says: "It is ... dream, not waking, which is the doorof metaphysic, so far as the latter deals with man" (Vol 1, p.70).

 

 

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            Gulick,W. B. (1994). The creativity of the intellect: From ontology to meaning. Thetransmutation of the sensible and intelligible worlds in Kant’s Criticalthought’, Ultimate Reality and Meaning, 17, 99-108.

            Gulyga,A. (1985).  Kant.  Translatedby M. Despalatovic (1987) as Immanuel Kant: His Life and Thought. Boston: Birkhäuser.

            Jonsson,I. (1967). ‘Swedenborg, Emanuel’, in P. Edwards (Ed.) TheEncyclopedia of Philosophy. London: CollierMacmillan Publishers. Vol 8.

            Kant,I. (1762-1795). Vorlesungenüber Metaphysik. In Preußischen Akademie derWissenschaften (Eds), Kants gesammelte Schriften, Akadamie Ausgabe.29 vols. AA28.1; AA28.2,1; AA29. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

            Kant,I. (1764a). Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen undErhabenen. In Preußischen Akademie derWissenschaften (Eds), Kants gesammelte Schriften, Akadamie Ausgabe.29 vols. AA2:205-56. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

            Kant,I. (1764b). Versuchüber die Krankheiten des Kopfes.  In Preußischen Akademie derWissenschaften (Eds), Kants gesammelte Schriften, Akadamie Ausgabe.AA2:257-271. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter

            Kant,I.(1766). Träume eines Geistersehers, erläutert durch Träumeder Metaphysik. In Preußischen Akademie derWissenschaften (Eds), Kants gesammelte Schriften, Akadamie Ausgabe.29 vols. AA2:315-73 = CE1: 303-59. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

            Kant,I. (1770). De mundi sensibilis atque intelligibilis forma et principiis. In Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Eds), Kantsgesammelte Schriften, Akadamie Ausgabe. 29 vols. AA2:385-419 = CE1:375-416; Berlin: Walter deGruyter.

            Kant,I. (1783). Prolegomenazu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik die als Wissenschaft wird auftretenkönnen. In Preußischen Akademie derWissenschaften (Eds), Kants gesammelte Schriften, Akadamie Ausgabe.29 vols. AA4:253-383 (cf. CE3) Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

            Kant,I. (1787/1781).  Kritik der reinen Vernunft,2 InPreußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Eds), Kants gesammelteSchriften, Akadamie Ausgabe. 29 vols. AA3 (passim)(1787 version); AA4:1-252 (1781version). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

            Kant,I. (1788). Kritik der praktischen Vernunft.In Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Eds), Kants gesammelteSchriften, Akadamie Ausgabe. 29 vols. AA5:1-163 = CE4:137-271. Berlin: Walter deGruyter.

            Kant,I. (1790).  Kritik derUrtheilskraft. In Preußischen Akademie derWissenschaften (Eds), Kants gesammelte Schriften, Akadamie Ausgabe.29 vols., AA5:165-485 (cf. CE5). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

            Kant,I. (1798). Der Streit der Facultäten.AA7:1-116. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter

            Kerferd,G. B. and Walford, D. E. (Trans.) (1968). I. Kant's (1770) On the Form andPrinciples of the Sensible and Intelligible World in G. B. Kerferd and D. E. Walford (Eds) SelectedPre-Critical Writings and Correspondence with Beck. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

            Klinke,W. (1949). Kant für Jedermann. Translated by M.Bullock (1952) as Kant For Everyman.  London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

            Kuehn,M. (1983). Kant’s Conception of 'Hume’s Problem', Journal of the History of Philosophy,21, 175-193.

            Laywine,A. (1993).  Kant’s EarlyMetaphysics and the Origins of the Critical Philosophy. Atascadero, Ca.: Ridgeview Publishing Company.

            Manolesco,J. (1969) ‘Introduction’, in his translation of I. Kant's Dreams of a Spirit Seer Illustrated by Dreams of Metaphysics. New York: Vantage Press.

            McCarthy,V. A. (1982). Christus as Chrestus in Rousseau and Kant, Kant-Studien, 73, 191-207.

            Meredith,J. C. (Trans.) (1952). I. Kant’s[(1790)] Critique of Judgement.Oxford: The Clarendon Press (reprinted from his 1911 and 1928 translations ofthe two Parts).

            Palmquist,S. (1987). A Complete Index to Kemp Smith’s Translation ofKant’s Critique of Pure Reason.Oxford and Hong Kong: distributed privately. Also available as e-text at www.hkbu.edu.hk/~ppp/indx/toc.html (correct March 2001).

            Palmquist,S. (1993). Kant’s System of Perspectives. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.

            Palmquist,S. (2000). Kant’s Critical Religion.Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing Limited.

            Paulsen,F. (1898). Immanuel Kant: Sein Leben und seine Lehre. Translated by J. E. Creighton and A. Lefèbvre(1902) as Immanuel Kant: His Life and Doctrine. New York: Fredrick Unger Publishing Co.

            PreußischenAkademie der Wissen­schaften (Eds) (1902-present). Kants gesammelteSchriften, Akadamie Ausgabe. 29 vols. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

            Rabel,G. (Ed.) (1963). Kant. Oxford: TheClarendon Press.

            Richardson,J. (Trans., anon.)(1799). I. Kant’s (1764) Observations on the Feelingof the Beautiful and the Sublime in(1798-9) Essays and Treatises on Moral, Political, Religious and VariousPhilosophical Subjects, 2 vols. London:William Richardson; reprinted. G. Micheli (1993), Bristol: Thoemmes Press.

            Sewall,F. (Ed.) (1900).  I. Kant's Dreamsof a Spirit Seer Illustrated by Dreams of Metaphysics, trans. E. F. Goerwitz.  London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co.

            Smith,N. K. (Trans.) (1929). I. Kant's[(1787/1781)] Critique of Pure Reason.  London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd.

            Ütz,G. F. (1992).  Swedenborgsverborgene Wirkung auf Kant. Translated byJ. D. Odhner and K. Nemitz (1993-1995) as Swedenborg’s HiddenInfluence on Kant, in a series of installmentspublished in The New Philosophy, 96-98: vols. 96(1993), 171-225, 277-307; 97(1994), 347-96, 461-98; 98 (1995), 99-108;etc

            Wallace,W. (1901).  Kant.  London:William Blackwood and Sons.

            Ward,K. (1972). The Development of Kant’s View of Ethics. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

            Werkmeister,W. H. (1980). Kant: The Architectonic and Development of His Philosophy. London: Open Court Press.

            Wolff,R. P. (1960). Kant’s Debt to Hume Via Beattie  Journal of the History of Ideas, 21, 117-23.

            Zweig,A. (1967).  Kant: PhilosophicalCorrespondence 1759-99. Chicago: TheUniversity of Chicago Press.

 

 

FOOTNOTES

 

            1.Kant (1776); Sewall (1900), p.373 (121). Sewall (1990) will hereafter be referred to as Dreamsin the text. References to Kant’s writings, as in Kant (1776), will beidentified by the volume and page numbers in the standard, PreußischenAkademie der Wissenschaften (Eds.) (1902-present) edition and the equivalentvolume and page numbers in the new Cambridge Edition of Kant’s Works inEnglish — abbreviated ‘AA’ and ‘CE’,respectively. The translation quoted, if different from the CE translation, isthen identified, along with the abbreviation that will be used in all furtherreferences to that book. References to Kant’s writings will normally beidentified by these abbreviations and included in the main text, citing theGerman page number(s); the English page number(s) follow(s) in square bracketsin cases where the German pagination is not included in the English textquoted.

            2.  Kant (1770); Kerferd & Walford(1968). This book was Kant’s inaugural dissertation for his professorialpost at the University of Königsberg, so I shall refer to it hereafter as Dissertation.

            3.The latter is based on Kant's [1783] own account of the matter: "I openlyconfess my recollection of David Hume was the very thing which many years agofirst interrupted my dogmatic slumber and gave my investigations in the fieldof speculative philosophy a quite new direction". (p.260, [Beck (1950),p.8]).  Beck (1950) will hereafterbe referred to as Prolegomena in the text.

            4.In a note to his translation of ProlegomenaLewis White Beck (1950) suggests that "Kant had probably read Hume before1760, but only much later (1772?) did he begin to follow 'a new direction' underHume’s influence" ([p.8n]). Beck (1969) defends his position in EarlyGerman Philosophy; see also Wolff (1960). In Dissertationand as late as 1772, in a letter to Marcus Herz, Kant shows no awareness thatHume’s skepticism challenges his own conception of causality as anintellectual principle. The supposed reason is that Kant was familiar only withHume’s Enquiry (1748), with its relatively modestskepticism, until he read Beattie’s Essay on the Nature andImmutability of Truth (1772), which contains translations of long passagesfrom the more radically skeptical text of Hume’s Treatise(1738). Beck (1987) confirms his acceptance of this explanation despite morerecent conjectures that Kant’s friend, Hamann, who translated part of theTreatise in 1771, may have shown his translation to Kant asearly as 1768.

            Paulsen(1898) affirms that Kant "did not receive the impetus to his work [i.e., Dreams]from the English writers, and especially from Hume’s epistemologicalinvestigations", (pp.87-8). The influence of Hume, he argues, came mainlyin the early 1770s "as furnishing an incentive to turn towards hisoriginal [i.e., Kant’s own unique] position" (pp.93-4), and to alesser extent, just prior to the writing of Dissertationin 1770 (pp.97-9). This supports the view I shall defend in §3, thatHume’s "awakening" refers primarily to the change from Dissertationto the first Critique.

            Boththese suggestions account only for Kant’s recognition of the needfor a more adequate defense of the philosophical principle of causality. Theysay nothing positive about the source of what I take to be the two mostfundamental aspects of Kant’s mature philosophical System: his Criticalmethod and his ‘Copernican’ assumption. Moreover, they also fail toaccount for the unique (Humean?) character of Dreams.In §3, I shall propose an alternative explanation of Kant’sdevelopment, which makes up for these and other inadequacies of the traditionalview.

            5.This conjecture is supported not only by Kant’s age (early 40s), but alsoby his cynical dissatisfaction with the status quo. Manolesco (1969) treats"Kant’s sudden hatred for speculative metaphysics" as "adeep psychological change due to unrequited love, not by metaphysics but bySwedenborg himself" (pp.14-15)for not replying to Kant’s queries. Moreover, Kant was involved in failedlove affairs with at least two women at around this time (see e.g., Klinke1949, pp.39-41; Wallace 1901, pp.44-5; and especially, Gulyga 1985, pp.54-5.)

            6.Kant (1787/1781), AA3:passim(second edition) and AA4:1-252 (passages unique to first edition) = CE2:passim(both editions); Smith, (1929), pp.xvi-xviii.  Smith (1929) will hereafter be referred to as CPR (=Critique of Pure Reason) in the text. References are to the1787 edition, unless the page number is preceded by ‘A’.

            7.The emphasized words indicate that Kant was still mindful of his earlier workin Dreams which, as will become apparent in this essay, adoptsthe same point of view expressed in this quotation. In fact, Kant uses termsreferring to this sleeping/dreaming/ awakening metaphor 27 times in CPR(see Palmquist 1987, pp.34,109, 347), most of which echo quite clearly theattitudes adopted in Dreams. The most significantreferences are CPR pp. Ap.xiii, 503, 519-21,785, 792 (but see also pp. Ap.xin, xxxvi, 1, A112, 217, 247, 278, A376-7, A380,A390, 434, 452, 479, 652, 808). Such texts should not, however, be taken asevidence that Kant was completely against all mysticism. Rather, they restatethe same problem posed in Dreams—viz., howone’s "cherished dreams" canbe preserved, if not by dogma and/or magic. Kant’s solutionto this crucial problem is fully examined in Part Four of Palmquist(2000).  Palmquist (2000) willhereafter be referred to as KCR (= Kant's CriticalReligion) in the text. The present essay, incidentally, is arevised version of KCR, Chapter II.

            8 These twomodes of representation are similar, though not identical, to the distinction Imake between ‘immediate experience’ and ‘reflectiveknowledge’ in Palmquist (1993), IV.1.  Palmquist (1993) will hereafter be referred to as KSP(= Kant’s System of Perspectives) in the text. Seealso KCR, III.2. References to these two books cite thechapter and section (or note) numbers; this renders them easier to locate usingthe e-text versions available on my web site, currently (March 2001) located atwww.hkbu.edu.hk/~ppp

            9.See e.g., CPR 352,A395. Palmquist (1987, p.86) lists 168 occurrencesof these three words in CPR.

            10.Indeed, as I argued throughout KSP, the making of suchperspectival distinctions is the key task of the Critical philosopher (seeespecially KSP II.1).

            11.In the earlier works, of course, the traces are evident retrospectively eventhough Kant himself would not yet have been conscious of the significance ofthe naturally Critical tendencies of his way of thinking. In fact, becomingconscious of what was already thereseems to be one of the implications of his much-used metaphor ofsleeping/dreaming/awakening (see note 7). Otherwise a metaphor such as‘coming alive’ or ‘giving birth’ would have been moreappropriate.

            12.Swedenborg (1688-1772) was not only the founder of crystallography, but alsomade significant advances in a wide range of scientific, technological, andeconomic fields. For an account of such accomplishments, see the openingsection of Ütz (1992); see also Laywine (1993, pp.57-8).

            13.Kant’s interest in the spirit world is almost always neglected, if notoutright denied, by Kant scholars nowadays. Yet throughout his life herepeatedly affirmed a belief in its reality. Even in CPRhe uses ‘spirit’ and its cognates 16 times (see Palmquist 1987,p.353), affirming his commitment to a surprisingly Platonic view of theeternality of the human spirit: "we can propound a transcendentalhypothesis, namely, that all life is, strictly speaking, intelligible only, isnot subject to changes of time, and neither begins in birth nor ends in death;that this life is an appearance only, that is, a sensible representation of thepurely spiritual life, and that the whole sensible world is a mere picturewhich in our present mode of knowledge hovers before us, and like a dream hasin itself no objective reality; that if we could intuit ourselves and things asthey are, we should see ourselves in a world of spiritualbeings, our sole and true community with which has not begun through birth andwill not cease through bodily death — both birth and death being mereappearances." (CPR, pp.807-8)

            14.The subtle difference between this and the usual interpretation can beillustrated by quoting Werkmeister’s (1980) claim that in DreamsKant concludes "that metaphysics ought to abandon its dogmaticspeculations about God, the life hereafter, and similar topics" (p.64).This is correct, provided we understand (asWerkmeister himself hints elsewhere (cf. note 16) that abandoning dogmaticspeculation does not entail altogether abandoning belief in God,etc., as is assumed by those who regard Dreamsas the work of an outright skeptic. Kant abandons speculation not in order toswing over to the skepticism of unbelief, but in order to make room for aCritical reformation of his beliefs.

            15.On the dating of this letter, see: Sewall (1900), p.160; Broad (1953),pp.117-8; and Rabel (1963), p.74.

            16.Laywine (1993), pp.60-61, gives a good summary of the first three visionsSwedenborg made public, each mentioned in Kant’s letters.

                        Kant’stendency in Dreams to ridicule views towards which he was in factsympathetic may be what led him to suggest this book be excluded from hiscollected minor writings (see Sewall 1900, p.x; Manolesco 1969, p.7). Paulsen(1898, p.84) admits that the "spiritology" in Dreams"is not intended [by Kant] to be entirely without seriousness",inasmuch as it foreshadows the important ‘two worlds’ doctrinelater propounded in CPR. Later he relates this to"Kant’s Platonism", already evident in Dreams  "an ethical and religious view ofthe world on the basis of objective idealism" (p.310). Mendelssohncaptures the strangeness of Kant’s mood in Dreamswhen he writes in a book review: "The jesting profundity with which thislittle work has been written leaves the reader at times in doubt as to whetherMr. Kant intended to make metaphysics ridiculous or spiritism (Geisterseherei)plausible" (Werkmeister 1980, p.43). The answer, as we shall see, is bothand neither: making unCritical approaches to both issues lookridiculous prepares the way for the Critical method to reveal the plausibilityof both, when viewed Critically. For Dreamsadopts an entirely Critical method, and so first poses the problem (thoughsomewhat obscurely) that is to be solved by Kant’s mature philosophicalSystem. That Kant is intentionally using Swedenborg’s visions as a testcase for the application of his well-formed Criticalmethod, before launching into its application to all of metaphysics, isindicated in his 1766 letter to Mendelssohn (in Manolesco 1969, pp.154-9),where he calls attention to the "important conclusions which are meant todetermine in a strict manner the methodologyof [the new metaphysics]", and then invites Mendelssohnto use this new (Critical) method "to draw up a new master plan for thisscience" (Manolesco 1969, pp.156-7, emphasis added). See also Laywine(1993, pp.72-100) and Werkmeister (1980, pp.44,84) for similar views of theprefiguring role of Dreams.

                  Werkmeister(1980) quotes Borowski’s biography of Kant as saying "the attentivereader found already here [in Dreams] the seeds of the Critiqueof Pure Reason and of that which Kant gave us later."Unfortunately, he gives no details as to just which aspects of Dreamsconstitute these "seeds". After using the same metaphor (Dreams"contains ... many of the seeds of Kant’s Critical Philosophy"[Manolesco 1969, p.13]), Manolesco lists some examples: Kant’s"theory of spirits is almost an exact replica, expressed in philosophicallanguage, of Swedenborg’s own thesis ... Swedenborgian doctrines ...provided him with fundamental metaphysical starting points for his later viewson the soul, on the dualism of mind and matter, on his conception of noumenaand phenomena, on inner sense and its connection with the unity ofapperception." (pp.17-18)

            17.McCarthy (1982) makes the interesting suggestion thatKant’s mature philosophy replaces ‘Christus’ (Latin for‘anointed’) with ‘Crestus’ (Latin for‘useful’). If so, Kant’s third point can be regarded as aforetaste of what is to come. We must keep in mind, however, that‘useful’ for Kant means ‘useful in bringing aboutgoodness’; it is not a sudden leaning towards utilitarianism (cf. Kant[1762-1795, AA28.1, AA28.2,1, and AA29 = CE10:passim).McCarthy (1982) shows his implicit awareness of the moral aspect of the Kantian‘useful’ when he says his (like Kant’s) concern is with"the role of Jesus the (morally) ‘Useful’" (p.192). WhatMcCarthy seems to ignore is that the ‘Crestus’ need not excludethe ‘Cristus’; as I argue in Part Three of KCR,both can (and should) work together as complements.

            18.Kant notes in Dreams that this "prevalent opinionwhich assigns to the soul its seat in the brain, seems to originate mainly inthe fact, that we feel distinctly how, in deep meditation, the nerves of thebrain are taxed. But if this conclusion is right it would prove also otherabodes of the soul. In anxiety or joy the sensation seems to have its seat inthe heart. Many affections, yea most of them, manifest themselves most stronglyin the diaphragm. Pity moves the intestines, and other instincts manifest theirorigin in other organs" (p.325n[50n]).  Here we see a good example of Kant’s awareness of andconcern for the condition of his own body. Unfortunately, interpreters tend toexcuse this concern as stemming merely from his eccentric ideas about how hecould maintain his own health through sheer will power and self-determination(see e.g., Kant [1764, AA2:257-71]; Kant [1798, Part III, AA7:1-116 =CE6:237-327]). Yet it seems also to reveal the importance he placed onfostering a meditative awareness of his immediate experience:philosophy for Kant is ultimately not an abstract function of the mind orbrain, but a discipline in which the whole bodyparticipates as well.

            19. See alsoAA28:146-7 and Laywine (1993, pp.52,159). Laywine makes a good case for viewingsoul-body interaction as the chief philosophical concern around which most ofKant’s pre-Copernican writings revolved. She argues that, prior to Dreams,Kant was (at least implicitly) committed to a theory of "physicalinflux", whereby the soul has quasi-material characteristics, such asimpenetrability, and that in the process of grappling with Swedenborg’svulgar version of the same view, Kant recognized the need to give it up. Isummarize and assess her interpretation in Appendix II.2 of KCR.

            20."The relation [of these ‘incorporealsubstances’] by means of things corporeal is consequently to be regardedas accidental" (Dreams p.330[56-7]). Since an"undoubted characteristic of life" is "free movement"(including growth), Kant suggests that both plants and animals may also have animmaterial nature (p.330[57]). In order to show the close connection betweenplants and animals Kant mentions Boerhave’s view: "The animal is aplant which has its roots in the stomach (inside)."    He then opines the converseis also true: "The plant is an animal which has its stomach in the root(outside)." But he warns that "such conjectures ... have the ridiculeof fashion against them, as being dusty antiquated fancies"; "theappeal to immaterial principles is a subterfuge of bad philosophy", so hewill "not ... use any of these considerations as evidence"(p.331[58]).

            21.  Kant conjectures that the spiritualconceptions that arise in the deepest, dreamless sleep "may be clearer andbroader than even the clearest in the waking state. This is to be expected ofsuch an active being as the soul when the external senses are so completely atrest. For man, at such times is not sensible of his body." When dreaming,by contrast, a person "perceives to a certain degree clearly, and weavesthe actions of his spirit into the impressions of the external senses."Unfortunately, Kant does not acknowledge the importance of this connectivefunction of dreams, so instead of regarding them as revealing profound symbolsof spiritual conceptions (as Jung, using Kant as his philosophical springboard,has since suggested [see Appendix II.1 of my KCR]),he ridicules them as being "only wild and absurd chimeras" [Dreams338n(68n)]. Du Prel (1885) develops an elaborate theory of ‘somnam­bulism’(including hypnotism) based explicitly on Kant’s philosophy [see e.g., DuPrel 1885, vol. 1, pp.xxvi, 5-7, 62, 71, etc.]. He also agrees with Kant onmany specific points [see e.g., Du Prel 1885, pp.57-8]. For example he says:"With the deepening of sleep must diminish the confusion of thedream." (Ibid., p.44). In arguing for "the scientificimportance of dream", he claims this clarity can be explained best byassuming that in deepest sleep the center of control changes from the brain(the focus of consciousness) to the solar plexus (the focus of theunconscious), and that the more control exercised by the latter, the moresignificant the dream will be (Ibid., pp.27-44, 68-9)

            22.  The concluding paragraph of ChapterThree, containing these comments, also includes some harsh ridicule of thosewho adopt the perspective of Chapter Two. He suggests, for instance, thatalthough visionaries are not necessarily insane, "insanity [is] a likelyconsequence of such communion.... Therefore, I do not at all blame the reader,if, instead of regarding the spirit-seers as half-dwellers in another world[the view Kant himself seems to prefer], he, without further ceremony,dispatches them as candidates for the hospital" (p.348[83]). No doubt thisis one of the embarrassing remarks in Dreamsthat led Kant to suggest in later life that it be excluded from his collectedminor works (see Sewall 1900, p.x).

            23.Cf. my book KSP, IX.4 (p.307) and note II.12. For an explanation ofKant’s ‘judicial’ standpoint (that of the third Critique),see notes I.13 and I.17 of KCR.

            24.  This position has an obvious affinitywith the doctrines of the positive and negative noumenon developed in CPR[see my book, KSP, VI.3].

            25.  Thus, Kant notes(p.350n[87-8n]) that our speculative ignorance "does not at all invalidatethe confidence that the conceptions thence evolved [i.e., from hope] areright." For example, the "inner perception" that death is"only a transformation" leads "to that point to which reasonitself would lead us if it were more enlightened, and of a greater scope."Kant is saying our immediate experience can provide existential certainty for aposition that cannot be proved theoretically. This existential certainty isgrounded in what Kant calls "rational faith" [see KCR,note IV.15].

            26.  For a fuller explanation of thisfundamental distinction between immediate experience (which, as such, producesno knowledge) and the various reflective forms of experience (which do produceknowledge), see my book, KSP, IV.1,and the summary of that section given in the first sequel, KCR,III.2.

            27.This emphasis on the useful in Dreams may have arisen to someextent out of Kant’s Wolffian education. For Wolff himself stressed theimportance of "the useful" (see e.g., Copleston 1960, p.112). Kantdid not abandon this emphasis in his mature writings, but rather transformed itinto the hypothetical perspective in his theoretical system (i.e., the first Critique)and into the practical standpoint of his overall philosophical System.

                  Inthe final chapter of Dreams the same strategy isemployed to address the issue of the possibility of a spiritual influence onthe body: such influences are possible but cannot be proved because they arenot governed by corporeal laws. This is directly parallel to Kant’smature attitude towards "noumenal causality", which cannot beregarded as knowable because it does not fall under the a prioriprinciples of the possibility of experience.

            28.Indeed, Kant even uses the metaphor of awakening in the skeptical chapter of Dreams(p.342[74], quoted above, in §2), thus indicating that in 1766 he wasalready thinking of skepticism as a useful tool for stimulating philosophers toreconsider their dogmatism. This fact, as we shall see later in this section,raises serious questions about the traditional view that Kant’s"awakening" by Hume did not happen until 1768, or perhaps even 1772(see note 4).

            29.Moreover, Kant uses the same metaphor in CPR 795,where he refers to "the assay-balance of criticism" (see also CPR pp.617,811).And he uses the corresponding metaphor of "weighing" two opposingarguments in CPR A388-9,615,617,665,778, as well as in Kritik der praktischenVernunft, (see Beck 1956, p.76).

            30.As early as 1764 Kant recognized a special relationship between metaphysics,moral philosophy, and philosophy of religion (see Kant 1764; Richardson 1799,vol.2, p.246n[63n]). In June of 1771 Kant affirmed in a letter to Marcus Herzthat his project would have to address the topics of metaphysics, morality, andaesthetics. And his letter to Herz in February 1772 shows he already conceivedof his task as including work on "the principles of feeling, taste, andpower of judgement" in addition to its theoretical and moral aspects(AA10:124; translated in Zweig 1967, p.71). Although he apparently had not yetdecided to devote a separate Critique to each subject, he hadalready thought of the title ‘Critique of Pure Reason’ (AA10.126[bid.,p.73]). For a concise summary of the importance of these two letters, seeCopleston 1960, pp.203-7.

            31.I examine the details of the architectonic structure of Kant’s System in KSP,III.3-4. A brief summary of those sections is given inmy book, KCR, III.1; see also Appendix III.1.

            32.Laywine (1993) makes significant headway in this direction (see also note 19),though she reaches some rather questionable conclusions. For a detaileddiscussion of her interpretation, see Appendix II.2 of my book KCR.

            33.This distinction between Kant’s Critical method and the transcendentalorientation of his philosophy is often ignored by Kant-scholars, who tend toconflate the terms by talking about Kant’s "transcendentalmethod" – a phrase Kant himself never uses. This type ofinterpretive error lies behind Cassirer’s (1921, 1918) claim that in CPR"Kant is presenting a completely novel type of thinking,one in opposition to his own past and to the philosophy of the Age ofEnlightenment" (p.141). This notion of a complete "opposition"between Kant’s past (wherein he is portrayed as being unknowingly dupedby his dogmatic upbringing) and his Critical outlook (which is supposed to havesprung as suddenly as the ringing of an alarm clock from his reading of Hume)typifies the mythical account of Kant’s development against which I amarguing in this essay. In CPR Kant is not negatinghis past, but pressing it to its proper limit; he is separating the wheat fromthe chaff of his own background and of his Age (see e.g., CPR Ap.xin)by bringing into full view the Critical method that had characterized his wayof thinking from the start of his career.

                  Oneexception to the above is J. Fang (1967), who calls attention to the mistake ofregarding Kant’s method as transcendental(pp.112-3). He also recognizes the importance of distinguishing between theCritical method and the transcendental character of Kant’s maturephilosophy: the "critical method" is already "partiallyrevealed" (i.e., applied) in 1770, but "concerns itself with‘limits’ alone ... and not yet with ‘sources’", as it does in its transcendentalapplication (Fang 1967, pp.118-9). With intimations of Einstein, he thensuggests that "the special critical method of1768-69, viz., ‘to determine the validity and bounds of intuitiveprinciples’, had to be generalized, and when it was finally‘broadened’, the general critical method was todiscover and justify ... the sources, the extent, and the limits of the humanfaculty of knowledge or metaphysic in general — the main task of the Critique."(p.121) Unfortunately, Fang does not work out in any detail the significance ofthis distinction (which relates more to Kant’s gradual application of hisCopernican insight than to the Critical method as such), nor does he mention Dreamsas relevant to the development of Kant’s Critical method.

            34.This implies that the traditional view of Dreamsas a temporary excursion into Humean skepticism [see §1, above] isentirely unjustified, based as it is on a shallow reading of the text and aneglect of the ubiquity of the Critical method in Kant’s writings.Hume’s influence on Kant in the early 1760s was only one of manyinfluencing factors acting together as grist for the Critical mill.Interestingly, neither Hume nor Swedenborg is included in Werkmeister’sdescription of "the complexus of ideas which is the basis for all furtherdevelopment of Kant’s philosophy" [Werkmeister 1980, p.15].

            35.Kant’s biographers consistently report the strong influence he felt hismother had on his general personal and intellectual development. I discuss herinfluence further in KCR, X.4.

            36.In fact, the influence of Swedenborg is quite compatible with the influence ofLeibniz. For Swedenborg himself studied Descartes, Leibniz, and Wolff, much asKant did in his early years (see Jonsson 1967, p.47). (In §335.7 and§696 of The True Christian Religion Swedenborg evendescribes his visions of Aristotle, Descartes and Leibniz, together with nineof their followers, among whom was Wolff.) Thus, Kant’s reading ofSwedenborg may well have worked together with his readingof the Clarke-Leibniz Correspondence to point him towardsthe Copernican hypothesis.

            37.The term ‘mysticism’ in this quote (as elsewhere in this essay)might well be replaced nowadays by the more scientific term,‘parapsychology’.

            38.Kant affirms his belief in the notion of a ‘corpus mysticum’at several points even in CPR, as when he says that"if we could intuit ourselves and things as they are, we should seeourselves in a world of spiritual natures, our sole and true community" (CPRp.836; see also Ap.393-4]. Kant’s lifelongbelief in a spirit-world is demonstrated by Manolesco (1969).

            39.Sewall (1990, p.x [sic; page number should read‘ix’]) lists several works written between 1889 and 1895 that dofocus on Kant’s mystical tendencies. The most significant of these is DuPrel’s Kant’s Vorlesungen über Psychologie(1889), which contains an introduction entitled ‘Kant’s mystischeWeltanschauung’. Sewall (1900,), translates the following passage frompp.vii-viii of that work: "‘Dreams’... has been interpreted as a daring venture of Kant’s genius in makingsport of superstition; the accent has been laid on Kant’s negations, andhis affirmative utterances have been overlooked. The ‘Lectures onPsychology’ now show ... that these utterances were very seriouslyintended; for the affirmative portions of the ‘Dreams’ agree verythoroughly with the lengthier exposition of the ‘Psychology’, andthe wavering attitude of Kant is here no longer perceptible." (pp.13-4n)

            40.I have intentionally presented this as the secondpurpose, because the text of Dreams clearly regards it assuch. Nearly all interpreters read into the text their own exclusiveinterest in Kant’s metaphysics, and thereby treat the whole topic ofmystical visions as a mere (perhaps ill-chosen) illustration. How easy it is toforget that even the title specifies the maintopic as focusing on visionary dreams (i.e., what we would now classify as partof parapsychology), and explicitly regards metaphysicsas a secondary illustration.

                  JohanL.F. Gerding (1994) is an exception. He stresses that Kant is dealing withparapsychological phenomena (‘psi’). However, he takes Dreamsas a "fundamental denial of psi" claiming "Kant explicitlystates that psi phenomena cannot exist" (p.141). But this is too strong.Kant’s conclusion is that we cannot form such experiences into a science:he openly admits that psi phenomena do exist as immediate experiences; theproblem is that we cannot understand them. Gerding (1994)goes so far as to claim that for Kant "psi cannot even behypothetical" (p.144) and that "Kant does not allow psi to be evenpossible." He suggests we could avoid excluding psi from transcendentalphilosophy by tracing them to "an unknown capacity of the human mind"(pp.144-5), but this renders them uninformative: "Psi information from atranscendent world therefore is not possible." He defends his position byarguing that a case of ESP, for example, "has to be verifiable for livinghuman beings" in order to be regarded as genuine (p.145). This stillleaves the process unknowable: we can know thatsomething happens without knowing how it happens. He thusconcludes: "the Kantian transcendental philosophy does not excludeparanormal phenomena when they are interpreted as anomalous phenomena, whichhappen to living human beings." What Gerding fails to recognize is that aperspectival interpretation of Dreams enables us to see thisas precisely Kant’s own view! The error is to think Kant himself did notrecognize that psi can be mysterious yet entirely possible.

 

 

This etext is based on a prepublication draft of the published version of this essay.

 

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