A Commentary On Kant's "Dreams of A Spirit-Seer" Johnson, Gregory Robert. - White Nationalisty PDF

INFORMATION TO USERS
This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films
the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and
dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of
computer printer.
The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon th e quality of the

copy subm itted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations
and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper
alignment can adversely affect reproduction.
In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript
and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized
copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion.
Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by

sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing
from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps.
Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced

xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6* x 9” black and white
photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing
in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order.
ProQuest Information and Learning

300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA
800-521-0600
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA
A Commentary on Kant’s Dreams of a Spirit-Seer
A DISSERTATION
Submitted to the Faculty of the
School of Philosophy
Of The Catholic University of America
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
by
Gregory Robert Johnson
Washington, D.C.
2001
UMI Number: 3032212
_ __A
UMI
UMI Microform3032212
Copyright 2002 by Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company.
All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against
unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.
Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company

300 North Zeeb Road
P.O. Box 1346
Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346
This dissertation by Gregory R. Johnson fulfills the dissertation requirement for the
doctoral degree in the School of Philosophy approved by Richard L. Velkley, Ph.D., as
Director, and by Robert Sokolowski, Ph.D., and Riccardo Pozzo, Ph.D., as Readers.
Richard L. Velkley, Ph.D., Directo
Riccardo Pozzo , Ph.D., Reader f
Robert Sokolowski, Ph.D., Reader
ii
A Commentary on Kant’s Dreams o f a Spirit-Seer
Gregory R. Johnson, Ph.D.
Director: Richard Velkley, Ph.D.
Kant’s Dreams o f a Spirit-Seer is usually interpreted as a skeptical-empiricist
attempt to discredit the dogmatic metaphysics of the Leibniz-Wolff school by showing its
similarities to Swedenborg’s thought I argue instead that Kant took Swedenborg’s ideas
serious as candidates for truth and that Swedenborg had a significant positive influence
on the development of Kant’s mature critical philosophy.
Chapter one argues that Dreams is not unambiguously hostile to Swedenborg but
rather systematically ambiguous and ironic. Kant constructs his text on two levels,
placing his criticisms of Swedenborg in the center while subtly negating or qualifying
them in the margins, intimating his serious interest in and positive debts to Swedenborg
“between the lines.” Kant had reason to adopt this rhetorical strategy because of the
danger of persecution from the Prussian church and the Berlin Enlightenment.
Chapter two comments on Kant’s earliest surviving discussion of Swedenborg,
his letter to Charlotte von Knobloch, August 10, 1763, showing that he spent a great deal
of time, energy, and money investigating the rumors that Swedenborg was a clairvoyant,
that he was convinced that Swedenborg’s powers were genuine, and that he deliberately
dissimulates these facts in Dreams.
Chapter three deals with the prefatory material of Dreams. Chapter four deals
with Dreams, part one, chapter one. Here Kant encapsulates his ideas on the relationship
of soul and body before his encounter with Rousseau forced him to confront the place of
freedom in a deterministic world. Chapters five through seven discuss Dreams, part one,
chapter two. Here Kant offers his answer to Rousseau: a speculative reconstruction of
Swedenborg’s visions of a cosmos divided into material and spiritual worlds. Chapter
eight comments on Dreams, part one, chapter three, where Kant subjects his
Swedenborgian metaphysics to a parody of the arguments of the "popular philosophers”
of the Berlin Enlightenment. Chapter nine deals with Dreams, part one, chapter four,
where Kant offers pragmatic grounds for retaining his Swedenborgian metaphysics.
Chapters ten, eleven, and twelve comment on part two of Dreams, an historical paragon
on Swedenborg included so that the careful reader can discern Kant’s debts to him. The
Conclusion surveys the whole argument.
©
Copyright
Gregory Robert Johnson
2001
All Rights Reserved
Acknowledgments
I wish to give special thanks to Professor Richard L. Velkley for his exceptionally
careful and supportive work as advisor. His book Freedom and the End of Reason was
assigned by the late Professor Richard Kennington in his seminar on the Crisis of Modem
Natural Right. More than any other work, it gave rise and direction to my interest in the
origins of Kant’s mature critical philosophy. Thus it was providential that he moved to
Catholic University just when I conceived of this dissertation. I also thank Professors Robert
Sokolowski and Riccardo Pozzo for their helpful work as readers and Professors Francis
Gignac and Anne O’Donnell for their work as committee members. I have a special debt to
Professor Jude P. Dougherty, Dean Emeritus of the School of Philosophy, for his unfailing
kindness, patience, and good advice, and for his role in fostering a uniquely peaceful and
stimulating environment in which to study philosophy I also wish to thank Professor Kurt
Pritzl, O.P, his successor, for carrying on in his spirit. Special thanks are also due Monica
Lee, Mary Rakow, Catherine Horan, and Belinda Keller for keeping the School of Philosophy
running smoothly and getting me out of many a jam.
For reading and commenting on this dissertation and/or related projects, in part or in
whole, I also wish to thank Dr. Glenn Alexander Magee, Dr. Marsha Keith Schuchard,
Professor Richard H. Popkin, Professor Charles M. Sherover, Professor Susan Meld ShelL,
Professor Stephen Palmquist, Dr. Gottlieb Florschiltz, Professor Robert Almeder, Professor
Rudolf A. Makkreel, Professor Robert B. Louden, Professor Jane K. Williams-Hogan,
Professor William Ross Woofenden, Professor Dan Synnestvedt, and Dr. John Gerard Moore.
Special thanks are due Jane Williams-Hogan for her work in organizing two occasions
at which I presented dissertation-related research: "Swedenborg’s Positive Influence on Kant's
Mature Moral Philosophy," presented to the Swedenborg Seminar at the American Academy
o f Religion Convention, Philadelphia, November 18, 1995 and "The Kinship o f Kant and
Swedenborg," a Colloquium paper given at the Academy of the New Church College, Bryn
Athyn, Pennsylvania, February 15, 1996. I wish to thank all others who labored on these
sessions behind the scenes, and all who attended them, especially those who raised questions
and offered comments. I am also grateful to Professor Williams-Hogan for arranging a
iv
brief stay in Bryn Athyn in connection with, the second paper, a stay that allowed me to do
important research at the Academy of the New Church's Swedenborg Library,
Swedenborgiana Collection, and Archives.
Similar thanks are due Professor Douglas B. Rasmussen, who helped organize two
occasions where I presented dissertation-related research: "Swedenborg’s Spirit-World and
Kant's Kingdom of Ends," American Association for the Philosophic Study of Society
Symposium on "Themes in Kant's Pre-Critical Moral and Political Philosophy," American
Philosophical Association Convention, New York City, December 27, 1995, and "Kant,
Mendelssohn, and Political Philosophy," American Association for the Philosophic Study of
Society symposium on "Themes in Kant's Moral and Political Philosophy," American
Philosophical Association, Eastern Division Convention, Atlanta, December 27, 1996. Again,
I wish to thank those who attended and those who raised questions and offered comments.
For their generous assistance in procuring books and other materials for my research, I
wish to thank Professor Jonathan Rose, past curator of the Swedenborgiana Collection and
Archives at the Swedenborg Library of the Academy of the New Church in Bryn Athyn,
Deborah Forman and Mary Lou Bertucci o f the Swedenborg Foundation, Reverend Dr.
Leonard Fox, Professor Erland J. Brock, Reverend Mark Perry, Dr. Gottlieb Florschiitz,
Professor Paul J. Bagley, Professor George F. Dole, Professor William Ross Woofenden, Mr.
Sun-Won Paek and Mr. Jeff Adams of Bryn Athyn, and Mr. David Moncrieff o f Memphis, as
well as and Carroll Odhner and the staff of the Swedenborg Library.
Finally, for their encouragement, conversation, and companionship along the way, I
wish to thank my friends David Rasmussen, Gary Brent Madison, Mark Turiano, Tanya
Augsburg, Claire Rein, Chris Matthew Sciabarra, Ann Hartle, Donald Livingston, Donald
Verene, Molly Black Verene, James Gouinlock, Tibor Machan, Tom Darby, and George
Eckerlee, as well as Judy Tabb, Sinasi BilseL, Toni Brookner, Vera Norman, Mark Sallee,
Donna Kimball, and the rest of the Invisible College. Special thanks are due Imogene Kay
Copeland for her patronage.
My greatest debt, however, is to Glenn Magee. Without his friendship and support,
this project would not have been possible. Therefore, I dedicate it to him.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements................................................................................................................... iv
Preface....................................................................................................................................... 1
Chapter I: On the Interpretation of Dreams............................................................................. 6
§ 1. A Mystery.................................................................................................. 6
§ 2. The Received View and Its Critics........................................................... 17
Chapter 2. Kant's First Encounter with Swedenborg:

The Letter to Charlotte von Knobloch, August 10, 1763............................... 24
§ 1. The Importance of the Letter to Charlotte von Knobloch....................... 24

§ 2. Introductions (If 1)....................................................................................26
§ 3. The Method o f Kant's Investigation flf 2)................................................ 27
§ 4. The Affair of the Queen's Secret flf 3)......................................................29
§ 5. The Investigations of Kant's English Friends flf 3)...................................34
§ 6. Kant's Reading of Swedenborg:
Arcana Coelestia and Divine Love and Wisdom flf 3)........................ 36
§ 7. The Affair of the Lost Receipt flflf 4-5)................................................... 41
§ 8. The Stockholm Fire 6-7).................................................................... 44
§ 9. Final Thoughts (If 8).................................................................................49
§ 10. The Contradictions Between Dreams
and the Letter to Charlotte von Knobloch.......................................... 51
§ 11. Questions for Future Historical Research...............................................55
Chapter 3: The Title, Epigraph, and Preface of Dreams..........................................................57
§ 1. Commentary Prospectus...........................................................................57
§ 2. The Title and Epigraph.............................................................................57
§ 3. The Preface, I: The Economy of Utility....................................................66
§ 4. The Preface, II: Three Perspective on the Paranormal............................ 68
§ 5. The Preface, III: Kant's Reasons for Publishing.......................................71
Chapter 4: "A Tangled Metaphysical Knot": Dreams 1.1........................................................ 83
§ 1. Prospectus of "The First Part, Which is Dogmatic"................................83

§ 2. The Authorial Persona (If 1).................................................................... 84
§ 3. The "Tangled Metaphysical Knot".......................................................... 89
§ 4. The Meaning o f "Spirit" flf 2)..................................................................95
§ 5. Material and Immaterial Substances flf 3)............................................... 97
§ 6. Conceivability, Possibility, and Actuality flf 4)........................................98
§ 7. The Inconceivably Actuality of Spirit flf 5)............................................. 99
§ 8. The Presence o f Spirit in Space (1f| 6-7)................................................ 100
§ 9. Against Physicalism flf 8)........................................................................ 103
§ 10. Living and Dead Bodies flf 9 ) ............................................................... 106
vi
Chapter 5: The Spirit World as Metaphysical Hypothesis:
Dreams 1.2, Paragraphs 1-7....................................................................................... 108
§ 1. Overview o f Dreams 1.2.......................................................................... 108
§ 2. The Authorial Persona flf 1)....................................................................108
§ 3. The Influx o f Life flf 2)............................................................................ 111
§ 4. The Immaterial World flf 3).....................................................................113
§ 5. The Immaterial World, Continued flf 4)................................................115
§ 6. The Spirit World and the Unreality of Space and Time flf 5)..................118
§ 7. Man's Dual Nature flf 5).......................................................................... 121
§ 8. Heaven and Hell flf 5, note).....................................................................123
§ 9. Conclusions flf 6).................................................................................... 124
§ 10. Transition (If 7)......................................................................................127
Chapter 6: The Spirit World as Moral Hypothesis:
Dreams 1.2, Paragraphs 8-9...........................................................................128
§ 1. Two Moral Phenomena........................................................................... 128

§ 2. The "Universal Human Understanding"
and the Sensus Communis flf 8).......................................................... 129
§ 3. Swedenborg and the Sensus Communis.................................................. 132
§ 4. Egoism, Benevolence, and the Moral Point of View flf 9)......................134
§ 5. Swedenborg on the Moral Life................................................................136
§ 6. The Rule of the General Will in Rousseau and Swedenborg...................138
§ 7. Providence and the General Will in Rousseau and Swedenborg..............141
§ 8. The Doctrine of Moral Feeling................................................................146
§ 9. Newtonian Moral Philosophy and the Problem of Theodicy...................149
§ 10. Rousseau as Newton of the Moral World.............................................155
§11. Swedenborg as Newton of the Moral World.........................................160
§ 12. General Versus Particular Providence................................................... 162
Chapter 7: The Epistemology o f Spiritual Influx:

Dreams 1.2, Paragraphs 10-15.......................................................................163
§ 1. Two Questions about Spirit-Seeing (If 10)..............................................163
§ 2. Why Spirit-Seeing is Rare flf 10)............................................................ 163
§ 3. The Ideality o f Space and Time...............................................................167
§ 4. Swedenborg on Space and Time..............................................................168
§ 5. Space, Time, and Clairvoyance................................................................172
§ 6. How Spirit-Seeing is Possible (If 11)....................................................... 173
§ 7. What Kind o f Man Becomes a Spirit-Seer? (^f 12).................................. 178
§ 8. Problems for Spirit-Seers flf 13)...............................................................179
§ 9. Summary and Transition (T!f 14-15)........................................................ 182
Chapter 8: "Anti-Kabbalah": Dreams 1.3................................................................................ 184
§ 1. A Parody of Popular Philosophy.............................................................185

§ 2. Why the Enlightened Skeptic is not Kant's Spokesman.......................... 187
§ 3. "Gemeinen" versus "Geheimen" Philosophy (Title and If 1)....................194
§ 4. Dreamers of Reason verus Dreamers of Sense flf 2).............................. 196
§ 5. The Psychology and Physiology of Spirit-Seeing flflf 2-8)......................198
§ 6. Dreams 1.3 and the "Essay on the Sicknesses of the Head"................... 202
vii
§ 7. Summary and Transition (Tf 9)............................................................... 205
Chapter 9: "Theoretical Conclusion": Dreams 1.4................................................................ 211
§ 1. Beyond Dogmatism and Skepticism......................................................211

§ 2. The Rousseauian Origins of Kant's Dialectic........................................ 213
§ 3. Theoretical Agnosticism flf I)............................................................... 218
§ 4. Practical Faith flflf 1-3)......................................................................... 221
§ 5. Conclusion flflf 4-5)...............................................................................224
Chapter 10: "A Story": Dreams II. 1.....................................................................................227
§ 1. Overview of Dreams II, "The Second Part, which is Historical"...........227

§ 2. Dreams II. 1: Introduction flfl[ 1-2)........................................................229
§ 3. Ghost Stories flflf 3-6)...........................................................................233
§ 4. Conclusion flflf 7-9)...............................................................................234
Chapter 11: "Ecstatic Journey of an Enthusiast":

Dreams II.2................................................................................................... 241
§ 1. Overview of Dreams II.2...................................................................... 241

§ 2. The Epigraph........................................................................................ 242
§ 3. Introductory Remarks flf 1).................................................................. 243
§ 4. Excursus on Method.............................................................................249
§ 5. Swedenborg Introduced flflf 2-3).......................................................... 251
§ 6. Three Kinds o f Spirit Apparitions flf 4).................................................254
§ 7. The Epistemology of Spirit-Seeing flflf 5-6).........................................255
§ 8. The Structure of the Spirit World flf 6)................................................258
§ 9. Representations and Correspondences flf 7).........................................259
§ 10. Soul-Body Correspondences and the Maximus Homo flflf 8-9)..........261
§11. Summary and Transition.................................................................... 262
Chapter 12: "Practical Conclusion": Dreams II.3................................................................. 267
§ 1. Impractical and Inconclusive................................................................. 267

§ 2. The Impossibility o f Knowledge of Spirits flf 1)................................... 268
§ 3. The Uselessness o f Knowledge of Spirits flf 2 ) ..................................... 274
§ 4. The Theoretical and Practical Conclusions Compared.......................... 277
§ 5. The "Theoretical Conclusion" Compared to the Critical Philosophy 280
Conclusion............................................................................................................................ 286
Bibliography......................................................................................................................... 289
Figure....................................................................................................................................327
viii
Preface
[In Kant] we must distinguish between philosophical principles he was prepared to

elaborate and publicly defend in lectures and publications (his “official philosophy”)
and philosophical opinions which had become almost second-nature and which were
seldom brought into the open and publicly defended before his students and the
learned world (his “personal philosophy”). In Kant this distinction is quite marked,
because much of his official philosophy is explicitly directed against arguments for
positions in his personal philosophy, but not against these positions themselves. Even
in his pre-critical period, when the arguments and the beliefs were in greater harmony,
he wrote at the end of a long and complex argument for the existence of God, “It is
thoroughly necessary that one be convinced of God’s existence; but it is not nearly so
necessary that it be demonstrated.” His personal philosophy survived even the
Copemican Revolution which destroyed arguments for its tenets. Some of them
appeared as regulative principles of theoretical reason, some as postulates of pure
practical reason and objects of “rational faith”; still other parts of his personal
philosophy are presented in his essays on political and historical topics which were
rather independent of the epistemology of the official philosophy, and some of it can
be found here and there in his unpublished notes, letters, and table-talk. It has been
argued, for instance, that Kant privately held a belief in a “spirit world” (not just the
mundus intelligibilis of the Inaugural Dissertation! even after he had attacked
Swedenborg in his Dreams of a Spirit-Seer. —Lewis White Beck.1
This study lays the groundwork for a complete re-evaluation of the influence of
Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) on Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). My aim is to show that
Kant took Swedenborg's ideas seriously as candidates for truth, that he regarded them as
worthy of careful examination and appraisal, not arrogant dismissal. My long term aim, to be
1. Lewis White Beck, General Introduction to Kant's Latin Writings: Translations.

Commentaries, and Notes. 2nd rev. ed., ed. and trans. Lewis White Beck with Mary J.
Gregor, Ralf Meerbote, and John A. Reuscher (New York. Peter Lang 1992), 3-4.
1
pursued in other works, is to open Kant scholars to the possibility that
Swedenborg had a significant positive influence on the development of Kant's mature critical
philosophy.
There are sue aspects of Kant's thought in particular that I would argue bear traces of
Swedenborg's positive influence.2
First, Swedenborg offers a dualistic account of the cosmos as being divided into both
spiritual and material worlds, the spiritual world being governed by pneumatic laws, the
material world being governed by physical laws. Swedenborg offers a “dual aspect”
metaphysics that claims that all beings exist simultaneously in the spiritual and the material
worlds, that all beings have both spiritual and material aspects, and that even disembodied
spirits exist in relationships of “correspondence” to material objects. These claims correspond
to Kant's dual aspect metaphysics that claims that all being exist in both the phenomenal (=
material) and noumenal (= spiritual) worlds.
Second, Swedenborg claims that objects in the material world are differentiated in
terms o f space and time. The objects o f the spiritual world are differentiated not in terms of
space and time, but in terms of intelligible relationships of what Swedenborg calls
"representations" and "correspondences." Furthermore, Swedenborg holds that the material
and spiritual worlds correspond to two distinct forms o f cognition. The material world
appears to the senses, whereas the spiritual world is present to an appropriately spiritual form
o f cognition. Thus the passage from the material to the spiritual worlds is not a change of
place, but simply a change of one's mode of cognition. Finally, Swedenborg claims that his
visions o f the spiritual world do not show the spirit world as it is in itself Instead, his visions
are spatio-temporal representations of a nonspatio-temporal reality. Spiritual realities take on
this spatio-temporal garb to accommodate themselves to the requirements of a finite intellect.
These teachings clearly presage such central tenets of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason as
transcendental idealism and the ideality o f space and time.
Third, Swedenborg claims that since man straddles the divide between the spiritual and
the material worlds, we are subject to both spiritual and material laws. Swedenborg identifies
2. By a “positive” influence, I mean that Kant actually adopted some of Swedenborg’s ideas,
as opposed to a “negative” influence, involving the mere rejection of Swedenborg’s ideas.
the taws of the spirit world with the moral law. The moral law enters our ordinary
consciousness as an "influx" from the spiritual world. For Swedenborg, the moral life is the
task of living in the material world by the laws of the spiritual world. Unfortunately, the laws
that govern our material bodies frequently point us toward actions that contradict the moral
law. Therefore, the moral life requires a constant struggle to master the body's passions and
subordinate them to the moral law. We must, furthermore, always be careful to follow the
moral law for the right reason. Swedenborg claims that our actions are not moral if we follow
the moral law for any reasons other than the mere fact that it is the moral law. These
teachings clearly anticipate the central tenets of Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of
Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason, particularly his accounts o f the human actor’s
divided and conflicted nature, the moral law’s status as an influx from the noumenal to the
phenomenal self, and the requirement of acting upon "duty for duty's sake" if one's actions are
to be truly moral.
Fourth, Swedenborg's descriptions of the spirit world and its pneumatic laws in the
Arcana Coelestia are the models of Kant's accounts of the moral world as a "kingdom of ends"
(Reich der Zwecke) in the Groundwork and o f the afterlife in the Critique of Practical Reason.
Indeed, Swedenborg actually refers to the spiritual world as a "kingdom of ends" (regnum
finium) in the Arcana Coelestia. which is the earliest use of this phrase that I can ascertain.
Fifth, Swedenborg's doctrine of intelligible correspondences between the spiritual and
material worlds and his elaborate symbolical interpretations of Scripture motivated what I call
Kant's "hermeneutics." In the second and third Critiques. Religion within the Bounds of
Reason Alone. The Conflict of the Faculties, and his various historical essays, Kant tried to lay
the foundation of a hermeneutic that can interpret the moral experiences of obligation and
respect, the aesthetic experiences o f the beautiful and the sublime, historical events such as the
French Revolution, and holy Scripture itself as "signatures" of the noumenal-as phenomenal
intimations of a transcendent, intelligible world. At the same time, Kant wished to guard
against Swedenborg's lapse into a mystical enthusiasm that replaces intersubjectively available
and rationally verified truth with authoritative, oracular opinion.
Sixth, Kant's attempt to take Swedenborg seriously and to separate the truthful from
the fanciful elements o f his visions was a significant factor in what might be called Kant's
“humanistic* or “anthropological* turn of the early 1760s. At this time, Kant's
conception of wisdom underwent a fundamental transformation. At the beginning of his
philosophical career, Kant regarded wisdom as primarily theoretical, and he focused mostly on
cosmological and metaphysical issues. In the 1760s, however, he turned his attention toward
the human condition. He began to reflect on the powers, limits, and manifold derangements
of human reason. He also came to regard moral questions as having primacy over theoretical
ones. He reconceived wisdom as primarily moral and practical. A major influence on this
humanistic turn was Rousseau's critique of the morally corruptive power of theoretical reason
and technical-instrumental rationality when they are exercised without the guidance of moral
wisdom.
There is one main impediment to the thesis that Kant took Swedenborg seriously as a
thinker and was positively influenced by him: this is not the impression one usually takes away
from Kant's main work on Swedenborg, Dreams o f a Spirit-Seer. Elucidated bv Dreams of
Metaphysics (1766). simply because Dreams is filled with sneering and dismissive remarks
about Swedenborg. To combat this impression, I shall (1) compare the discrepancies between
Dreams and Kant's unpublished discussions of Swedenborg in his correspondence and
Lectures on Metaphysics, and (2) offer a detailed textual commentary on Dreams. On this
basis, I shall argue that the received view of Dreams is based upon a one-sided and superficial
reading of a text that is not in fact unambiguously hostile to Swedenborg but is rather
systematically ambiguous and ironic. Kant, 1 argue, constructs his text on two levels, placing
his criticisms of Swedenborg in the center while subtly negating, undermining, or qualifying
them in the margins, intimating his serious interest in and positive debts to Swedenborg
"between the lines"—a positive attitude that is confirmed by the correspondence and Lectures
on Metaphysics. 1 shall also offer historical evidence that Kant had ample motivation to adopt
this rhetorical strategy because of the danger of persecution from both the Prussian church
and the circles of the Berlin Enlightenment, both o f which were quite hostile to Swedenborg.
An additional aim of this work is to contribute to the revisionist history of modem
philosophy pioneered by Frances A Yates, Eric Voegelin, and others, who argue that the
characteristic ideas and ambitions of such modem philosophers and scientists as Bacon,
Descartes, Spinoza, Newton, Leibniz, and Hegel are in part derivative o f and cannot be
separated from, such occult traditions as Hermeticlsm, gnosticism, theosophy,
Kabbalism, alchemy, and millenialism—traditions epitomized in Swedenborg's theosophy. By
showing that Kant had a significant positive debt to Swedenborgian theosophy, I hope to raise
questions about the precise nature of Kant's "modernity," his commitment to the
Enlightenment, and his attitudes toward religious and mystical phenomena.
This work is divided into twelve chapters. Chapter one, "On the Interpretation of
Dreams." raises hermeneutical questions about the book. Chapter two, "Kant's Encounter
with Swedenborg: The Letter to Charlotte von Knobloch, August 10, 1763," is a detailed
textual commentary on Kant's earliest surviving discussion of Swedenborg. The next ten
chapters comprise my commentary proper. Chapter three deals with the title, epigraph, and
Preface of Dreams. Chapter four deals with Dreams, part one, chapter one. Chapters five
through seven discuss Dreams, part one, chapter two. Chapter eight comments on Dreams,
part one, chapter three. Chapter nine deals with Dreams, part one, chapter four. Chapters
ten, eleven, and twelve comment on the three chapters that make up part two of
Dreams. Finally, the Conclusion briefly surveys the argument of the whole work.
Decatur, Georgia
September 14, 2001
Chapter One:
On the Interpretation of Dreams
Regarding German culture, I have always had the feeling of decline. . .. The
Germans always come after the others: they are carrying something in the depths;
e.g.—
Dependence on other countries; e.g., Kant—Rousseau, Sensualists, Hume,
Swedenborg.
—Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power.1
1. A Mystery
In the Winter of 1765-66 an anonymous book entitled Dreams of a Spirit-Seer.
Elucidated bv Dreams of Metaphysics—was published by Johann Jacob Kantor in Konigsberg,
Prussia and, in two editions, by Johann Friedrich Hartknoch in Riga and Mietau, Latvia (then
called Livonia).2 The subject was Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish scientist and statesman of
some repute who, in 1745 at the age o f 56, embarked upon a second career as a theologian
and visionary who declared, among other things, that the Last Judgment took place in 1757 in
the spirit world and that his writings were the Second Coming of the Word. Swedenborg's
most famous work is the eight volume Arcana Coelestia (1749-56). which consists o f a
commentary’ on the spiritual “inner sense” of every single word and phrase o f the books of
Genesis and Exodus, interspersed with “memorable relations” of what Swedenborg claimed to
have seen and heard during his psychic journeys to heaven and hell, the spirit world, and other
planets in the universe, where he conversed with angels and demons, departed spirits, and
extraterrestrial beings. The anonymous author was Immanuel Kant.
1. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale, ed.
Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage, 1968), § 92, p. 56.
2. Although it first appeared in late 1765, Dreams bears the publication year 1766—a standard
practice of publishers to this day. The existence of three typographically distinct editions
likely indicates a strong interest in Swedenborg among the reading public. Since the book was
published anonymously, it is less likely that the sales were caused by a strong interest in Kant
himself.
6
So much for the known facts. Now for the mysteries.
The first mystery is why Kant would choose to write about Swedenborg at this
particular stage of his career. Near the end of 1765, as he was putting the finishing touches
on Dreams. Kant had been a Privatdozent at the Herzog Albrecht University in Konigsberg for
ten years. During these years, he struggled to support himself by delivering an overwhelming
load of lectures (estimates running up to twenty-eight hours per week) on such topics as logic,
metaphysics, ethics, mathematics, geography, anthropology, mineralogy, and even military
engineering.3 In 1766, to make additional money, Kant was to take part-time work as a
sublibrarian at the Royal Palace Library and as the curator of a cabinet o f scientific and
ethnographic curios.
Academic advancement had been elusive. In 1756, the 32 year old Kant had applied
for the position of professor extraordinarius (Assistant Professor) of logic and metaphysics,
the chair occupied by his mentor Martin Knutzen (1713-51) until his premature death. Kant's
application was turned down, and the chair went unfilled. In 1758 Kant applied for the
position of professor ordinarius (full Professor) in logic and metaphysics, but the chair went to
a colleague with greater seniority, F.J. Buck. The rejection was probably made more bitter by
the fact that both Knutzen and Buck had received their first extraordinary professorships when
they were twenty-one years o f age.4
By 1765 Kant had, however, won some recognition on the basis of his publications.
Kant's Enquiry into the Distinctness of the Fundamental Principles of Natural Theology and
Morals5 of 1763, a submission to the Berlin Academy's essay competition, received honorable
mention and was published alongside the winning essay by Moses Mendelssohn (1729-86), the
most eminent philosopher in Germany at the time. Another work of 1763, The Only Possible
3. Lewis White Beck, Introduction to Kant: Selections, ed. Lewis White Beck (New York.
Macmillan, 1988), 2.
4. In 1764, Kant was discussed as a possible candidate for the chair of poetry and rhetoric,
but refused to be considered because he regarded himself as unqualified. By 1769, it was
apparently clear to Kant that he would finally receive a professorship at Konigsberg, for that
year he turned down the chair of philosophy at Erlangen. In 1770 he also turned down a chair
at Jena, and was finally awarded his chair at Konigsberg later that year.
5. Kant Untersuchung uber die Deutlichkeit der Grundsatze der naturlichen Theologie und
der Moral (Berlin: Konigliche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1763), AK 2:273-301.
8
Basis for a Demonstration of the Existence of God.6 was favorably reviewed by
Mendelssohn.7 Mendelssohn described Kant as an important and independent thinker, and
according to Ernst Cassirer, it is “this review, more than any other, that established Kant's
reputation in Germany as a major philosopher.”8 Kant's 1764 book Observations Concerning
the Feeling o f the Beautiful and Sublime9 was also well-received, and, because of its
belletristic style, even became moderately popular, running rapidly through four editions.
Kant was, in short, beginning to be numbered among the junior luminaries of the
German Enlightenment. Leading thinkers, such as Mendelssohn and Johann Heinrich Lambert
(1728-77), began to correspond and share drafts of their work with him. According to
Cassirer, by 1765: “Kant [was] commonly seen as the creator of a new system, which
Mendelssohn urged him to work out in 1763 in the . . . review [of The Only Possible Basis for
a Demonstration of the Existence of God! . . . . What was expected and hoped for from him
was the project of a new, deeper, more tenable metaphysics--an abstract, analytic dissection of
its presuppositions and a careful theoretical examination of its most general conclusions.” 10
Dashing these expectations would have put his professional advancement at risk, but
dash them he did. In Cassirer’s words, Dreams, “is a work which in its literary form and in its
stylistic dress alike upset all the traditions of the literature of scientific philosophy.” 11 If the
form of Dreams was unusual, its subject, Swedenborg, was downright disreputable—a mystic
and enthusiast. Why, then did Kant write it? Why did he take these professional risks?
6. Kant, Per einzig mogliche Beweiscrund zu einer Demonstration des Daseins Gottes
(Konigsberg: Johann Jakob Kanter, 1763), AK 2:63-163.
7. Moses Mendelssohn, Review of Immanuel Kant, Der einzig mogliche Beweiscrund zu
einer Demonstration des Daseins Gottes. Briefe die neueste Literatur betreffend 18 (1764):69-
102; Malter, 118.
8. David Walford, Introduction to the Translations, The Cambridge Edition of the Works of
Immanuel Kant. Theoretical Philosophy. 1755-1770. ed. and trans. David Walford with Ralf
Meerbote (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), Ix. See also the account of Ernst
Cassirer, Kant's Life and Work (1918), trans. James Haden (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1981), 77. Henceforth cited as Cassirer.
9. Kant, Beobachtuneen uber das Gefuhl des Schonen und Erhabenen (Konigsberg: Johann
Jacob Kanter, 1764), AK 2:205-56. In English: Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful
and Sublime, trans. John T. Goldthwait (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960), 71-2.
10. Cassirer, 77-78.
11. Cassirer, 78.
The mystery deepens when one considers the personal risks Kant took in discussing
Swedenborg. Kant lived in intolerant times. Although Kant's sovereign, Frederick the Great,
was an atheist, he was not indifferent to the civic dimensions of religion. Thus the Protestant
establishment still had the power to censor heretical works and persecute their authors.
Swedenborg, moreover, was by all prevailing standards a heretic.12
He had been denounced as such in by the eminent Leipzig classicist and theologian
Johann August Emesti (1707-81) in the pages o f his New Theological Library.13 In 1760,
Emesti reviewed the Arcana Coelestia. Emesti declared that the author of the Arcana.
“because he abuses and perverts the Sacred Scriptures by the pretense of an inner sense, is in
the highest degree worthy of punishment.” 14 Such words could only be expected to produce
a chilling effect on Swedenborg scholarship. We know, furthermore, that Kant read these
words, because he refers to Emesti's volume in Dreams (AK 2:360; Walford, 347; Goerwitz,
102).15 In 1763, Emesti scathingly reviewed four more books of Swedenborg's: the Doctrine
of the New Jerusalem Concerning the Lord. Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Concerning the
Sacred Scripture. Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem, and Doctrine of the New Jerusalem
Concerning Faith.16 In neither review did Emesti mention Swedenborg's name, but he
claimed that he knew both his name and his person.
12. Swedenborg taught, for example, that the Last Judgment had already happened in the
Spiritual World and that his collected writings constituted the Second Coming of the Word.
He also de-emphasized the language o f the Trinity so markedly that he was accused of
Socinianism during the heresy proceedings against him in Gothenburg from 1768-1770. See
Cyriel Odhner Sigstedt, The Swedenborg Epic: The Life and Works o f Emanuel Swedenborg
(London: The Swedenborg Society, 1981), ch. 41. Henceforth cited as Sigstedt. Sigstedt’s
account is frustrating in that it does not fully explain the charges against Swedenborg.
13. Johann August Emesti. Neue theoloeische Bibliothek darinnen von den neuesten
theologischen Buchem und Schriften Nachrichten geeeben wird. 10 vols. (Leipzig: Breitkopf
1760-9).
14. Emesti, Review of [Emanuel Swedenborg,] Arcana Coelestia. etc., Neue theoloeische
Bibliothek 1 (Leipzig: Breitkopf, 1760):515-27. Quoted in Sigstedt, 305.
15. At his death, Kant's library also contained a copy of Emesti's Initia doctrinae solidioris
(First principles of a better-founded doctrine), 4th ed. (Leipzig, 1758). See Arthur Warda,
Immanuel Kants Bucher (Berlin: Martin Breslauer, 1922), 48.
16. [Emanuel Swedenborg], Doctrina Novae Hierosolvmae de Domino (Amsterdam, 1763);
Doctrina Novae Hierosolvmae de Scriptura Sacra (Amsterdam, 1763); Doctrina Vita pro
Nova Hierosolvma ex praeceptis Decalogi (Amsterdam. 1763): Doctrina Novae Hierosolvmae
10
Emesti's words became deeds a few years later, when he spearheaded heresy
proceedings against two clerics who had published positive accounts of Swedenborg. The
first victim was the Wiirttemberg theologian and Prelate Friedrich Christoph Oetinger (1702-
82). Oetinger was a mystically-inclined pietist, a Christian Kabbalist, a practicing alchemist, a
prolific author, and “by most estimates . . . the most original theologian of the eighteenth
century in Wurttemberg, and perhaps in all of Germany.”17 In October 1765, Oetinger
published Swedenborg and Other Earthly and Heavenly Philosophy, to Determine the Best. 18
In March of 1766, at Emesti’s urging, the Wurttemberg government declared the book to be
heretical, confiscated all copies, and even ordered private citizens to surrender their copies on
pain of arrest.19 (Also in 1766, Emesti published a third negative review of Swedenborg, this
one dealing with his The Apocalypse Revealed.20)
The following year, Emesti's wrath was turned on Heinrich Wilhelm Clemm. Clemm
was Oetinger*s son-in-law, professor of Theology at Tubingen, and the editor of the periodical
Complete Introduction to Religion and the Whole of Theology, in the pages of which Clemm
defended Oetinger and urged a more open-minded attitude toward Swedenborg.21 Emesti
de Fide (Amsterdam, 1763). English translation: The Four Doctrines: The Lord. Sacred
Scripture. Life. Faith, ed. Alice Spiers Sechrist, trans. John Faulkner Potts (New York:
Swedenborg Foundation, 1984). Emesti, Review of [Emanuel Swedenborg,] Doctrina novae
Hierosolvmae . . . ., Neue theoloeische Bibliothek. vol. 4 (Leipzig: Breitkopf, 1763):725-33.
17. F. Ernest Stoeffler, German Pietism During the Eighteenth Century (Leiden: E.J. Brill,
1973), 107.
18. Friedrich Christoph Oetinger, Swedenborgs und anderer irrdische und himmlische
Philosophic, zur Prufung des Besten. 2 vols. (Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1765). The other earthly
and heavenly philosophies include those of Bohme, Malebranche, Newton, Wolf£ Detlev
Cliiver, Gottfried Ploucquet, Giorgio Baglivis, and Johann Ludwig Flicker.
19. A complete account of Oetinger’s difficulties is found in Ernst Benz, Swedenborg in
Deutschland: F.C. Oetineers und Immanuel Kants Auseinandersetzune mit der Person und
Lehre Emanuel Swedenborgs (Frankfurt a.M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 1947).
20. [Emanuel Swedenborg,] Apocalvpsis revelata. in qua deteguntur arcana quae ibi praedicta
sunt et hactenus recondita laterunt (Amsterdam, 1766). In English: The Apocalypse
Revealed, wherein are disclosed the arcana there foretold which have hitherto remained
concealed. 2 vols., trans. John Whitehead (New York: Swedenborg Foundation, 1928).
Emesti, Review of [Emanuel Swedenborg,] Apocalvpsis
revelata. . .., Neue Theoloeische Bibliothek 6 (Leipzig: Breitkopf 1765):685-92.
21. Heinrich Wilhelm Clemm, ed., Vollstandige Einleitung in die Religion und die gesammte
Theolocie 4 (Tubingen. Johann Georg Cotta, 1767), 204-9, 213-17.
responded with yet another scathing review, asserting that Clemm’s defense of Oetinger and
Swedenborg was an offense that would have been worthy of the death penalty in earlier
times.22
Although Dreams was already in print by the time Oetinger and Clemm came under
attack, Kant was no fool, and could easily have predicted such courses of events.23 Why,
then, did he take the risk?
The mystery deepens still further when we contemplate the practical difficulties and
expenses Kant undertook to write Dreams. Given his massive courseload, time was scarce
and therefore at a premium. He could not afford to throw it away researching and writing a
mere jeu d’espirit. Money too was scarce, and purchasing the eight quarto volumes of
Swedenborg's Arcana Coelestia required a considerable outlay of seven pounds sterling, a fact
that Kant twice notes ruefully in Dreams (AK 2:318, 366; Walford, 306, 353; Goerwitz, 39,
111).
Furthermore, Kant's letter to Charlotte von Knobloch o f August 10, 1763, reveals that
Kant was sufficiently interested in Swedenborg to dispatch a letter to him in care of an
unnamed English friend, a merchant with business in Stockholm; Kant also troubled himself to
employ two other friends, a second Englishman and a Danish former student, to collect
22. Emesti, Review of Heinrich Wilhelm Clemm, Vollstandige Einleitune in die Religion und
gesammte Theologie 4. Neue Theologische Bibliothek 8 (Leipzig: Breitkopf. 1767):860-92,
esp. 874-5. See Sigstedt, 419.
23. In 1762, before he learned that Swedenborg was the author of the Arcana Coelestia.
Oetinger had written a summary of Swedenborg's cosmological treatise Principia rerum
naturaiium sive novorum tentaminum phaenomena mundi elementaris philosophice explicandi
(Dresden and Leipzig: Friedrich Hekel, 1734); English translation: The Principia. or The First
Principles of Natural Things. Being New Attempts Toward a Philosophical Explanation of the
Elementary World. 2 vols., trans. Augustus Clissold (London: W. Newbery, 1845-46), the
first of the three large folio volumes of Swedenborg's Opera philosophica et mineralia
(philosophical and mineralogical works). (The second volume is devoted to iron, the third to
copper and brass.)
Oetinger compares Swedenborg’s cosmology with Jakob Bohme's. This summary was
written for an earlier version of The Earthly and Heavenly Philosophy and appears as part of
volume two of the final work, which is devoted largely to natural philosophy. In 1763 the
Wurttemberg Consistory in Stuttgart, possibly at the urging of Emesti, forbade Oetinger from
publishing his book, either inside or outside Wurttemberg. It is not, however, clear whether
this event was known widely enough to have influenced Kant's deliberations about writing
Dreams.
12
information on and interview witnesses of Swedenborg’s most famous clairvoyant feats: the
so-called affairs of the Queen's Secret, the Stockholm Fire, and the Lost Receipt.24 These
researches involved a considerable expenditure of time for Kant's agents and thus a
considerable expenditure of charm on Kant’s part to elicit the favors. Why did Kant regard
Swedenborg as worth such expenditures? What did Kant see in Swedenborg?
The mystery becomes deeper still when we actually read Dreams. The first thing that
strikes the reader is the book's unusual style. In the opinions o f many scholars, Dreams is
Kant's strangest work. Paul Arthur Schilpp writes that, “This essay is probably the most
fantastic Kant ever wrote.”25 Keith Ward characterizes Dreams as, “the strangest and most
tortured of Kant's writings.”26 Susan Shell describes Dreams as, “perhaps the wittiest piece
that Kant ever wrote.”27 T.K Seung regards “Dreams [as] a nest of contradictions and
ambivalence, which affects even the tone and style of [Kant's] exposition.”28 Cassirer
describes Dreams as a “satyr-play of the mind.”29 And Julius Ebbinghaus characterizes the
book as “a pearl of the comic-satiric species” evincing “a literary talent which in all likelihood
could be placed alongside that of Wieland, or Lichtenberg”—not the usual sorts of claims
made about Kant's literary style.30
Herman-J. de Vleeschauwer claims that Dreams marks a dramatic “change in tonality”
in Kant's writing and ascribes it to the influence of Rousseau.31 More precisely, Dreams
might better be characterized as part of a “belletristic” interruption in the tonality of Kant's
24. Kant, Brief an Charlotte von Knobloch, August 10, 1763, AK 10:43-8.
25. Paul A. Schilpp, Kant's Pre-Critical Ethics fF.vanstnn Northwestern University Press,
i960), 79.
26. Keith Ward, The Development of Kant's View o f Ethics (New York: Humanities Press,
1972), 34. Henceforth cited as Ward.
27. Susan Meld Shell, The Embodiment of Reason: Kant on Spirit. Generation, and
Community (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 6.
28. T.K. Seung, Kant's Platonic Revolution in Moral and Political Philosophy (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins, 1994), 26. Henceforth cited as Seung.
29. Cassirer, 78.
30. Julius Ebbinghaus, “Kant und Swedenborg,” in his Interpretation und Kritik: Schriften zur
Theoretischen Philosophic und zur Philosophiegeschichte. 1924-1972. ed. Hariolf Oberer and
Georg Geismann (Bonn: Bouvier, 1990), 60.
31. Herman-J. de Vleeschauwer, The Development of Kantian Thought trans. A.R. Duncan
(Edinburgh: Nelson, 1962), 41.
13
writings in the mid-1760s, an interruption that includes the Observations on the Feeling of the
Beautiful and Sublime (completed in 1763) and the “Essay on the Sicknesses of the Head”32
(1764), as well as Dreams (written in 1765; published dated 1766). Stylistically speaking,
Dreams differs from these works only in the inconsistency o f its belletristic style, an
inconsistency due largely to the fact that its subject matter requires passages of sustained and
rigorous philosophical argument.
Throughout Dreams. Kant’s characteristically complex, labored, and painfully earnest
sentences jostle uneasily alongside passages that are literary, ironic, playful, and humorous,
abounding in what C.D. Broad calls, “elephantine badinage.”33
This quality was pointed out in the very first review of Dreams, from the
Konigsbergische Gelehrte und Politische Zeituneen o f March 3, 1766, written by Johann
Gottfried Herder, “The text as a whole would seem to lack unity, and each part does not seem
connected enough to the others. The author presents the truths from both sides, and like a
certain Roman, he says, ‘One of you say no! The other yes! ’ You Romans, whom do you
believe? Meanwhile, it hones one's attentiveness that much more, and one sees at every turn
that the author has the genius of philosophy for his friend, just as Socrates conferred with his
daimon in holy dreams.”34
Johann Georg Heinrich Feder*s review of Dreams, from the Erlangische gelehrte
Anmerkungen und Nachrichten. September 23, 1766, also makes a similar point:
“Schwedenberg. who as Herr Provost Oetinger says, is hopefully better known than merely to
academics, has through his visions occasioned this book, which appears to have an author
who does not make metaphysics his profession, but who is as sensible a philosopher as he is
32. “Versuch uber die Krankheiten des Kopfes” (Konigsberg, 1764), AK 2:257-71.
33. C.D. Broad, “Immanuel Kant and Psychical Research,” in his Religion. Philosophy and
Psychical Research. 2nd ed. (New York: Humanities Press, 1969), 116. Henceforth cited as
Broad.
34. Johann Gottfried Herder, Review of [Immanuel Kant], Traume eines Geistersehers.
erlautert durch Traume der Metaphvsik. Maker, 123. My trans.
14
witty a scoffer. After reading though these pages, we have become doubtful whether they
were written in jest or in earnest; at any rate, both are almost always together.”35
The strange internal tensions o f Dreams are not, moreover, merely superficial matters
of literary “form” that can be safely ignored by tough-minded interpreters who wish simply to
determine the book's philosophical “content.” Kant's literary “form” calls the “content” into
question. Mendelssohn notes this problem in his review of Dreams: “The joking pensiveness
with which this little work is written leaves the reader sometimes in doubt as to whether Herr
Kant intends to make metaphysics laughable or spirit-seeing credible.”36 One cannot,
therefore, understand the “content” independent of the “form”; in Dreams, the medium is part
o f the message.
The second thing that readers are likely to notice is the schizophrenic quality of Kant's
assessments o f Swedenborg, which Oetinger characterized nicely in a letter to Swedenborg:
“We have a book, Dreams of a Spirit-Seer. in which the author lifts you on high with praises,
as much as he pushes you down with accusations .. ,”37 On the one hand, Kant pours scorn
upon Swedenborg, deploying such techniques as irony, sarcasm, and outright ridicule.
Swedenborg is characterized as the “worst of all enthusiasts faresten Schwarmers unter
alien]” (AK 2:366; Walford, 352; Goerwitz, 111). His visions are characterized as ravings
and likened to fever-dreams, daydreams, fairy-tales, and even belches and farts. Kant
generously stops short, however, of accusing Swedenborg of outright fraud, ascribing his
revelations to “fanatical intuition” (fanatischem Anschauen). sensory and rational “delusion”
(Wahn), and mental “derangement” (Verruckung). The spirit world is characterized as a
“paradise of visionaries” built up of “hypochondriacal vapors, wet-nurse tales, and cloister
miracles” (AK 2:317; Walford, 305; Goerwitz, 37; my trans.). Kant lambastes the Arcana
35. Johann Georg Heinrich Feder, Review of [Immanuel Kant], Traume eines Geistersehers.
erlautert durch Traume der Metaphvsik. Compendium Historiae Litterariae novissimae Oder
Erlangische gelehrte Anmerkungen und Nachrichten auf das Jahr 1766 21 (Erlangen,
September 1766):308-9. InMalter, 125-7. My trans.
36. Mendelssohn, Review of Traume. Malter, 118. My trans.
37. Oetinger to Swedenborg, December 4, 1766, in Emanuel Swedenborg, Letters and
Memorials. 2 vols., ed. and trans. Alfred Acton (Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania: Swedenborg
Scientific Association, 1948 and 1955), n, 629.
Coelestia for its considerable prolixity: “If many writers, who are now forgotten or whose
name will one day fall into oblivion, have the substantial merit of not having been miserly in
the expenditure of their understanding in the composition of their hefty works, then
Schwedenberg [sic] doubtless deserves the greatest honor of all” (AK 2:259; Walford, 346;
Goerwitz, 101; trans. Walford). Kant asserts, furthermore, that the Arcana is “dull,”
“completely empty,” contains “not a single drop o f reason,” and is “stuffed full of nonsense”
(AK 2:360; Walford, 346; Goerwitz, 101; trans. Walford). Kant even insists on spelling
Swedenborg’s name “Schwedenberg.”38
On the other hand, however, Kant, with his typical tone o f earnestness and sobriety,
offers his own account of the spirit world, which he claims is “confirmed” by Swedenborg’s
visions, and admits that his moral “hope for the future” inclines him to accept such a vision as
true. Regarding Swedenborg's alleged “confirmation” of Kant's speculations, Broad dryly
observes that, “It might strike an impartial observer that the agreement may not be wholly
disconnected with the fact that Kant had carefully read and epitomized Swedenborg's doctrine
at the time when he was pursuing his metaphysical speculations on this topic.”39 Indeed, the
speculations that Kant presents as his own just are an epitome of Swedenborg's visions,
purged of certain enthusiastic excesses. Why did Kant choose to write in such a way? An
explanation of these puzzling tensions between sobriety and jest, praise and ridicule is a
necessary feature o f any interpretation of Dreams.
A related mystery is the fact that Dreams is one of only two books that Kant published
anonymously, the other being his Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens
(1755).40 Why did Kant choose to leave his name off the title page?
38. This may not be an intentional misspelling, but simply a phonetic rendition. In the letter
to von Knobloch, Swedenborg’s name is spelled correctly, but we do not have Kant's original
letter, so there is no way of knowing whether Kant himself spelled the name correctly, or if
the spelling was quietly corrected by Borowski. Swedenborg's name is also spelled correctly
in the letter to Moses Mendelssohn of April 8,1766, but again, this may have been the work
of a later editor. (Since the Arcana was published anonymously, Kant could not consult it for
a correct spelling o f Swedenborg’s name.)
39. Broad, 143. Cf. John Manolesco, Introduction, Manolesco, 16-17.
40. Kant Allgemeine Natureeschichte und Theorie des Himmels oder Versuch von der
Verfassung um den mechanischen Ursprung des ganzen Weltgebaudes. nach Newtonischen
16
The plot thickens further when one compares Kant's treatment of Swedenborg in
Dreams to his other discussions. In addition to the internal contradictions of the text,
elements of Dreams also contradict Kant's other discussions of Swedenborg-before, after,
and contemporaneous with Dreams. Kant mentions Swedenborg and his ideas in writings and
lectures that stretch over a period o f 35 years, from his letter to Charlotte von Knobloch of
August 10, 1763 to his last two books, The Conflict of the Faculties and Anthropology in
Pragmatic Perspective, both published in 1798.41 Although Kant's most extensive treatment
of Swedenborg is Dreams. Swedenborg is discussed in 13 other Kantian texts. Although Kant
mentions such thinkers as Rousseau and Hume much more often, it is worthy of note that
Dreams of a Spirit-Seer is the only book Kant ever devoted to discussing the ideas of another
thinker. The substance and tone of Kant's judgments of Swedenborg fluctuate wildly: from
expressions of profound respect and even enthusiasm in the letter to Charlotte von Knobloch,
to respectful yet critical exposition in the various Lectures on Metaphysics, to mockery,
sarcasm, and insinuations of madness in Dreams, and even to the accusation that he was
“apparently a deliberate fraud” in one late lecture.42 Kant's accounts of various facts also
change. To be specific, Kant suppresses certain facts in Dreams that he earlier acknowledged
in the letter to Charlotte von Knobloch.
In sum, if one wishes to dispel the mystery of Dreams, and of Kant's interest in
Swedenborg in general, then one must answer six questions. First, one must explain why
Kant was willing to take the professional risks of writing about Swedenborg. Second, one
must explain why Kant was willing to take the personal risks of writing about Swedenborg.
Third, one must explain why Kant was willing to take on the considerable practical difficulties
of conducting research and publishing a book on Swedenborg. Fourth, one must explain the
puzzling literary style and internal contradictions o f Dreams. Fifth, one must explain why
Dreams was published anonymously. Finally, one must explain the puzzling contradictions,
Grundsatzen abgehandelt (Konigsberg and Leipzig: Johann Friedrich Petersen, 1755), AK

2:215-368.
41. See Bibliography.
42. Fragment einer spateren Rationaltheoloeie nach Baumbach. AK 28.2.2:1325.
both o f facts and of evaluations, between Dreams and Kant's other discussions of
Swedenborg.
2. The Received View and its Critics

Most Kant scholars are somewhat embarrassed by Kant's interest in Swedenborg.
Thus it is not surprising that most have preferred to downplay the mysteries, ambiguities, and
contradictions surrounding it. They prefer, instead, to take Kant's most negative judgments as
his most considered and mature. They then dismiss the entire Swedenborg episode as an
aberration of Kant’s pre-critical youth, having no larger significance for the interpretation of
his mature critical philosophy. According to the received view, Dreams of a Spirit-Seer.
Elucidated bv Dreams of Metaphysics would have been better entitled “Dreams of
Metaphysics, Elucidated by Dreams of a Spirit-Seer,” for the book is thought to be an attempt
to criticize the metaphysics of the dominant “Leibniz-Wolff” school by linking it to
Swedenborg-on the assumption that Kant regarded Swedenborg's ideas as so self-evidently
absurd that simply to liken any position to Swedenborg's would be enough to reduce it to
absurdity as well.43 Although many elements of Kant's mature metaphysics and moral
43. Swedenborg clearly does have philosophical debts to Leibniz, Wolff, and Malebranche.
See his A Philosopher's Note Book. Excerpts from Philosophical Writers and from
Sacred Scriptures on a Variety of Philosophical Subjects: together with some Reflections, and
Sundry Notes and Memoranda bv Emanuel Swedenborg, trans. Alfred Acton (Philadelphia:
Swedenborg Scientific Association, 1931); Psvchologia. being Notes and Observations on
Christian W olffs P svch ologia Fm pirica hv E m anuel Swedenborg, trans. Alfred Acton
(Philadelphia: Swedenborg Scientific Association, 1923); and Rational Psychology, trans.
Alfred Acton (Philadelphia: Swedenborg Scientific Association, 1950). In his De Commercio
Animae et Corporis, quod creditur fieri vel per Influxum Phvsicum. vel per Influxum
Spiritualem. vel per Harmoniam Praestabilitam (London, 1769), Swedenborg reports meeting
Wolff’s ghost in the spiritual world. His description seems plausible: “There was a single man
standing behind Leibniz and holding the hem o f his robe in his hand: I was told that this was
Wolff.” See The Soul-Bodv Interaction, in Emanuel Swedenborg, The Universal Human and
the Soul-Bodv Interaction, ed. and trans. George F. Dole (New York: Paulist Press, 1984),
253. See also Frank SewalL “Descartes and Leibniz-How for they are Reflected in
Swedenborg's Philosophy,” in his Swedenborg and Modem Idealism: A Retrospect of
Philosophy from Kant to the Present Time (London: James Speirs, 1902); Hugo Lj. Odhner,
“Christian Wolff and Swedenborg,” The New Philosophy 54 (1951):237-51; and Kurt P.
Nemitz, “Leibniz and Swedenborg,” The New Philosophy 94 (1991):445-87; “The German
(8
philosophy are adumbrated in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer. the received view holds that
Swedenborg could not have exercised any positive influence on them. At best Swedenborg
exercised only a negative influence, by stimulating Kant to break with dogmatic metaphysics
and develop his mature critical philosophy.
The earliest source for the received view of Dreams is Dreams itself. Throughout the
book, Kant squirms with acute embarrassment over writing about Swedenborg. He offers a
series of transparently lame apologies for his activity. The last and most plausible o f these
apologies can be—and certainly has been-taken as an outright statement of the received view
o f Dreams:
The reader will probably ask what on earth could have induced me to engage in such a
despicable business as that of spreading fairy-tales abroad, which every rational being
would hesitate to listen to with patience—and, indeed, not merely disseminating them
but actually making them the subject o f philosophical investigations. However, since
the philosophy, with which we have prefaced this work, was no less a fairy-story from
the fool’s paradise 1Schlaraffenlande44] o f metaphysics, I can see nothing improper
about having them make their appearance on the stage together. And, anyway, why
should it be more respectable to allow oneself to be misled by credulous trust in the
sophistries of reason than to allow oneself to be deceived by an incautious belief in
delusory stories? (AK 2:356; Walford, 342-3; Goerwitz, 95; trans. Walford, modified;
emphasis in original)
Re-enforcement for this interpretation is provided by Kant in his letter to Mendelssohn of

April 8, 1766. Kant writes:
Philosophers Leibniz and Wolff in Swedenborg’s Philosophic Development,” The New

Philosophy 97 (1994):411-25 ; “Christian Wolff and Swedenborg,” The New Philosophy 102
(January-June 1999):391-412, and “The Development o f Swedenborg’s Knowledge of and
Contact with Wolff” The New Philosophy 102 (July-December 1999):467-527.
44. Walford translates "Schlaraffenland" as "cloud-cuckoo-land" (Walford, 343).
As to my expressed opinion of the value of metaphysics in general, perhaps here and
again my words were not sufficiently careful and qualified. But I cannot conceal my
repugnance, and even a certain hatred, toward the inflated arrogance of whole
volumes full of what are passed off nowadays as insights; for I am fully convinced that
the path that has been selected is completely wrong, that the methods now in vogue
must infinitely increase the amount of folly and error in the world, and that even the
total extermination o f all these chimerical insights would be less harmful that the
dream science itself, with its confounded contagion.45
Here Kant grants the obvious truth that Dreams contains many anti-metaphysical comments.
Elsewhere in his letter, Kant explicitly states that he linked Swedenborg to metaphysics
precisely to illustrate the absurdity that results when speculations run ahead of empirical data.
My analogy between a spiritual substance’s actual moral influx and the force of
universal gravitation is not intended seriously; but it is an example of how far one can
go in philosophical fabrications, completely unhindered, when there are no data, and it
illustrates how important it is, in such exercises, first to decide what is required for a
solution of the problem and whether the necessary data for a solution may be lacking.
(AK 10:73; Zweig, 57; Zweig trans.)
The first statement o f the received view in the Kant literature appears to be in Ludwig
Ernst Borowski, Darstellung des Lebens und Charakters Immanuel Kants.46 To my
45. Letter to Mendelssohn, April 8, 1766, AK 10:70; also in Kant, Philosophical

Correspondence. 1759-99. ed. and trans. Amulf Zweig (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1967), 55; henceforth cited as Zweig 1.
46. Darstellung des Lebens und Charakters Immanuel Kants von Ludwig Ernst BorowskL
von Kant selbst eenau revidiert und berichtigt (Konigsberg, 1804), 221-5, in Immanuel Kant:
sein Leben in Darstelluneen von Zeiteenossen. Die Biographen von L.E. BorowskL R.B.
Jachmann und A.Ch. WasianskL ed. Felix Gross (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche
Buchgesellschaft, 1980). Borowski's comments on Dreams, as well as the Letter to Charlotte
von Knobloch, are included in an appendix to his biography. Borowski claims that Kant
knowledge, Borowski’s is the first discussion of the place of Dreams in the development of
Kant's thought. The received view appears to receive its canonical statement in the first major
German monograph on Kant, Kuno Fischer’s magisterial Immanuel Kant und seine Lehre. 2
vols., incorporated into the second edition of Fischer's Geschichte der neuem Philosophic
(1852-77). The first volume of Immanuel Kant und seine Lehre. entitled Entstehune und
Grundlegung der kritischen Philosophic, offers a sweeping account o f Kant’s pre-critical
writings that has become a cornerstone of much subsequent scholarship.47 Fischer argues that
Dreams marks a period of radical Humean skepticism in Kant's philosophical development.
According to Fischer, Dreams is a “double satire,” directed at both Swedenborg and at
metaphysics: “Swedenborg and metaphysics were, to use a familiar phrase, for Kant Two
flies to be killed in one slap.’ He went laughingly at it.”48 Since Fischer, the received view
has been repeated, more or less unaltered, by virtually every major (and minor) Kant
commentator of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries 49
In spite of the enduring popularity of the received view, there have always been some
scholars skeptical of it, scholars who suspect—for reasons to be discussed below—that Kant's
professions of scorn for Swedenborg are not the whole story and that along with, or behind,
the scorn is a genuine respect for Swedenborg, and perhaps even positive debts to his thought.
These skeptics can be divided into two camps.
The first are Kant scholars-including convinced Kantians—whose readings of Kant
have convinced them that the received view is inadequate. These scholars include Hans
Vaihinger, Eduard von Hartmann, C.D. Broad, J.N. Findlay, John Manoslesco, Giorgio
Tonelli, Francis X.J. Coleman, Stephen R. Palmquist, and T.C. Williams. Samuel Taylor
reviewed and corrected his text, but unfortunately there is no way of knowing if he reviewed
and corrected the appendix as well.
47. Kuno Fischer, Geschichte der neuem Philosophic, vol. 4, Immanuel Kant und seine
Lehre. part 1, Entstehung und Grundlegung der kritischen Philosophie. 2nd ed. (Heidelberg:
Carl Winter, 1869). Henceforth, I shall cite this volume as Fischer.
48. Fischer, 276.
49. See Bibliography, 297-99, 305-8.
21
Coleridge, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Eric Voegelin have also expressed doubts about the
received view and claimed that Swedenborg exercised a positive influence on Kant.50
The second group of skeptics are Swedenborg scholars—including convinced
Swedenborgians—who read Kant's writings in light of their knowledge of Swedenborg,
discover what appear to be many deep affinities for and debts to Swedenborg, and are puzzled
at the hostile and carping tone of many of Kant's comments. They include J.F. Immanuel
Tafel, Carl du Prel, Frank Sewall, Ernst Benz, William Ross Woofenden, Robert J. Kirven,
Roland Begenat, and Gottlieb Florschutz.51
There are ample reasons for being skeptical of the received view. I have raised six
questions that must be answered by an adequate interpretation of Dreams. The received view
does not adequately answer these questions. On the received view, Kant's motivation for
writing Dreams was to attack the dominant metaphysics of his time. This does not, however,
explain why Kant would adopt such a risky and difficult strategy when less risky ones were
available. For instance, if Kant wanted to write an essay in Humean skepticism, surely it
would have been safer and more effective to have written about Hume. The received view
also throws no light on the questions concerning the style, anonymous publication, and
strange contradictions between Dreams and Kant's other discussions o f Swedenborg. It does
not, for example, deal with the mixed signals noted by Mendelssohn. Nor does it explain why
Kant conceals or misrepresents facts in Dreams that he discusses in his letter to Charlotte von
Knobloch. (This issue will be discussed in detail in chapter two below.)
The received view, moreover, creates another mystery to be explained. If Dreams
represents a Humean, skeptical critique of metaphysics, then, it is hard to explain Kant's
Inaugural Dissertation of 1770. Frederick Beiser states the problem nicely: “It is . . .
surprising, indeed extremely puzzling, to find that in August 1770, Kant appears to revive
speculative metaphysics in his inaugural dissertation, De mundi sensibilis atque intelligibilis
forma et principiis dissertatio (Dissertation on the Form and Principles of the Sensible and
Intelligible Worlds). The conception o f metaphysics that Kant outlines in this work seems to

be the complete negation of that in the Dreams. The aim of metaphysics is not to determine
the limits of reason, but to give us a rational knowledge of the intelligible world.”52 The
received view, in short, raises more questions than it answers. I wish, therefore, to offer an
alternative account.
First, I wish to argue that Kant was willing to take on the professional and personal
risks and practical problems of writing a book on Swedenborg for two reasons. First, Kant
took Swedenborg seriously as an interesting and important thinker, and to say that Kant took
Swedenborg seriously is to say that Kant thought that Swedenborg’s claims could possibly be
true, and are thus worthy of careful examination, rather than hasty dismissal. Second,
regarding Kant's interest in Swedenborg, the cat was already out of the bag, for in the Preface
of Dreams and in chapter two of the Second Part o f Dreams, as well as in letters to Moses
Mendelssohn dated February 7 and April 8, 1766, Kant indicates that one of his motives for
publishing Dreams is to stop the enquiries o f “inquisitive” and “idle” persons, “both known
and unknown,” who had heard rumors that he was engaged in serious research into
Swedenborg.
Naturally in Kant's time any rumors of interest in a heretical thinker like Swedenborg
would have seriously jeopardized Kant's prospects for academic advancement, providing him
with sufficient motive to write a work exculpating himself of such suspicions. Thus I shall
argue that Dreams serves a double purpose. It both communicates a positive metaphysical
teaching based upon serious researches into Swedenborg and dispels the rumors that Kant
took Swedenborg seriously by heaping ridicule upon the hapless Swede.
How could a book do both of these things at the same time? I wish to argue that the
stylistic peculiarities and anonymous publication of Dreams, as well as the contradictions
between Dreams and the Inaugural Dissertation and between Dreams and Kant's other
52. Beiser, "Kant's Intellectual Development: 1746-1781," Cambridge Companion to Kant

47. Cf. Cassirer, Kant's Life and Work. 94; Keith Ward, The Development of Kant's View of
Ethics. 42; Paul Guyer, “Introduction: The Starry Heavens and the Moral Law,” Cambridge
Companion to Kant. 10; Robert E. Butts, Kant and the Double-Government Methodology:
Supersensibilitv and Method in Kant's Philosophy o f Science (Dordrect: Reidel, 1984), 88-9;
and Amulf Zweig, Introduction, in Immanuel Kant, Correspondence (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1999), 17; henceforth cited as Zweig 2.
23
discussions of Swedenborg, are to be explained not by Kant's psychology, or by changes in
Kant's opinions o f Swedenborg, but by Kant's deliberate attempt to conceal his interest in and
affinities to Swedenborg beneath the mask of ridicule and irony. Specifically, I argue that
although Dreams gives the overall impression that Kant has an extremely negative view of
Swedenborg, Kant nonetheless intimates a peculiar attitude of admiration, sympathy, and
kinship toward Swedenborg “between the lines.” In short, I wish to argue that Dreams is an
exercise in “esoteric writing.”53 I suggest that Kant adopted this rhetorical strategy because it
was the best way to minimize the personal and professional risks associated with writing about
someone like Swedenborg, who was as unpopular among the reactionary forces of orthodoxy
as he was among the progressive forces of Enlightenment. The contradictions between
Dreams and Kant's other discussions of Swedenborg provide us with evidence of this
rhetorical strategy. The endurance of the received view is evidence of its success.
S3. I offer an extensive discussion of the received view and a defense of the esotericism thesis
in Gregory R. Johnson, “Did Kant Dissemble His Interest in Swedenborg?”, The New
Philosophy 102 (July-December 1999):529-60. See also my essays “Kant’s Early
Metaphysics and the Origins of the Critical Philosophy,” Studia Swedenborgiana 11, no. 2
(1999):29-54. (Available online at www.ssr.edu.) and “Esotericism and Contemporary
Hermeneutics,” unpublished ms. See also John Toland (1670-1722): “Clidophorus, or of the
Exoteric and Esoteric Philosophy, that is, of the External and Internal Doctrines of the
Ancients: the one open and public, accommodated to the popular Prejudices and the
established Religions; the other private and secret, wherein, to the few capable and discrete,
was taught the TRUTH stripped of all disguises,” in Tetradvmus (London, 1720); cf. Toland's
Pantheisticon: or the Form o f Celebrating a Socratic Society (London. 1751), esp. 96-9. See
also Leo Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing (Chicago. University of Chicago Press,
1988), “Exoteric Teaching,” in The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism: An
Introduction to the Thought of Leo Strauss, ed. Thomas L. Pangle (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1989), and “On a Forgotten Kind of Writing,” in his What is Political
Philosophy? And Other Studies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988); Paul J. Bagley,
“On the Practice o f Esotericism,” Journal of the History of Ideas 53 (1992):231-47; David
Berman, “Deism, Immortality, and the Art of Theological Lying,” in Deism Masonry, and the
Enlightenment: Essays Honoring Alfred Owen Aldridge, ed. J.A. Leo Lemay (Newark:
University o f Delaware Press, 1987); Julian Hibbert, “On the Supposed Necessity o f
Deceiving the Vulgar,” The Library of Reason, no. 4 (1851): 1-7.
Chapter Two:
Kant's First Encounter with Swedenborg:
The Letter to Charlotte von Knobloch, August 10,1763
If Kant were alive today, he would undoubtedly have been a spiritualist. Kant spared
neither time nor effort to get in touch with Swedenborg. Insofar as it lay in his power,
he tested the validity o f Swedenborg’s claims and gave them a thorough and unbiased
reading. What a contrast lies between this greatest of all sages ever bom on German
soil, and his puerile epigones, who do themselves the honor of citing Kant and yet do
all they can to suppress and ridicule something [namely, parapsychological
phenomena] that can only confirm Kant's profound ideas.
—C.G. Jung, “Some Thoughts on Psychology,” 18971
1. The Importance of the Letter to Charlotte von Knobloch

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a framework in which to situate and
interpret Dreams. It consists o f a close reading of Kant's letter to Charlotte von Knobloch of
August 10, 1763. Since this text was never meant for publication, it is more likely to offer a
glimpse of Kant’s private view of Swedenborg. (As we shall see, however, there is reason to
think that Kant was being somewhat circumspect even here.) I shall pay special attention to
the differences between the letter and Dreams, for if there are significant differences between
Kant’s public and private statements on Swedenborg, this gives support to my thesis that there
are esoteric and exoteric levels in Dreams itself.
The letter to von Knobloch is the earliest known document in which Kant makes
reference to Swedenborg. This letter is one of the primary sources of information on
Swedenborg’s three most famous clairvoyant feats, the so-called affairs of the Queen’s Secret,
1. C.G. Jung, "Some Thoughts on Psychology," in The Collected Works of C.G. Jung.
Supplementary Volume A The Zofinga Lectures, ed., William McGuire, trans. Jan van
Heurck (Princeton: Princeton Univerity Press, 1983), 34 105).
24
25
the Lost Receipt, and the Stockholm Fire.2 The letter was dated August 10, but did not state
the year in which it was written. The letter was first published in the second appendix to
Ludwig Ernst Borowski's 1804 Darstellung des Lebens und Charakters Immanuel Kants.3
Borowski assigns the letter to the year 1758. The internal evidence of the letter itself,
however, allows it confidently to be assigned to the year 1763. The letter cannot have been
written after 1763, for its addressee, Charlotte von Knobloch (b. August 10, 1740, d. 1804),
became the wife of Captain Friedrich von Klingspom on July 22, 1764. The letter cannot
have been written before 1762, because it mentions the mobilization of the Danish army under
General St. Germain, who became a Danish field marshal in 1760, that took place March 2,
1762 to ward off a threatened attack from Czar Peter III, who had ascended the throne on
January 5, 1762. (The Czar was deprived of his throne on July 9 and deprived of his life on
July 17, causing the Danes to stand down on August 9.) Kant claims that the Danish officer
recommended that Kant write directly to Swedenborg. This letter (now lost) was handed over
to Swedenborg in person by an English friend o f Kant’s with business in Stockholm. After a
reasonable period of time had elapsed with no reply, Kant asked another English friend who
was in Konigsberg for the Summer (of 1762) to investigate Swedenborg on Kant's behalf on
an upcoming trip to Stockholm. This Englishman interviewed numerous witnesses and met
Swedenborg personally, reminding him of Kant's letter. Swedenborg replied that he was
going to London in May (and this can only be May o f 1763) to publish a book that Kant was
2. Rudolf L. Tafel, ed. and trans., Documents C on cem in p the L ife and Character of Emanuel
Swedenborg. 3 vols. (London: The Swedenborg Society, 1875-77). (Henceforth cited as
Documents.) Another invaluable source o f information on Swedenborg's life and influence is
The Academy Collection of Swedenborg Documents: Comprising every known Document bv
or concerning Swedenborg, including all available Transcripts and Translations thereof. 10
vols. Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, 1962, the Swedenborg Library, Swedenborgiana Collection,
Academy of the New Church, Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania (henceforth cited as Documents.
followed by the document number). See also Signe Toksvig, Emanuel Swedenborg: Scientist
and Mystic (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1 9 4 8 ) (henceforth cited as Toksvig) and
Cyriel Odhner Sigstedt's The Swedenborg Epic (cited as Sigstedt).
3. In Immanuel Kant: sein Leben in Darstellungen von Zeiteenossen. Die Biographen von
L.E. BorowskL R.B. Jachmann und A.Ch. Wasianski. ed. Felix Gross (Darmstadt:
WissenschaftlicheBuchgesellschaft, 1980). Reprinted in AK 1 0:43-48. Borowski served as
Hofineister in the household o f Charlotte’s father, General Karl Gottfried von Knobloch.
26
anxiously awaiting at the time he wrote the letter. Since the letter, dated August 10, could not
have been written before May of 1763 or after July 22, 1764, the only possible year is 1763.4
Kant's letter is lengthy, about 2,000 words, nearly one tenth the length of Dreams
itself. In commenting on it, I shall reproduce it in its entirety. (The translation is mine.)
2. Introductions 1)
As he wrote his letter on August 10, 1763, Kant was a thirty-nine year old, unmarried
Privatdozent addressing a young, unmarried noblewoman whom Borowski described as
having “great curiosity for philosophical and scientific questions” (Quoted in Manolesco,
177). (It may be taken as an index of Kant’s familiarity with his addressee—or simply of his
absent-mindedness—that his letter was written on Fraulein von Knobloch's 23rd birthday, but
does not contain birthday greetings.) Kant's virtually untranslatable salutations are courtly,
stilted, and perhaps somewhat patronizing, but they provide a sense of the substance behind
his nickname the gallant maeister:
I would not have robbed myself for so long of the honor and the pleasure of
obeying, through presenting the following report, the request of a lady who is the
ornament of her sex, if I had not deemed it necessary to collect complete information
on this matter beforehand. The content o f the story that was dispatched to me is of a
completely different sort than that which must usually be admitted, should it be
allowed with all grace, into the chamber of the fair. Furthermore, I would have to
answer for it, if in reading through this some solemn seriousness should, in the blink of
an eye, extinguish the countenance of gaiety with which contented innocence is
entitled to look upon the whole of creation, if I were not assured that, although such
images, on the one hand, make one shudder, which is the repetition of the impressions
of an older upbringing (Erziehungseindrucke]. still the enlightened lady who allows
4. On the dating controversies surrounding the letter, see Fischer, 289-92; Broad, 117; and
Manolesco, 177-82. The Manolesco text is from his translation of Karl Kehrbach's Vorrede
to his edition of the A-edition of Immanuel Kant, Traume eines Geistersehers erlautert durch
Traume der Metaphvsik (Halle. 1880).
27
this will not fail to see the charm that a correct employment of the presentation can
allow.
Kant makes it clear that he undertook his extensive and laborious researches into
Swedenborg's clairvoyant powers at the request o f Fraulein von Knobloch herself. If von
Knobloch made her request in a letter, this document has been lost. The request may,
however, have been made in person. The last paragraph of the letter makes it clear that Kant's
contacts with von Knobloch were both face to face, when she was in Konigsberg, and by mail
when she was in the country: "I am obliged by your command to share it with you in writing,
inasmuch as you still remain in the country and I cannot explain it to you verbally." Written or
verbal, the request can, however, be roughly dated. It had to have happened between
November 15, 1761 and March 2, 1762. The first date can be established as follows. The
letter indicates with high probability that Fraulein von Knobloch's original request for
information on Swedenborg made specific reference to what has come to be called the affair
of the Queen's Secret, which culminated on November 15, 1761.5 The second date can be
established by the fact that Kant's first query, to his former student the Danish officer, reached
its addressee with sufficient time to allow him to undertake investigations before he had to
report for duty under General St. Germain after the mobilization o f March 2, 1762. Allowing
time for communications, which were slow at the time, we can say with some confidence that
the original request was made in the Winter of 1761-62. If Fraulein von Knobloch followed a
pattern of spending part of summer in the country and the rest of the year in Konigsberg, it is
more likely that her request was verbal rather than written.
3. The Method of Kant’s Investigation ( f 2)

As the last sentence of paragraph one indicates, Kant discusses the method of his
investigations in paragraph two.
5. According to the diary of Count Carl Gustav Tessin (1697-1770), Royal Councillor, who
records on November 18, 1761 that the event had taken place three days before (Broad, 117).
28
Permit me, gracious Fraulein, to justify my proceedings in this matter, where it could
appear that a common delusion has made me somewhat partial to search for striking
tales and accept them without careful examination.
I do not know whether anyone could have perceived in me any sign of a
character inclined to the miraculous, or of a weakness tending toward credulity. So
much is certain that, not withstanding all the stories o f apparitions and deeds o f the
spirit kingdom, of which a great many o f the most probable are known to me, I have
always considered it to be most in agreement with the rule of sound reason to lean to
the negative side; not as if I presumed to have seen into the impossibility of it (for how
little is the nature o f a spirit known to us?), but rather because on the whole it is not
sufficiently proved; and furthermore, there are so many difficulties concerning the
incomprehensibility of this kind o f apparitions, likewise their uselessness, but against
them so many exposed frauds and such ease of being defrauded, that I, whom I
generally do not like to trouble, do not hold it advisable, on this account, to allow
myself to become scared in churchyards or in the darkness. This is the position in
which my mind stood for a long time, until the stories of Herr Swedenborg became
known to me.
The first point to be noted is Kant's claim that, "a great many of the most probable"
(warscheinlichsten) of "the stories of apparitions and deeds o f the spirit kingdom"
(Geisterreichs) are already "known to me." Kant, apparently, had a well-developed interest in
paranormal phenomena before Swedenborg's visions came to his attention. Indeed, Kant
himself may have been the person who first informed von Knobloch of Swedenborg and then
later took up her charge of collecting more information. The second point to be noted is
Kant's evident desire to maintain his reputation as a tough-minded philosopher, as opposed to
a credulous enthusiast. He stresses that he is willing to place stock in opinions only after
"careful examination" (sorgfdltige PrufungV and that he is not inclined toward credulity
(Glauben) and belief in the miraculous (Wunderbaren). Kant claims that the "rule of sound
reason" (Regel der gesunden Vemunft) regarding paranormal claims is "to incline to the
29
negative side." His skepticism is not, however, based on the conviction that paranormal
events and powers are impossible (unmotzlich) in principle. Instead, his skepticism is based on
the following facts. (I) that "on the whole it [instances of the paranormal] is not sufficiently
proved," (2) "the incomprehensibility rUnbegreiflichkeit] o f this kind of apparitions, likewise
their uselessness [Unnutzlichkeit]-" and (3) the existence of "so many exposed frauds
fentdecken Betruges] and such ease of being defrauded." The last line of Kant's paragraph is,
however, extremely significant: "This is the position in which my mind stood for a long time,
until the stories of Herr Swedenborg became known to me." Kant, in short, was interested in
paranormal phenomena before he heard o f Swedenborg, but he was also skeptical of them
until he investigated Swedenborg. Swedenborg changed Kant's mind. He made paranormal
phenomena credible.
4. The Affair of the Queen's Secret (f 3)

Kant then turns his attention to the first of Swedenborg's three clairvoyant feats, the
affair of the Queen's Secret. Kant's report runs as follows:
I received this account from a Danish officer, who was my friend and former
student, who had been at the table of the Austrian Ambassador to Copenhagen,
Dietrichstein, at the same time as this gentleman received a letter from Baron von
Lutzow, the Mecklenburg Ambassador to Stockholm, that he himself, along with other
guests, had read, where the aforementioned von Lutzow, informed him that he, in the
company of the Dutch ambassador with the Queen of Sweden, had himself been
present at the singular affair involving Herr von Swedenborg, which is already known
to you, gracious Fraulein. The credibility [Glaubwurdigkeit] of such an account
astonished me. For one can hardly accept that one ambassador would write to another
ambassador an account for public use, which would relate something that was untrue
concerning the Queen of the court where he is posted, and during which he would
have been present together with a reputable company.
30
There are two reasons to believe that Kant was originally asked to investigate this particular
affair. First, Kant says that the details of the affair are already familiar to his addressee, so he
confines his discussion to the veracity of his sources. Second, Kant discusses the Queen's
Secret first, indicating that he expected it to be the matter of greatest interest to his addressee.
There is good reason to expect that Fraulein von Knobloch, as a member of the
Prussian nobility, was already aware of the details of the case and interested in its veracity, for
two of the major players in the affair were members of the Prussian royal family. The Queen
in question was Louisa Ulrica (1720-82) Queen of Sweden, the sister of the then Prussian
King, Frederick the Great (1712-86) and the wife of Adolphus Frederick (1710-71), Duke of
Holstein-Gottorp and King of Sweden from 1751-71. (In 1771, upon the coronation of her
son as King Gustavus III, Louisa Ulrica became Queen Dowager until her death in 1782.)
Also involved was Louisa Ulrica's younger brother, Augustus William (1722-58), Prince of
Prussia, who was declared Crown Prince and heir apparent by his elder brother, Frederick the
Great, on June 30, 1744. (King Frederick William II [1744-97], the nephew and successor of
Frederick the Great, was the son of Augustus William.)
There are many versions of the affair of the Queen's Secret, some of them quite
different, but most of them agree on the following facts.6 Sometime in November of 1761,
Queen Louisa Ulrica asked Swedenborg to contact the spirit o f her brother, Prince Augustus
William, who had died on June 12, 1758. After an indeterminate period of time, Swedenborg
returned on November 15, 1761. In the company of her court, Swedenborg conveyed a
message to the Queen from her dead brother. Swedenborg relayed the message in such a way
that only the Queen could hear it, either by whispering it in her ear or by taking her aside from
the assembled courtiers. The visible effect of the message was, however, apparent to ail. The
Queen was thunderstruck, turned pale, and nearly fainted. She claimed that only God and her
brother could have known what Swedenborg had revealed to her. The Queen, like her brother
6. The all known surviving accounts of the affair of the Queen's Secret are to be found
arranged as Documents nos. 275 and 276, Documents. 647-92; the one exception is the diary
of Count Tessin, a full account o f which can be found in Cyriel Lj. Odhner, "New Documents
Concerning Swedenborg," New Church Life 36 (1916):95-102. See also Toksvig, ch. 15.
31
Frederick the Great, was a tough-minded Voltairean rationalist. Her encounter with
Swedenborg, however, convinced her of his powers and she became his zealous defender.
According to one report, "Everyone who had been acquainted with the really enlightened
sister o f the great Frederic, will agree with me that she was the very reverse of enthusiastic
fschwdrmerisch]. and that the whole tenor of her mind was free from all such weaknesses.
Nevertheless she seemed so fully convinced of the supernatural and spiritual conferences of
Swedenborg, that I scarcely dared to express any doubts or suspicion of secret intrigues; and a
royal Me ne suis pas facilement dupe* (I am not easily duped) put an end to all refutations."7
Given the spectacular and highly public nature of Swedenborg's revelation, word
spread quickly through Sweden and abroad through diplomatic channels. Both Swedenborg
and the Queen were besieged with inquiries about what had passed between them.8
Unsurprisingly, there are many conflicting accounts o f the precise contents of Swedenborg's
message from the Prince. In general, reports of the affair of the Queen's Secret can be divided
into two groups: reports originating from the Queen and her circle and reports originating
from Swedenborg and his circle.9 In the reports originating from the Queen's circle, there are
two accounts of the message. First, Swedenborg is alleged to have described the contents of
a private conversation between Louisa Ulrica and Augustus William at Charlottenburg in 1744
before her departure for Sweden after her husband had been elected Crown Prince in 1743.10
Second, Swedenborg is alleged to have related a reply to Louisa Ulrica's last letter to
Augustus William, which was never answered because of his death on June 12, 1758.11
Those accounts o f the affair originating from Swedenborg and his circle all claim that
Swedenborg relayed a reply to the Queen's last letter.12 Given that both sets of sources
7. Letter of "a distinguished chevalier” to the Editors of the Berlinische Monatsschrift. dated
February 9, 1783, Documents, no. 276 a, 669.
8. See the testimony of the wife of Swedenborg's gardener, Documents, no. 275 j, 655.
9. Of the reports found in Documents, no. 275, which mention the content of the
communique, those which originate from the Queen and her circle are d, k, m, n, o, p. Those
that originate from Swedenborg and his circle are b, q, r, s, v.
10. Documents, no. 275k, m, n, o.
11. Documents, no. 275tL p.
12. Documents, no. 275b, q, r, s,' v, and no.276a,b,c, d, e.
32
report that Swedenborg relayed a reply to the Queen's last letter, it is likely that this is the true
story.
The other story originating from the Queen's circle can be explained away as follows.
First, the Queen's letter and/or the Prince's reply could have made reference to the
conversation at Charlottenburg, in which case the contradiction is merely apparent. Second, if
the Queen's secret really did revolve around a letter to her brother, the circumstances of the
time gave her good reason to keep it a secret by spreading the lie that the message referred
instead to a conversation in 1744.13 After the coronation of Adolphus Frederick and Louisa
Ulrica in 1751, the Queen soon made it clear that she had more political will and ambition
than her husband, whom she dominated. She chafed against the constitutional limits imposed
upon the Swedish Crown after the assassination of Charles XU in 1718 and longed to restore
absolute monarchy. Furthermore, a state o f war existed in which Sweden and France were
allied together against England and her brother's regime in Prussia. Thus the Queen sought to
break Sweden away from its alliance with France and realign it with England and Prussia. In
1755-56, the Queen secretly plotted to bring about both ends through a royalist coup. She
solicited funds from the British through the intermediary of the Dutch Ambassador to
Sweden, Louis de Marteville, a British and Prussian spy who also plays a role in the affair o f
the Lost Receipt.14 The Queen tried to raise other funds by pawning the Swedish Crown
Jewels.
In the words of historian Michael Roberts, the denouement of the royalist plot has
"many o f the approved ingredients of historical melodrama":
. . . the Queen's attempt to pawn the Crown Jewels, and their retrieval at the last
moment when the Estates demanded to check them; reliance upon untrustworthy
subordinate agents; the fatal indiscretion o f one of them in liquor; a treacherous Lady
13. Here I wish to underscore my extensive debt to Marsha Keith Schuchard's peerless
research into Swedenborg's life and work. Her biography Em anuel. Desire of Nations:
Swedenborg. Jacobitism. and Freemasonry represents a revolutionary advance in the study o f
Swedenborg, and when it appears, it will be the definitive biography.
14. Schuchard, Emanuel. Desire of Nations, ch. 16, ms. 6-7.
33
in Waiting; vacillating and contradictory plans by the conspirators; prompt action by
the Council, which put Stockholm securely under military control; the royal pair
trapped and virtually prisoners in the palace; continuous and ever more relentless
investigation by the commission . . . the flight of some of the leaders, the heroic silence
of a few o f them under torture, the arrest of most of the others; and the final scene
when Erik Brahe—the premier nobleman of Sweden—his colleague G.J. Horn, and six
others, were butchered by the public executioner within sight of the palace windows.15
The Queen herself escaped arrest and trial only because o f the affection for her husband in the
Diet. She remained under a cloud o f political suspicion thereafter.
The state of war between Prussia and Sweden remained in effect in 1758, when the
Queen posted her last letter to her brother, the Prussian Crown Prince. Thus the letter was
probably sent through secret channels-perhaps through Ambassador de Marteville.
Furthermore, in the Summer of 1761 up to the time of Swedenborg's revelation, there were
fears that the Queen was plotting another royalist coup.16 Given these circumstances, it
would not be surprising if she did not want the existence of this letter to be known, especially
if its contents were political. Hence she would have good reason to misrepresent
Swedenborg's message.
Kant does not relate any of the facts of the affair of the Queen's Secret. Instead, he
seeks corroboration of the facts as they were already known to him and Fraulein von
Knobloch. Kant reports that a former student, a Danish officer, was present at the table of the
Austrian Ambassador to Copenhagen, Count Dietrichstein, when a letter relating the affair of
the Queen's Secret was read aloud.17 The letter was written by Baron von Lutzow, the
Mecklenburg Ambassador to Stockholm, an eyewitness to the affair.18 (One should also note
15. Michael Roberts, British Diplomacy and Swedish Politics. 1758-1773 (Minneapolis:
Minnesota University Press, 1980), 6.
16. Schuchard, Emmanuel. Desire o f Nations, ch. 17, ms. 10.
17. Karl Johann Baptist Walter, Count von Dietrichstein-Proskau-Leslie (1728-1802) served
as Austrian Ambassador in Copenhagen during the Seven Year’s War, from 1756 to 1763.
18. Johann Joachim, Freiherr von Lutzow (1728-92) served as Mecklenburg Ambassador in
Stockholm from the end o f May 1761 to mid-June 1762.
34
that Kant mentions that von Lutzow was "in the company of the Dutch ambassador" when he
witnessed the affair. This Dutchman is not the aforementioned Louis de Marteville, who had
died the previous year, but his successor Frans Doublet van Groeneveit, who served in
Stockholm from June 27, 1760 to May 22, 1762.) The Baron's account apparently agreed
with what Kant had heard of the affair. Kant also, perhaps somewhat naively, thought it
implausible that an ambassador would lie. Kant then discusses his further investigations of the
matter:
Now, to avoid blindly rejecting the prejudice against apparitions and visions through a
new prejudice, I found it reasonable to investigate the story more closely myself. I
wrote to the aforementioned officer in Copenhagen, and assigned him all sorts of
enquiries. He answered that he had spoken yet again to Count von Dietrichstein on
this account, that the matter was really as maintained, and that Professor Schlegel had
assured him that it was beyond all doubt. He advised me, since he was then going to
the army under General St. Germain, to write to von Swedenborg myself, to more
closely investigate the circumstances.
The Danish officer's follow-up investigation consisted, first, of asking Count

Dietrichstein about the affair. But since both the officer and Count Dietrichstein heard Baron
von Lutzow’s account from the same source at the same time, soliciting Dietrichstein’s
testimony is somewhat like corroborating a newspaper story by buying another copy of the
same paper. Second, the officer asked the opinion of Professor Schlegel. This could either be
Johann Heinrich Schlegel (1726-80), a historian, or his brother Johann Elias Schlegel,
professor of philosophy in Copenhagen from 1760.19 The officer’s enquiries were terminated
when the Danish army was mobilized under General St. Germain on March 2, 1762.20
S. The Investigations of Kant's English Friends ( f 3)
19. See Immanuel Kant, Correspondence, trans. and ed. Amulf Zweig (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999), 76, n8.
20. Charles Louis, Comte de St. Germain (1709-78).
35
Having exhausted the Danish officer's enquiries, Kant followed his advice and wrote
directly to Swedenborg. The following passage is especially important for the dating of the
letter, and introduces new dramatis (im)personae: two unnamed English merchants of Kant's
acquaintance. The first English merchant merely plays the role of postman: “I accordingly
wrote to this singular fseltsamen| man [Swedenborg], and my letter was personally handed to
him by an English merchant in Stockholm. I was informed Herr von Swedenborg had
favorably received the letter, and that he promised to answer it. However, the reply failed to
come.” This letter must have been sent sometime in the Spring of 1762.
After a reasonable period of time had passed without a reply, Kant engaged the
services of a second Englishman, who came to play an extremely important role in Kant's
investigations. "Meanwhile, I had made the acquaintance of a refined gentleman, an
Englishmen, who spent last Summer here, whom I, on the strength of the friendship that we
had established together, charged with the task, in the course o f the visit he was about to
make to Stockholm, o f gathering more precise information about Herr von Swedenborg's
miraculous gift [Wundergabe]."
If Kant's letter was posted in the Spring of 1762, and if we allow a reasonable period
of time before he began to make further enquiries, then we arrive at the Summer of 1762.
Kant claims that he made the acquaintance of his second English friend "last Summer," i.e.,
the Summer of 1762, which implies that he is writing in 1763. In the Summer of 1762, the
second Englishman planned a trip to Stockholm. This trip could not have been made sooner
than late Summer or early Fall, 1762. Kant gives the impression that this trip lasted a
considerable period o f time, for the Englishman not only visited Stockholm, but also
Gothenberg (300 English miles from Stockholm); he conducted extensive interviews with
eyewitnesses and even spoke to Swedenborg himself; finally, he communicated his findings in
a series o f letters; indeed, there is no indication in the letter that the Englishman had returned
to Konigsberg at the time o f its composition; at the time of Kant's letter, he is spoken of as
planning to send some of Swedenborg's writings to Kant, which indicates that he is not in
Konigsberg.
36
There is a persistent idea in the literature that the second Englishman is Joseph Green
(1727-86), Kant's closest fiiend. This cannot be true, however, because Kant met Green in
1768, not in the Summer of 1762. The claim that Green is the second Englishman can be
traced to J.F. Immanuel Tafel, a nineteenth-centry German Swedenborgian scholar.21 Tafel,
however, assigned the letter to Fraulein von Knobloch to 1768, and on this assumption
identified the second Englishman as Green. This identification is still repeated, however, even
by scholars who accept that the letter was written in 1763.22
Kant then discusses the second Englishman's initial enquiries: "According to this first
report, the story that I have already mentioned was, according to the most reputable people in
Stockholm, exactly as I have recounted it to you. At that time he had not yet spoken to
Swedenborg, but hoped to speak to him, yet he found it hard to persuade himself of every
supposed truth told by the most reasonable persons of the city regarding his occult dealings
with the invisible spirit world IGeisterweltl." Kant's fiiend enquired about Swedenborg among
the "most respected" and the "most reasonable" people in Stockholm. He received exact
corroboration of the version of the affair of the Queen's Secret already familiar to Kant and
Fraulein von Knobloch. In spite of these testimonies, the second Englishman remained
skeptical of Swedenborg's powers. He did, however, plan to enquire further and made
arrangements to call on Swedenborg himself. This visit changed the Englishman's mind. Kant
continues: "But the following letters sounded completely different. He had not only spoken to
Herr von Swedenborg, he had also visited him in his house; and he now felt utterly astonished
about the whole strange matter. Swedenborg is a reasonable, agreeable, and sincere man; he
is a scholar." The second Englishman's characterization of Swedenborg as reasonable
(vemunftiger). agreeable (gefaliiger), sincere (offenherager), and a scholar (ein Gelehrter)
accord perfectly with other testimonies about Swedenborg's character. After meeting
Swedenborg, the Englishman's skepticism was transformed into astonishment.
21. See J.F. Immanuel Tafel, Supplement zu Kants Biographie. 28-34.

22. See Sigstedt, 341 and Toksvig, 185. Broad repeats the identification of the Englishman
as Green, though he points out that no reason is given for it in his source, Toksvig (Broad,
120).
6. Kant's Reading of Swedenborg: Arcana Coeiestia and Divine Love and Wisdom (f 3)
Kant continues, mentioning Swedenborg's writings and his plans to procure them:
. . . and my previously mentioned fiiend has promised to dispatch to me some of his

writings shortly. He told this gentleman without reserve that God had granted him the
singular capacity of communicating with departed souls at his pleasure. He appealed
to certain widely acknowledged confirmations fBeweisthumer]. As he was reminded
of my letter, he said that he was aware that he had received it, and that he would
already have answered it if he had not intended to publicize the whole of this singular
matter before the eyes of the world. He would go to London in May of this year,
where he would publish his book in which the answer to every point of my letter is
supposed to be found.
Also, in the penultimate paragraph of the letter, Kant writes, "I await with longing the book
that Swedenborg will publish in London. [ have made every provision for receiving it as soon
as it leaves the press."
Kant mentions Swedenborg's theosophical writings twice, but never by name. These
writings fall into two categories: (1) those that had already been published at the time and (2)
those that were soon to be published. Referring to his second English fiiend, Kant writes,
"My previously mentioned fiiend has promised to dispatch to me some o f his writings
shortly." Kant is evidently referring to works that were already in print. What works were
these? Since Kant's fiiend mentions a trip that Swedenborg was planning to undertake in May
of 1763, he must be referring to books that were in print before that time. Before May of
1763, Swedenborg's published theosophical writings consisted of the Arcana Coeiestia. which
was published anonymously in London in eight volumes from 1749-56. In 1758, in London,
Swedenborg (again anonymously) published five less weighty works. Four of them consist
mostly of extracts from the "Memorable Relations" inserted between the exegetical chapters
of the Arcana Coeiestia: Heaven and HelL Earths in the Universe, and The White Horse. The
38
New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine.23 There is reason to believe that Kant was
unaware of the existence of these books when he wrote Dreams, for in Dreams 0.2, he states
that the "Memorable Relations," "have some importance and really do deserve to be presented
in a small anthology” (AK 2:360; Walford, 347; Goerwitz, 102; trans. Walford). The fifth
volume, De ultimo judicio. et de Babylonia destructa. (translated as The Last Judgment and
Babylon Destroyed), is a new work claiming that the Biblical Last Judgment had already taken
place in the spirit world in 1757.24 We know for a fact that Kant did receive and read a
complete set of the Arcana Coelestia. He may well have received and read the other volumes
as well, but there is no definitive evidence of this.
Kant also refers to a work that Swedenborg was planning to publish at the time of the
Englishman's interview with him: "As he was reminded of my letter, he said that he was aware
that he had received it, and that he would already have answered it if he had not intended to
publicize the whole of this singular matter before the eyes of the world. He would go to
London in May of this year, where he would publish his book in which the answer to every
point of my letter is supposed to be found." Kant then adds, "I await with longing the book
23. rEmanuel Swedenborg]. De Coelo et ejus mirabilibus. et de Inferno, ex auditis et visis

(London, 1758); English translation: Heaven and its Wonders and Hell From Things Heard
and Seen, trans. John C. Ager, rev. and ed. Doris Harley (New York: Swedenborg
Foundation, 1958): De Telluribus in Mundo nostro Solari. quae vocantur Planetae: et de
telluribus in coelo astrifero: deque illarum incolis: turn de spiritibus et angeli ibi: ex auditis et
visis (London, 1758); English translation: The Earths in Our Solar System which are Called
Planets and the Earths in the Starry Heaven and their Inhabitants: also the Spirits and Angels
There: from Things Heard and Seen, trans. J. Whitehead (New York: The Swedenborg
Foundation, 1913); De Nova Hierosolvma et eius Doctrina coelesti: ex auditis e coelo.
Quibus praemittur aliquid de Nova Coelo et nova Terra (London. 1758); English translation:
The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine. From What Ha* Been Heard in Heaven, to
Which is Prefixed Something Concerning the New Heaven and the New Earth, trans. J.
Whitehead (New York: Swedenborg Foundation, 1913); De Equo Albo. de quo Apocalvpsi.
cap. xix. Et dein de Verbo et eius sensu spirituali seu intemo. ex Arcanis Coelestibus
(London, 1758); English translation: Concerning the White Horse in the Apocalypse chap.
xix. and then concerning the Word and its spiritual nr internal sense, from th e Arcana
Coelestia. trans. B. Wilmott (London: Swedenborg Society, 1955).
24. rEmanuel Swedenborg]. De Ultimo Judicio. et de Babylonia destructa: ita quod omnia,
quae in Apocalvpsi praedicta sunt, hodie impleta sint. Ex auditis et visis (London. 1758);
English translation: Concerning the Last Judgment and Babvlon Destroyed, trans. Doris
Harley (London: Swedenborg Society, 1961).
39
that Swedenborg will publish in London. I have made every provision for receiving it as soon
as it leaves the press." There is some controversy, however, about the identity of this book.
C.D. Broad assumes that it is the Arcana Coelestia. even though on the previous page of his
essay he correctly notes that it had been fully published by 1756 (Broad, 117-18). The trouble
with identifying this work is that, to the best of our knowledge, Swedenborg did not make a
trip to London in May of 1763. He did, however, make a trip to Amsterdam in June of 1763,
where he arranged for the publication of six books, which appeared later that same year:
Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Concerning the Lord. Doctrine of the New Jerusalem
Concerning the Sacred Scripture. Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem. Doctrine of the
New Jerusalem Concerning Faith.25 Continuation of the Last Judgment and Concerning the
Spiritual World.26 and Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and Divine Wisdom
(henceforth Divine Love and Wisdom).27
Of the six, Divine Love and Wisdom is the most likely to be the book Swedenborg
claimed would answer the questions in Kant's letter. Unlike Swedenborg's other theosophical
writings, which consist largely o f Biblical exegesis and reports from the spirit world, Divine
Love and Wisdom is very much a philosophical work, employing a labored and repetitive
argumentative style. In its five chapters, it treats: (1) The Creator, (2) The Means of
Creation, (3) The Structure of Creation, (4) The Method of Creation, and (5) The Goal of
Creation. The topics of space and time are also treated extensively. There is, in short, much
25. [Emanuel Swedenborg], Doctrina Novae Hierosolvmae de Domino (Amsterdam, 1763);

Doctrina Novae Hierosolvmae de Scriptura Sacra (Amsterdam, 1763); Doctrina Vita pro
Nova Hierosolvma ex praeceptis Decalogi (Amsterdam. 17631: Doctrina Novae Hierosolvmae
de Fide (Amsterdam. 1763T English translation: The Four Doctrines: The Lord. Sacred
Scripture. Life. Faith, ed. Alice Spiers Sechrist, trans. John Faulkner Potts (New York:
Swedenborg Foundation, 1984).
26. [Emanuel Swedenborg], Continuatio de Ultimo Judicio: et de Mundo spirituali
(Amsterdam, 1763). English translation: Continuation Concerning the Last Judgment and
Concerning the Spiritual World, trans. J. Whitehead, in Miscellaneous Theological Works
(New York: Swedenborg Foundation, 1913).
27. [Emanuel Swedenborg], Sapientia angelica de Divino Amore et de Divina Sapientia
(Amsterdam, 1763). English translation: Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and
Wisdom, trans. John C. Ager, inter alia (New York: Swedenborg Foundation, 1908).
40
here that would answer a philosopher's questions, and it is a pity that we do not know
precisely what questions Kant asked in his lost letter to Swedenborg.
There is not, however, any discussion of Swedenborg's clairvoyant feats in Divine
Love, although Kant relates that it was Swedenborg's intention "to publicize the whole of this
singular matter before the eyes of the world" in the book he was contemplating. It is possible,
o f course, that Kant (or his friend) was mistaken about this intention; or it is possible that
Swedenborg changed his mind about including such discussions, which at any rate would have
been out of place in Divine Love. It should also be noted that Swedenborg never published
his own account o f the three affairs, although he did discuss them with others, so there is no
other book to which Swedenborg could have been referring. This one problem aside, it is still
quite likely that the forthcoming volume Kant eagerly awaited was Divine Love and Wisdom.
We have no direct evidence that Kant either received or read Divine Love and
Wisdom, but two factors make it more probable than not. First, Kant had an especially strong
motivation to obtain the book, given that it was supposed to answer his specific questions,
and he mentions his arrangements to obtain it. Second, in a letter to Moses Mendelssohn
dated November 6, 1764, Johann Georg Hamann discusses an article that Kant is planning, "in
which he will, among others, review the Opera omnia o f a certain Schwedenberg. which runs
to nine large quarto volumes and which came out in London."28 Hamann refers to nine large
volumes. We can infer with some confidence that eight of them are the Arcana Coelestia.
Assuming that Hamann did not simply mistake the eight volumes of the Arcana for nine, what
o f the ninth volume? All the volumes of Swedenborg's theosophical works were published in
quarto editions. Of these volumes, however, Heaven and Hell. Earths in the Universe. The
White Horse. The Last Judgment and Babvlon Destroyed, and The New Jerusalem and its
Heavenly Doctrine were already in print by 1763. Of the writings of 1763, Doctrine o f the
New Jerusalem Concerning the Lord. Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Concerning the Sacred
Scripture. Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem. Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Concerning
Faith. Continuation of the Last Judgment and Concerning the Spiritual World and Divine
28. Johann Georg Hamann, Aus einem Brief an Moses Mendelssohn, November 6, 1764,
Malter, 111.
41
Love and Wisdom, we have already noted that Divine Love and Wisdom is the work in which
Kant would most likely take an interest; it is therefore likely the ninth volume to which
Hamann refers. The only problem with this identification is that all nine volumes are said to
have come from London, but Divine Love and Wisdom and the other works of 1763 were
published in Amsterdam. Perhaps, however, Hamann was mistaken about the origin of the
ninth book. Or perhaps the book did arrive from London, although it was not published there.
In any case, we know from Hamann that by the time of his letter, Kant had read and was in
the process of writing about nine volumes of Swedenborg, certainly the Arcana Coelestia and
possibly Divine Love and Wisdom.
7. The Affair of the Lost Receipt (f f 4-5)

Kant then goes on to narrate two of Swedenborg's most famous clairvoyant feats. The
affair of the Lost Receipt and the affair of the Stockholm Fire.
In order, gracious Fraulein, to give you a pair of confirmations

rBeweisthumer). witnessed by still living spectators and investigated immediately on
the spot by the gentleman who reported them to me, listen, as you please, to the
following two occurrences.
Kant's account of the affair of the Lost Receipt is corroborated by ten other sources.29
Kant's letter is, however, the most complete and detailed account known to historians.
Madame Harteville, the widow of the Dutch envoy in Stockholm, some time
after the death of her husband, was reminded by the goldsmith Croon of the payment
for a silver service, that her husband had commissioned from him. The widow,
although convinced that her late husband was far too meticulous and orderly in his
affairs not to have settled the debt, was unable to produce a receipt. In this trouble,
since the sum was considerable, she asked Herr von Swedenborg to call on her. After
29. For other accounts, see Documents, no. 274, 634-46.
begging his pardon several times, she asked him, if, as everyone said, he had the
extraordinary gift of conversing with departed souls, he might be so good as to
enquire with her husband about the situation with the claim for the silver service.
Swedenborg was not at all difficult about complying with this request. Three days
later the aforementioned lady had company for coffee. Herr von Swedenborg called
on her, and reported, in his off-hand manner, that he had spoken to her husband. The
debt had been settled seven months before his death, and the receipt was to be found
in the cabinet in the upstairs room. The lady reported that the cabinet had been
thoroughly cleared out and that the receipt had not been found among all the papers.
Swedenborg said that her husband had described to him how, if a drawer on the left
side were pulled out a board would be revealed that must be pushed aside, whereupon
one would find a concealed drawer in which his secret Dutch diplomatic
correspondence was kept and also the receipt would be found. After this report, the
lady repaired, along with the entire company, to the upper room. The cabinet was
opened, the description was followed completely, and the drawer, of which she had
known nothing, was found and the papers described therein, to the great astonishment
of everyone who was present.
Kant's "Madame Harteville" is actually Madame de Marteville, wife of Count Louis de

Marteville, the Dutch Ambassador to Sweden, who died on April 25, 1760.30 The affair of
the Lost Receipt may, therefore, be dated roughly between April 25, 1760 and the Fall of
1762, when the second Englishman began his enquiries. There is some reason, however, to
push the latest possible date back to November 1761, just prior to the time of the affair of the
Queen's Secret, for several accounts of the Queen's Secret mention that the story of the Lost
Receipt was already well-known at the time.31 One may even push the latest date back
further if one credits the testimony of Madame de Marteville's second husband, who claimed
30. Broad, 121.

31. Documents, no. 275 £ k, s, u.
43
that the receipt was found about a year after Count de Marteville's death, which would place
the events in the Spring of 1761.32
Kant then turns his attention to the Stockholm Fire, which he introduces by saying,
"The following occurrence, however, seems to me to have the greatest evidential force of all,
and really deprives all conceivable doubt of excuse." Kant clearly considers the evidential
value of the Stockholm Fire superior to the evidential value o f the Queen's Secret and the Lost
Receipt. But why? One of the most important factors for assessing the evidential value of
alleged paranormal phenomena is the possibility of explaining them in purely mundane terms.
Paranormal phenomena that cannot be given a mundane explanation have far greater
evidential value than those that can be so explained. Kant clearly indicates that he thinks that
the affair of the Stockholm Fire resists all mundane explanation and is therefore completely
convincing evidence of Swedenborg's clairvoyant powers.
Before examining Kant's account of the Stockholm Fire, however, let us speculate on
what sort of mundane explanation could have reduced the evidential value of the affairs of the
Queen's Secret and the Lost Receipt in Kant's eyes.
To begin, let us list all the elements that the Queen's Secret and the Lost Receipt have
in common. First, and perhaps trivially, both affairs involve sheets o f paper. Second, both
sheets of paper were in Stockholm, where Swedenborg resided, for at least part of the time
they existed. This is significant, for sheets of paper in one's hometown, unlike fires 300 miles
away, do not require "second sight" to be seen; it is at least conceivable that Swedenborg, or
someone he knew, could have read both pieces of paper before Swedenborg's alleged
communications with the spirit world. But how could Swedenborg, or someone of his
acquaintance, have seen the Queen's letter and the Ambassador's receipt? This brings us to
the third element shared by both affairs: the Dutch Ambassador Louis de Marteville, whose
receipt was lost. Marteville was an agent of the English and Prussian governments. He was,
therefore, quite possibly used as a courier for letters between the Queen and her brothers in
Prussia, including her last letter to Prince Augustus William, the contents of which
32. Documents, no. 274 g, 641. Schuchard agrees with this dating (Emanuel: Desire of
Nations, ch. 17, ms. 8).
Swedenborg revealed. This brings us to the fourth common element: the hidden drawer
containing Marteville's secret Dutch diplomatic correspondence, where the lost receipt was
found, and where the Queen's letter to her brother may have briefly reposed; indeed, it may
have permanently reposed there, for there is no reason to think that the Queen's letter to her
brother was delivered to him at all, in which case readers other than God and her brother may
have been aware of its contents. When these facts are taken together with the fact that
Swedenborg, as a nobleman and retired civil servant, was acquainted with many high
government officials, one can flame an admittedly fantastic, though quite this-worldly,
explanation for the affairs of the Lost Receipt and the Queen's Secret: Swedenborg could have
been privy to espionage and used this information to intimidate the Queen and members o f her
party.33 Whether such an explanation is true or not is immaterial, for its mere conceivability
alone is enough to reduce the evidential value o f any alleged paranormal phenomenon, and
Kant may very well have entertained such possibilities.
8. The Stockholm Fire (f1f 6-7)

Kant's account of the Stockholm Fire affair is also corroborated by five other
sources.34 It too is the most detailed account known:
The following occurrence, however, seems to me to have the greatest

evidential force of all, and really deprives all conceivable doubt of excuse. It was in
the year 1756, as Herr von Swedenborg, at the end of the month of September at four
o'clock in the afternoon, returning from a journey to England, disembarked at
Gothenburg. Mr. William Castel invited him over Ihat ihn zu sichl along with a
company of fifteen persons. That evening around six o'clock Herr von Swedenborg
left and then returned to the drawing room IG esellscbaftsrim m er| pale and agitated.
33. Schuchard offers precisely this sort of naturalistic explanation in chs. 16 and 17 of her
EmanueL Desire o f Nations based on her research into Swedenborg's political alliances and
access to espionage reports. See also the anonymous letter of "a distinguished chevalier" to
the Editors o f the Berlinische Monatsschrift. dated February 9, 1783, in Documents, no. 276
a, 668-71.
34. For other accounts, see Documents, no. 273, 630-32.
45
He said that there was even now a dangerous conflagration in Stockholm in the
Sudermalm (Gothenburg lies more than fifty miles from Stockholm [50 German miles
= 300 English miles]) and the fire was rapidly spreading. He was restless and went out
frequently. He said that the house of one of his friends, whom he named, already lay
in ashes and his own house was in danger. At eight o'clock after he had gone out
again, he joyfully exclaimed: "Praise be to God, the conflagration has been
extinguished, three doors from my own house!" This report caused a great stir in the
whole city and especially in the gathering fGesellschaft]. and that same evening
someone gave the report to the Governor of there. Sunday morning Swedenborg was
called to the Governor. He asked him about the matter. Swedenborg described the
conflagration exactly, how it started, how it had been extinguished and the time it
lasted. That same day the report spread through the whole city, where it now caused
an even greater stir because the Governor had taken notice of it, for many were
concerned for their friends or for their goods. On Monday evening a mounted
messenger, dispatched by the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce at the time of the fire,
arrived in Gothenburg. In his letters the conflagration was described in the exact
manner as it had been related. Tuesday morning a royal courier arrived at the
Governor's with news of the fire, the damage, its cause, and the houses that it affected;
this report did not differ in the least from the one Swedenborg had given at the same
time, for the conflagration had been extinguished at eight o'clock.
According to Kant's letter, the chronology of events is as follows. (1) Saturday, near
the end of September, 1756,4 p.m.: Swedenborg arrives in Gothenberg from England and is
invited to the home of Mr. William CasteL, together with a party of 15 others. (2) 6 p.m.:
Swedenborg leaves the assembled company and returns, pale and agitated (entfarbt und
besturzt), announcing that at that very moment a dangerous conflagration was raging in
Stockholm in the Sudermalm (the southern suburb) and that it was rapidly spreading. (3)
Between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. . Swedenborg is restless and leaves frequently; he declares that the
house of one of his friends, whom he named, had already been reduced to ashes, and that his
46
own house was threatened. (4) 8 p.m.: Swedenborg leaves again, returns, and joyfully
exclaims: "Praise be to God, the fire has been extinguished, and that three doors from my own
house!" (5) After 8 p.m.: News of Swedenborg's claims spreads rapidly through the town.
(6) Later that evening. The Governor o f Gothenburg35 is informed. (7) Sunday morning:
Swedenborg is summoned before the Governor and questioned; Swedenborg gives precise
descriptions of the fire, its origin, its duration, and its extinction. (8) Later on Sunday: The
news spreads throughout the entire city. (9) Monday evening: a mounted messenger,
dispatched by the merchants o f Stockholm at the time for the fire, arrives in Gothenburg,
bearing news of the fire precisely as described by Swedenborg. (10) Tuesday: A royal courier
arrives at the Governor's with news of the fire, the damage it had caused, the houses it had
affected, and the fact that it had been extinguished at eight o'clock; the courier's report
accords precisely with Swedenborg's.
In addition to Kant's account, five other testimonies of Swedenborg's visions have
survived.36 Although they differ in predictable ways, all of them agree on the main points:
shortly after his arrival at Gothenberg, Swedenborg declared that a great fire had broken out
in a particular area of Stockholm; later, he declared that it had been extinguished near his
house.
The Stockholm Fire affair, centered as it is on a highly public event, has consequently
been the most thoroughly researched by historians. Their researches confirm Kant's account
on all major points, although there are many minor divergences—which is to be expected.
Kant's claim that the fire took place in the year 17S6 is mistaken. Swedenborg biographer
Signe Toksvig reports that during Swedenborg's lifetime Stockholm was afflicted by great
fires in the years 1723, 1751, 1759, 1768, and 1769, but not in 1756.37 In Dreams, however,
Kant claims that the events took place in 1759 (AK, 2:355; Walford, 342; Goerwitz, 95).
Kant is also mistaken in his claim that the fire took place near the end of September.
In fact, it took place on July 19, 1759, according to the German periodical Neue
35. Baron Johann Fredrik von Kaulbars (1689-1762).

36. Documents, no. 273, 630-32.
37. Toksvig, 186.
47
genealoeische-historische Nachrichten. 1760;38 England's Annual Register. August 27,
1759,39 the Gothenburg newspaper Hwad Nvtt i Staden. July 30, 1759;40 and the Stockholms
Post Tidnigar of July 23, 1759,41 all of which report a great fire raging in Stockholm in the
Sudermalm.
The story in Gothenburg's Hwad Nvtt i Staden differs from Kant's only in claiming that
the fire started at 3 p.m., whereas Kant's account gives the impression that Swedenborg
announced that the fire had started at 6 p.m. This is a minor detail, however, for even if the
fire had started three hours earlier, there was no way that Swedenborg could have known this
by any conventional means of communication. It should also be noted that the Gothenburg
paper makes no reference to Swedenborg. Indeed, there are no references to Swedenborg in
Gothenburg's two newspapers, the Hwad Nvtt i Staden and the Gothenburgska Magasinet.
from June to October 1759.42
The story in the Stockholms Post Tidnigar differs from Kant's in three ways. First, it
claims that the fire started at 3:00 p.m. Second, it claims that the fire was extinguished at 4
a.m. Third, it reveals that July 19th was a Thursday, not a Saturday.
Finally, other researches have revealed that the Gothenburg Landsarkiv and
Statbibliotek contain no record of Kant's host William Castel as a resident of Gothenburg, and
it is conjectured that Castel was perhaps a travelling companion of Swedenborg and that his
host was actually Niklas Sahlgren, an officer of the Swedish East India Company.43 The
letter does not, in any case, explicitly state that Castel invited Swedenborg and company to his
home, for the German phrase "bat ihn zu sich" does not necessarily imply an invitation to one's
home, and the term "Gesellschaftszimmer" does not necessarily refer to a part of a private
home.
38. Broad, 122.

39. Schuchard, Emanuel: Desire of Nations, ch. 16, ms. 34.
40. Translated in its entirety in Sigstedt, 270; cf. Broad, 151.
41. Translated in its entirety in Broad, 151.
42. Broad, 152. Broad is not unrealistic to expect to find such notices. See the Anonymous
notice o f Swedenborg's travels in the Svenska Magasinet (Stockholm, February 1766): 132.
Anonymous trans. in Documents, no. 911.11.
43. See Sigstedt, 269 and Schuchard, Emanuel Desire o f Nations, ch. 16, ms. 33.
Kant clearly regards the Stockholm Fire affair as having the greatest probative value.
Kant opens his account by saying that, "The following occurrence, however, seems to me to
have the greatest evidential force of all, and really deprives all conceivable doubt o f excuse."
He continues:
What can one offer against the credibility of this occurrence? The friend who
wrote me this has personally investigated everything, not only in Stockholm, but also
about two months ago in Gothenburg, where he is well acquainted with the most
reputable people and where he could completely inform himself from the whole city,
where, since 1756 is a short time ago, most o f the eyewitnesses still live. He has also
given me an account of the manner in which, according to the testimony of Herr von
Swedenborg, his intercourse fGemeinschaft] with other spirits takes place, and also the
ideas he presents regarding the condition of departed spirits. This portrait is
remarkable, but time fails me to describe it. How much I wish that 1 could have
questioned this remarkable man myself for my friend is not so well versed in method
as to ask about what would throw the most light on such a matter. I await with
longing the book that Swedenborg will publish in London. I have made every
provision for receiving it as soon as it leaves the press.
Kant's reasoning regarding the veracity of these reports seems to run as follows. First,
they are based on eyewitness accounts. Second, the sources, including Swedenborg himself
are reasonable and respectable people. Third, the individual stories are corroborated by the
existence of virtually identical stories from a number of different sources. Fourth, the stories
are of recent origin. Fifth, Kant's agents double-checked their reports. Finally, Kant seems to
presuppose that no mundane or naturalistic explanation for these phenomena could be given,
at least for the Stockholm Fire. He concludes, therefore, that genuine paranormal powers
must be at work. Kant does, it is true, regret that he was unable to interview Swedenborg
personally because o f the second Englishman's lack of proficiency in asking telling questions.
Nevertheless, Kant evidently felt he had sufficient grounds to conclude that there could be no
49
possible doubt about the reality of Swedenborg's paranormal gifts. On the question of the
paranormal, Swedenborg had transformed Kant from a charitable agnostic to a positive
believer.
9. Final Thoughts flf 8)

Kant closes with the following remarks:
This is as much as I can report for now for the satisfaction your noble desire
for knowledge. I do not know, gracious Fraulein, whether you wish to know the
judgment that I might venture to pass on so slippery a matter. Many greater talents
than the small portion allotted to me have been able to agree upon little that is reliable.
Still, whatever the import of my opinion may be, I am obliged by your command to
share it with you in writing, inasmuch as you still remain in the country and I cannot
explain it to you verbally. I regret to have surely abused the privilege of writing to you
by detaining you too long with this hasty and awkward scrawl [Feder], I am with
deepest respect, etc.
I. Kant
Kant's closing words are peculiar. He claims that he does not know if his correspondent
wishes to know his considered judgment of Swedenborg, which implies that he has thus far
withheld his judgment. He claims that greater minds than his own have not reached much in
the way of reliable conclusions, implying that even less can be expected of him, thus signalling
his willingness to withdraw his claims. He then indicates, with an air of hesitancy, that he is
obligated to share his opinion in writing, since he cannot explain it in person. He does not,
however, offer a written explanation in the present letter. Nor is there any evidence that a
later letter existed. Thus we can conclude that it is likely that if Kant ever expressed his
opinion to Fraulein von Knobloch, he did so in person. Although these lines seem somewhat
elliptical, they do establish three points. First, Kant clearly indicates that he is holding back
his considered judgment of Swedenborg. Second, Kant depreciates his judgment, indicates his
50
willingness to acknowledge the judgment of greater minds than his own, and indicates his
willingness to withdraw his opinion. Third, Kant indicates that he prefers to express his
judgment in person rather than in writing.
But why would Kant prefer to withhold judgment, depreciate his own intellect, express
his deference to others, and prefer to discuss matters in person rather than in writing? What
was he holding back? If Kant had decided that Swedenborg’s claims to paranormal cognition
were to be unequivocally rejected, he would judge in accordance with the ecclesiastical,
university, and enlightenment establishments. He would not have to wony about committing
such a judgment to paper. Nor would he have to depreciate his intellect. If, however, he
believed that Swedenborg's paranormal powers were genuine—and the letter already seems to
indicate as much—and if he believed that the genuineness o f these powers had profound
philosophical and theological implications, then, given the climate of his time, he would have
good reason to resist putting such judgments in writing-even in a private letter. He would,
furthermore, have good reason to depreciate his own judgment and indicate a willingness to
defer to other minds than his own should his letter ever find its way into the hands o f the
authorities—for what intolerant defender o f orthodoxy does not think that his judgment is
superior to that of the heretic? Therefore, it seems far more likely that Kant was withholding
a positive judgment of Swedenborg than a negative one.
Robert H. Kirven, in a remarkably subtle reading of the Kant-Swedenborg
relationship, has noted other instances of Kant's circumspection in the letter. Kirven notes
that, "The letter is polite—almost excessively so—and amounts to a favorable recommendation
for Swedenborg. However, the recommendation is so cleverly ambiguous that every
affirmative point is balanced by a covert disclaimer."44 For example, "At one point he [Kant]
claimed to have doubted all spiritualistic accounts, ‘until I became acquainted with the story of
Herr Swedenborg.’ This sounds affirmative, but significantly fails to state that he ceased
doubting after that acquaintance."45 Kirven also notes that Kant asserted that, "‘one can
44. Robert H. Kirven, "Swedenborg and Kant Revisited: The Long Shadow of Kant's Attack
and a New Response," in Erland J. Brock, et. al., eds., Swedenborg and His Influence (Bryn
Athyn, Pennsylvania: The Academy of the New Church, 1988), 108.
45. Kirven, 108.
51
hardly accept’ that an Ambassador would have falsified the information concerning one of the
anecdotes demonstrating Swedenborg's clairvoyance. However, he had already pointed out, a
few lines before, that it was difficult to believe such stories, and he gives no definite indication
as to which difficulty he chose to surmount—the difficulty of believing, or the difficulty of not
believing."46 Kirven also points out that Kant claimed that the Stockholm Fire affair,
"‘removed all possibility of doubt,’ and asked, ‘What could possibly challenge the credibility
of this evidence?’ Almost immediately, however, he raised a doubt and suggested an answer
to his own question, by indicating that [the second Englishman] was not as adept as he (Kant)
would have been at asking critical questions!"47 Kirven claims that, "Kant felt the young lady
wanted a favorable report, so he gave her one."48 I see no evidence for this supposition.
There is no reason to think that Kant is offering a favorable report about Swedenborg for any
reason other than the fact that his opinion was favorable. Kirven is, however, correct in his
statement that Kant, "left himself a ground for disclaiming any or all of the good things he
said, if the necessity of doing so ever should arise."49 Kant provided himself with plausible
deniability should his letter ever fall into the wrong hands and his positive statments about
Swedenborg come under suspicion. These precautions aside, however, the letter amounts to a
strong endorsement o f the reality of Swedenborg's clairvoyant powers, even though Kant
indicates that he has not expressed his considered judgment of their overall significance.
10. The Discrepancies Between Dreams and the Letter to Charlotte von Knobloch
If Charlotte von Knobloch ever read Dreams of a Spirit-Seer. she must have been
deeply puzzled, for there are numerous and blatant contradictions between Kant's accounts of
Swedenborg's clairvoyant feats in the letter (dated August 10, 1763) and in Dreams
(completed in late 1765).50
46. Kirven, 108.

47. Kirven, 108-9.
48. Kirven, 109.
49. Kirven, 109.
50. Many of these contradictions have been noted quite independently by Ernst Benz in his
Swedenborg in Deutschland. 244ff. See George F. Dole, "The Ambivalent Kant," Studia
Swedenboreiana 10, no. 2 (May 1997): 1-10.
52
First, in the letter it is clear that Kant's curiosity about Swedenborg is keen and active,
eliciting great expenditures of scare time, effort, and money. In two places in Dreams. Kant
notes that his interest in Swedenborg led him to part with what was for him the considerable
sum of seven pounds sterling for the purchase of the Arcana C oelestia (AK 2:318, 366;
Walford, 306, 353; Goerwitz, 111). Finally, as we have seen, Kant wrote a letter to
Swedenborg and enlisted the aid o f two English friends and a Danish former student to
investigate reports about Swedenborg, sending one of the Englishmen to interview
Swedenborg himself, all of this entailing a considerable expenditure o f time and effort on the
part of his agents and therefore what is likely a considerable expenditure of what might be
called “personal capital” on Kant's part to elicit the favors. In Dreams, however, Kant
presents his curiosity about Swedenborg as idle and desultory. But Kant did not have the time
or the money to indulge idle curiosity.
Second, in chapter one of part two of Dreams. Kant relates the stories of the Queen's
Secret, the Lost Receipt, and the Stockholm Fire. Where the accounts overlap, their factual
contents are virtually identical, the only changes being Kant's corrections in Dreams of the
letter’s mistakes: the spelling of Madame de Marteville's name and the year of the Stockholm
fire.51 The tones of the two accounts, however, are radically different. Where the letter
expresses a strongly favorable attitude toward Swedenborg Dreams adopts a strongly
negative, condescending tone. In Dreams. Kant presents the same stories with complete
indifference to persuading the reader of their truth. Chapter one of part two is entitled, "A
Story, the Truth of Which is Recommended to the Reader’s Own Free Examination," and Kant
introduces the stories by commending them, "in a completely impartial spirit to the reader's
judgment, whether favorable or unfavorable" (AK 2:354; Walford, 340; Goerwitz, 92). In the
letter, however, he takes great pains to convince von Knobloch of their truth.
Third, in Dreams. Kant's conclusions about the plausibility of Swedenborg's
clairvoyant feats are also radically different. In the letter, Kant ascribes to them the highest
degree of veracity. In Dreams, however, he downgrades and, in places, outright conceals and
51. In fairness to Kant, the errors could have been made by Borowski in transcribing the
letter.
55
denies the evidence revealed in the letter, adopting a completely agnostic conclusion about the
possibility of paranormal phenomena. In Dreams. Kant prefaces his account o f the Lost
Receipt and Stockholm Fire affairs by asserting, "The following stories have no other
guarantee than that of common hearsay; the proof provided by such a source is very dubious”
(AK 2:355; Walford, 342; Goerwitz, 94). However, in the letter, Kant expresses a much
higher opinion of the reliability of his "hearsay" reports: Kant refers to his accounts of the
Lost Receipt and the Stockholm Fire as "a pair of confirmations rBeweisthiimer]. witnessed
by still living spectators and investigated immediately on the spot by the gentleman who
reported them to me." Kant claims that the Stockholm Fire affair has "the greatest evidential
force of all, and really deprives all conceivable doubt of excuse." Furthermore, Kant
concludes his letter by reasserting the veracity of his friend and the credibility o f the evidence
he gathered: "What can one offer against the credibility of this occurrence? The friend who
wrote me this has personally investigated everything, not only in Stockholm, but also about
two months ago in Gothenburg, where he is well acquainted with the most reputable people
and where he could completely inform himself from the whole city, where, since 1756 is a
short time ago, most o f the eyewitnesses still live."
Fourth, at the end Dreams Part D, chapter one, Kant writes, "If there is anyone to
whom these tales about spirits should appear to be a matter of importance, that person can
always—assuming, that is, that he has the money to do so and nothing better to do—venture on
a journey of enquiry, to investigate these stories more closely..." Kant then asserts that
posterity would be grateful to such a person for debunking the Swedenborgs of the world
before, "such a lapse of time, [after which] hearsay should have ripened into formal proof, and
the interrogation of eyewimesses-a troublesome business, which is, however, extremely
necessary—would then have become an impossibility” (AK 2:357; Walford, 344; Goerwitz, 97;
trans. Walford). Near the end of the next chapter of Dreams. Kant adds that, "the only motive
for dealing with [Swedenborg's clairvoyant feats] is to be found in the supposition that the
author, in order to attest to their truth, would, perhaps, appeal to occurrences of the kind
mentioned above [i.e., the three clairvoyant affairs], such as could be confirmed by living
54-
witnesses. But no such instance is anywhere to be found" (AK 2:367; Walford, 353;
Goerwitz, 112; trans. Walford).
These claims insinuate, but do not strictly imply, that Kant himself has no interest in
such investigations. This implication, however, contradicts the end o f the brief Preface of
Dreams, where Kant, speaking of himself in the third person, "confesses, with a certain
humiliation, to having been naive enough to investigate the truth of some of the stories of the
kind mentioned [i.e., stories of paranormal occurrences]. He found what one usually finds
when one has no business to be, exacdy nothing!" (AK 2:318; Walford, 306; Goerwitz, 39;
trans. Walford).52 In the first chapter o f part two o f Dreams. Kant also hints that he has
knowledge of Swedenborg independent of his writings: "Just as he [Swedenborg] is, if one
may believe him, the arch-spirit-seer of all spirit-seers, so he is also certainly the arch
visionary of all visionaries, whether one judges him now from the descriptions of those
acquainted with him or from his writings" (AK 2:354; Walford, 341; Goerwitz, 92-93; my
trans.). Later in the same chapter, Kant concludes his retelling of the affair of the Queen's
Secret by asserting that, "The story coincides exactly with what a special enquiry was able to
establish concerning the matter" (AK 2:355; Walford, 341; Goerwitz, 94; trans. Walford).
Furthermore, in Dreams Kant conceals and contradicts several facts revealed in the
letter: the fact that Kant himself was a person "to whom these tales about spirits should
appear to be a matter of importance"; that Kant himself apparently had "nothing better to do"
than investigate spiritualist claims; that Kant himself had at least enough money to buy the
Arcana Coelestia and enough time to read its eight sprawling volumes and to enlist three
agents with means and opportunity to investigate for him; that Kant himself dispatched one of
these friends, of whom he had a very high opinion, on such a "journey o f enquiry, to
investigate these stories more closely," a journey that involved personally interviewing
Swedenborg himself and by investigating the Stockholm Fire affair, both in Stockholm and in
Gothenburg, "where he is well acquainted with the most reputable people and where he could
52. Elsewhere in Dreams. Kant characterizes these enquiries as a "despicable business" (AK
2:356; Walford, 342; Goerwitz, 95), a "thankless task," an exercise in "frivolity" (AK 2:367;
Walford, 353; Goerwitz, 112), and a "foolish undertaking" (AK 2:367; Walford, 353;
Goerwitz, 113).
55
completely inform himself from the whole city, where, since 1756 is a short time ago, most of
the eyewitnesses still live," and that these investigations did not debunk the stories about
Swedenborg, but on the contrary, led both Kant and his agent to accept them as free from "all
conceivable doubt."
It is always tempting to explain discrepancies between and within an author’s texts in
terms of the development of his ideas.53 One cannot, however, give a developmental
explanation of what appears to be Kant's willful omission or concealment of facts. It is the
breach constituted by these omissions and concealments that will allow me to prize apart the
esoteric and exoteric levels of Dreams in the following chapters.
11. Questions for Future Historical Research

Kant's letter to Charlotte von Knobloch is clearly a significant document, but there are
many questions to be answered by historical researchers. First, it would be very interesting to
determine the identities of Kant's Danish friend and former student, Kant's two English
friends, and Mr. William Castel, for there might be letters, diaries, and other documents
associated with them that would throw light on Kant's interests. Indeed, perhaps letters by
Kant himself have survived more than two centuries of wars and revolutions, not to mention
household vermin and spring cleanings. It would be particularly interesting to find copies of
the reports sent to Kant by his second English friend. Second, it would be very interesting to
search out any surviving letters, diaries, state papers, and other documents connected with
Charlotte von Knobloch, Ambassador Dietrichstein, Baron von Lutzow, Queen Louisa Ulrica,
Professor Schlegel, Ambassador Louis de Marteville, and his widow, to see if they throw any
light on these matters. Sweden in particular, because it has been spared the great wars of the
twentieth century, is a promising place to search for such documents.
Fortunately for me, however, the strength of my overall argument does not depend
upon such historical spadework, for the lessons o f the letter to Charlotte von Knobloch could
not be clearer: Kant regarded the rumors of Swedenborg's clairvoyant feats as genuine
53. I discuss the difficulties of developmental interpretations of the discrepancies between

Kant’s statements on Swedenborg in my essay, “Did Kant Dissemble His Interest in
Swedenborg?”, 536-42.
56
candidates for truth, candidates that could not be dismissed a priori, but instead had to be
subjected to careful scrutiny. After a great expenditure of time, effort, and personal pull on
these enquiries, Kant concluded, albeit cautiously and circumspectly, that there was enough
truth in the stories of Swedenborg's clairvoyant powers to commit a substantial amount of
time and money purchasing and reading his books. We can only imagine Kant's surprise when
he opened the first volume of the Arcana Coelestia. which is surely one o f the longest and
strangest books in human history. As we shall see, there is reason to think that reading the
Arcana somewhat dimmed Kant's enthusiasm; indeed, it led him to question Swedenborg’s
sanity. But, as I shall argue in the following chapters, there is good reason to think that Kant
found a grain of truth even there, a grain of truth sufficiently large and irritating to become the
center of Kant's one undisputed literary pearl, Dreams of a Spirit-Seer.
Chapter Three:
The Title, Epigraph, and Preface of Dreams
Could consciousness not continue its process after it has separated itself from the
body? Compare, with regard to these questions the very serious "Dreams of a
Metaphysician," the first part of Kant's Dreams of a Spirit-Seer. This work is
indispensable for an understanding of the psychic background of Kant's metaphysic of
reason.
—Eric Voegelin, "On the Theory of Consciousness"1
1. Commentary Prospectus
Dreams consists o f three parts. First is the brief "Preface fVorberichtl. that Promises
Very Little for the Execution of the Project." Then comes "The First Part, which is
Dogmatic," which is divided into four chapters: chapter one, "A Tangled Metaphysical Knot,
that can be Either Untied or Cut as One Pleases," (cited as 1.1); chapter two: "A Fragment of
Occult Philosophy to Reveal Our Community with the Spirit World," (1.2); chapter three.
"Anti-Kabbalah—A Fragment of Common Philosophy to Cancel Community with the Spirit
World," (1.3) and chapter four: "Theoretical Conclusion Established on the Basis of All the
Observations Contained in the First Part" (1.4). Finally, there is "The Second Part, which is
Historical," divided into three chapters: chapter one: "A Story, the Truth of Which is
Recommended to the Reader’s Own Free Examination," (II. 1); chapter two: "Ecstatic Journey
of an Enthusiast Through the Spirit World," (H.2) and chapter three. "Practical Conclusion
Drawn from the Treatise as a Whole" (II.3).
2. The Title and Epigraph

Kant's title "Dreams of a Spirit-Seer. Elucidated bv Dreams of Metaphysics" deserves
comment, for the title itself is subject to the same kind of dual interpretation to which the
1. Eric Voegelin, "On the Theory of Consciousness," in his Anamnesis, trans. and ed. Gerhart
Niemeyer (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1990), 28. Tr. modified.
57
58
which the entire book is subject.2 According to the received view, which I hold to be the
effect of the book's exoteric teaching. Dreams is an attempt to criticize the metaphysics of
the dominant "Leibniz-Wolff" school by linking it to Swedenborg-on the assumption that
Kant regarded Swedenborg's work as so self-evidently absurd that simply to liken any
position to Swedenborg's would be enough to reduce it to absurdity. This impression is, of
course, founded upon the ridicule Kant heaps upon both dogmatic metaphysics and
Swedenborg, as well as the overall outline of the book, the first part of which is devoted to
"dogmatic" matters and the second part of which is devoted to "historical" illustrations from
Swedenborg's visions.3 This arrangement gives rise to the impression that Swedenborg's
spirit-visions are introduced just because they so happen to "confirm" the metaphysical
speculations of the first half, thereby reducing them to absurdity. If this reading were
correct, however, it would seem that Dreams of a Spirit-Seer. Elucidated bv Dreams of
Metaphysics would have been better entitled "Dreams of Metaphysics, Elucidated by
Dreams o f a Spirit-Seer." This, however, is not the case.
2. In the fourth paragraph of the Preface to Emile, ou de 1'education (1762), Rousseau claims
that his book will be taken less as a treatise on education than as "les reveries d'un visionnaire"
about education. See Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, or On Education, trans. Allan Bloom
(New York: Basic Books, 1979), 34; henceforth cited as Emile. F. Courtes translated Dreams
into French as Reves d'un visionnaire. 2nd ed. (Paris: Vrin, 1977). Kant’s title of Dreams is
most likely an allusion, whether conscious or unconscious, to Rousseau, for the same time he
was writing Dreams. Kant was also carefully re-reading Emile and settling his accounts with
Rousseau, the record of this Auseinandersetzung being the famous Betnerkungen zu den
Beobachtunaen uber das Gefuhl des Schonen und Erhahenen AK 2 0 3 -1 9 2 See also
Immanuel Kant, Betnerkungen in den "Beobachtungen uber das Gefuhl des Schonen und
Erhabenen". ed. Marie Rischmuller (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1991), 48; henceforth
cited as Rischmuller. The best discussion of the Bemerkungen and their significance in Kant’s
philosophical development is Richard L. Velkley, Freedom and the End o f Reason: On the
Moral Foundation of Kant’s Critical Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1989). See also Susan Meld Shell, The Embodiment of Reason: Kant on Spirit. Generation,
and Community (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), ch. 4, “Kant’s Moral
Cosmology: Freedom and Desire in the Remarks Concerning the “Observations on the Feeling
of the Beautiful and the Sublime.”
3. It should be bome in mind that when Dreams was written, there is nothing necessarily
pejorative about the word “dogmatic,” particularly when coupled with the word “historical.”
In the parlance of the time, “dogmatic” refers to knowledge o f universals, “historical” to
knowledge of particulars. I thank Riccardo Pozzo for pointing this out.
59
If one sets aside the prejudices of the received view as well as the superficial details
that give rise to it and simply gives the title a strictly literal reading, Dreams of a Spirit-Seer.
Elucidated bv Dreams of Metaphysics, gives the dreams o f the spirit-seer top billing; the
dreams of metaphysics are secondary, deployed only to elucidate the primary topic. The
priority of the dreams of the spirit-seer in the title is, on its own, sufficient grounds for
entertaining doubts about the apparent primacy of the dreams of metaphysics in the text.
But (Cant reinforces these doubts in the opening pages of the second chapter of part two,
where he writes.
I cannot take it as in any way amiss if the cautious reader, in the course of this book,
has begun to feel misgivings about the manner of proceeding the author has thought
proper to follow. For by placing the dogmatic part o f the work before the historical,
and thus reasons before experience, I gave cause for suspicion that I was proceeding
in a deceitful fashion, for I might perhaps already have had the story in mind, but
nonetheless proceeded as if I knew nothing but pure, abstract observations, with
which in the end I could surprise the reader, who is expecting nothing of the kind,
with a welcome confirmation from experience. (AK 2:357-8; Walford, 344;
Goerwitz, 99; trans. Walford, emph. added)
This passage is the rhetorical equivalent of a wink, or perhaps an elbow in the ribs. If the
reader had not entertained the "suspicion" that Kant was proceeding in a "deceitful" fashion
before reading this passage, he will certainly entertain the suspicion after reading it. Here
Kant strongly hints that his real and primary concern is not the dreams of metaphysics, but
the dreams o f the spirit-seer. If this is so, then contrary to the impression Kant gives,
Swedenborg's spirit visions are not introduced because they happen to confirm the
metaphysician's speculations. Rather, the two correspond so closely because the
60
metaphysician's account of the spirit world is just a careful philosophical reconstruction of
Swedenborg's.4
The use of the word dreams (Traume) to describe the subject matter of both
metaphysics and spirit-seeing is, at first glance, pejorative. The world of dreams seems to
be unflatteringly contrasted to real world of the waking, i.e., the world of deliberate,
methodical, rational thought. This impression is reinforced by the epigraph that appears on
the title page:
Velut aeeri somnia. vanae

Finguntur species.5
—Hor.
Like the dreams of a sick man,

impossible pictures are wrought.
-Horace, Ars Poetica. 7-8.
The dreams of spirit-seers and metaphysicians are, apparently, being likened to "impossible
pictures." The visionaries and metaphysicians who fashion them are apparently being
likened to "sick" men.
At second glance, however, the pejorative impression cast by Kant's use of words
like "dreams" and "sick" is dispelled by the discussion of spirit-seeing near the end of 1. 2 .
Here the author discusses the epistemological problems associated with cognition of the
spirit world. He argues that knowledge of the spirit world is not widespread, for, although
4. On this point, see Kirven, "Swedenborg and Kant Revisited,” esp. 114. See also Broad,
143.
5. Kant substitutes ‘finguntur’for the original ‘fingentur.’ In § 3 1(A) o f the Anthropology.
Kant quotes the same lines, with the same change (AK 8:175); in English: Anthropology from
a Pragmatic Point o f View, trans. Victor Lyle Dowdle (Carbondale: Southern Illinois
University Press, 1978), 65; henceforth cited as Dowdell. See also Immanuel Kant,
Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, trans. Mary J. Gregor (The Hague: Martinus
Nijhoff 1974), 51; henceforth cited as Gregor.
61
human beings are citizens of both the spirit world and the material world, the ways in which
these worlds show up are radically heterogeneous. The physical world shows up as spatial
and temporal, whereas the spirit world is outside of space and time. Experience of the spirit
world would, therefore, seem to be not only rare, but impossible for embodied human
beings.
The author must, however, account for those rare experiences of the spirit world
claimed by visionaries. Thus he ventures that, from time to time, “influxes” (Einflusse) from
the spirit world can enter the consciousness of certain abnormally sensitive people.6 These
influxes do not, however, present spiritual realities as they are in themselves, for an
embodied knower could never apprehend non-spatiotemporal realities. Spiritual influxes
must, therefore, present themselves in a manner accommodated to the finite, embodied
knower; they must clothe themselves in spatiotemporal garb, showing up as objects of the
physical world. These physical forms correspond analogically or symbolically to the
spiritual realities presented through them, presenting the seer with the difficult
hermeneutical problem of separating spiritual content from material form.
Kant does think that spirit-seers are "sick" people; he speaks of them as people
whose organs are far too sensitive to spiritual influxes to be healthy in an ordinary, down-
to-Earth sense. It is important to note, however, that Kant does not think that such
abnormalities allow us to conclude that all spiritualist visions are mere delusions; indeed,
Kant seems to think that a slight mental abnormality might be a necessary condition for
genuine spiritual cognition. Kant does liken spirit-seers to dreamers. But it is important to
note that Kant is fully open to the possibility that such dreams are genuine manifestations of
spiritual realities.
Consider the following passages: "the cause of the illusion is a genuine spiritual
influx fein wahrhafter geistige Einfluss]": "a real spirit-sensation fwirkliche geistige
6. Swedenborg uses the Latin “influxus” to refer to the constant flow of goods—love,
wisdom, life, and existence itself—from the spiritual world, and ultimately from God, into the
material world. The standard English translation is “influx.” In Dreams. Kant uses the
German “Einfluss” as a translation of the Latin. Accordingly, I translate “Einfluss” as
“influx”
62
Empfindunel. [which] although providing the basis of the experience, has nonetheless been
transformed into a phantom of sensible things"; "the spirit impression is of necessity so
intimately interwoven with the illusion o f the imagination that it cannot be possible in such
an experience to distinguish the true fwahre] from the crude illusions that surround it" (AK
2:340; Walford, 327; Goerwitz, 71; trans. Walford, emph. added).
At second glance, then, the use o f such words as "dreams" and "sick" is not
necessarily pejorative, for Kant does not think that all dreams are necessarily merely dreams,
but might also be symbolical manifestations of a supersensible reality; he does not think that
all sicknesses of the head are merely sicknesses of the head, but might also be the necessary
conditions for genuine visionary powers.
In his letter to Mendelssohn of February 7, 1766, accompanying seven copies of
Dreams. Kant refers to his enclosures as "einige Traumerev." i.e., some dreams or reveries.7
Kant, we should note, is not referring to some copies o fTraume. but to some Traumerev.
He is, in short, referring to Dreams itself his own philosophical brainchild, as Traumerev.
Near the end of part two of Dreams itself Kant refers to his own thoughts as
"Traumereien": "I have not surreptitiously substituted my own reveries fTraumereien] for
those of our author. I have made a faithful selection, offering it to the comfortable and
economical reader (who may not be that ready to satisfy his curiosity by sacrificing seven
pounds sterling)" (AK 2:366; Walford, 353; Goerwitz, 111; trans. Walford).
This turn of phrase is, of course, systematically ambiguous in the manner of Dreams
itself for Kant may either be deprecating his philosophical work or elevating the dreams of
spirit-seers. If he is either deprecating philosophy or elevating Phantasterei. or both, then he
is claiming that the distance between the two is not so great as one might imagine.
Deeper meanings emerge from Kant's epigraph not only when it is read in the larger
context of Dreams, but also when it is read in its original context in Horace's Ars Poetica.
The Ars Poetica begins as follows.
7. Kant, Brief an Moses Mendelssohn, February 7, 1766, AK 10:68.
Suppose a painter wished to couple a horse's neck with a man's head, and to
lay feathers of every hue on limbs gathered here and there, so that a woman, lovely
above, foully ended in an ugly fish below; would you restrain your laughter, my
friends, if admitted to a private view? Believe me, dear Pisos, a book will appear
uncommonly like that picture, if impossible pictures are wrought into it—like a sick
man's dreams—with the result that neither head nor foot is ascribed to a single shape,
and unity is lost.8
Restored to its original context, the epigraph refers no longer to just the subject matter of
Dreams, but also to the book itself. Horace begins by referring to chimeras, monstrous
miscellanies of mismatched parts. "Chimeras" is a term Kant frequently uses for the
products of the imagination. These creatures seem to inhabit a private cabinet o f curios,
which is opened for the amusement of a few privileged onlookers. Horace then claims that
any book that contains such hidden grotesqueries and impossible pictures, which he likens
to sick men's dreams, will lack unity and become the object of similar derision.
This description seems to apply to Dreams quite nicely. First, the book is filled with
strange and impossible images. Second, the book clearly lacks unity. Its style oscillates
wildly between the extremes o f bone-dry philosophical prose and wry, essayistic belletrism.
Its tone is a patchwork of Teutonic earnestness, Socratic irony, and Voltairian ridicule.
Furthermore, as I shall argue, there are at least three distinct authorial personae. Third, as
Kant indicates in his letter to Mendelssohn of April 8, 1766, Dreams was written with an
acute awareness o f the danger of falling victim to ridicule.9 Finally, given these parallels, it
is not too great a stretch to venture another parallel between the text that Horace describes
and the text Kant writes. The “cabinet” o f curios described by Horace is private. Only a
chosen few are allowed to peer inside. Perhaps this is true of Dreams as well. Perhaps the
book contains secrets that only a few may view.
8. Horace, Ars Poetica. trans. Edward Henry Blakeney, in The Complete Works of Horace.
ed. Casper J. Kraemer(New York: Modern Library, 1936), 397.
9. Kant, Brief an Moses Mendelssohn, April 8, 1766, AK 10:69-70; Zweig, 55.
64
There is good reason to think that Kant consciously thought that Horace's
description applied to Dreams, for the likeness that Horace draws between cabinets of
curios filled with chimeras and books filled with impossible pictures is explicitly drawn by
Kant in Dreams. II.2:
I am tired of reproducing the wild brain-phantoms of this worst of all

enthusiasts [Swedenborg], or of setting forth his description of the state after death.
I also have other reservations as well. For, although the naturalist displays in his
cabinets, among the embalmed examples of animal generation, not only natural
formations, but also freaks, he must, nonetheless, be careful not to allow them to be
seen by just anyone, or to be seen too clearly. For among the curious there may
easily be pregnant persons, on whom they could make a bad impression. And since
my readers may include some who may likewise be in respect of ideal conception, in
a family way, I should be very sorry if they were, for example, to take fright at what
they read. However, since I have warned them from the very start, I disclaim all
responsibility, and I hope that the mooncalves, to which their fertile imagination may
give birth as a result of this circumstance, will not be laid on my doorstep. (AK
2:366; Walford, 352-3; Goerwitz, 111; trans. Walford, modified)
Kant claims that he breaks off his description of Swedenborg's spirit-visions because he is
"tired." The frivolity of this reason is obvious. Kant is not giving a speech, but writing a
book. If he took a nap and returned to his work refreshed, we readers would be none the
wiser. He then adds, "I also have other reservations as well." Presumably these
reservations are weightier than mere fatigue; presumably they provide the real reason for the
suspension of his descriptions. Kant then indicates, in a rather circumspect fashion, the
nature of these reasons.
65
Kant states that the typical cabinet of natural curios contains not just normal
creatures, but also freaks of nature.10 These chimeras and monsters might frighten pregnant
women, causing miscarriages and even, perhaps, the birth of new monsters. Because of this
danger, the curator has a responsibility.11 He must keep the cabinet locked against the
prying eyes of the idle and foolish. He must open it only to those who can be benefitted
rather than harmed by what they view there. Kant then states that philosophers are in an
analogous situation. Philosophers have always traded in ideas that, from the common sense
point of view, appear grotesque, monstrous, and chimerical. Their books are well stocked
with frightening curios, many of which are seen to be dangerous to society.
Ever since Socrates, philosophers have also conceived of themselves as midwives,
helping to give birth to healthy ideas. Kant shares this maieutic concern: "my readers may
include some who may likewise be in respect o f ideal conception, in a family way." In order
to be a good educator/midwife, i.e., in order to prevent intellectual miscarriages, Kant must,
therefore, keep his philosophical curios under lock and key, revealing them only to those
who can be benefitted rather than harmed by them.
The analogy breaks down only when one considers that a book differs from the
locked cabinet of a discerning and responsible collector in one decisive way. A book may
10. In his Observations. Kant speaks derisively of curio collectors: "A taste for all that is rare,
little though its inherent worth otherwise might be—Epictetus' lamp, a glove of King Charles
the Twelfth; in a way coin collecting is classed with these. Such persons stand under great
suspicion that in knowledge they will be grubs and cranks, but in morals they will be without
feeling for all this is beautiful or noble in a free way" (Goldthwait, 71-2; trans. Goldthwait).
Compare Kant's remarks on curio collectors and novelty mongers in the Anthropology §
25(B) (AK 8:163; Dowdle, 51-2; Gregor, 41). Compare also Rousseau's disparagement of
collectors in Emile. 347.
11. Kant may be speaking of the curator's responsibility from experience. According to
Stuckenberg, around the time he published Dreams. Kant was "appointed superintendent of a
private cabinet of natural and ethnographical objects, being chosen for this place on account
o f his knowledge of natural history. The cabinet, being one o f the sights o f Konigsberg, was
visited by many strangers, to whom he was obliged to exhibit the curiosities. This was
disagreeable to Kant, because it interfered with his studies, and since those who visited the
cabinet were generally more impelled by curiosity than by a desire to learn. He soon resigned
this position." See J.H.W. Stuckenberg, The Life of Immanuel Kant (London: Macmillan,
1882), 83-4.
66
outlive its author and circulate freely among both worthy and unworthy readers. One must,
therefore, find a way to incorporate the security of a locked cabinet and the discretion of a
responsible curator into a book. The only way to do this is to produce a book with esoteric
and exoteric teachings.
In this specific passage, of course, Kant refers only to remaining silent about
Swedenborg's celestial arcana. But the same principle obviously applies to philosophical
arcana as well. Thus we should be attentive throughout Dreams to the possibility that Kant
is keeping philosophical curios under wraps and is being "careful not to allow them to be
seen by just anyone, or to be seen too clearly." We should consider ourselves warned.
3. The Preface, I: The Economy of Utility

The Preface of Dreams opens with a rhetorical flourish that immediately sets forth
the themes, tone, and governing standards of the entire book:
The kindgom of shades is the paradise of visionaries. Here they find an

unbounded land, which they can cultivate at their pleasure. Hypochondriacal
vapors, wet nurse tales, and cloister miracles do not leave them short of building
materials. Philosophers sketch the ground plan, and they [the visionaries] then
modify or reject it, as is their custom. Only Holy Rome has profitable provinces in
that realm; the two crowns o f the invisible kingdom support the third, which is the
fragile diadem of its earthly sovereignty, and the keys that unlock the two gates of
the other world, open simultaneously and sympathetically the coffers of the present.
Such jurisdiction over the kingdom of spirits, insofar as it is legitimized on grounds
of reasons of state, raises itself far above the powerless objections of the learned,
and its use or misuse is already too venerable to have need to submit itself to their
depraved scrutiny. Yet why do the common stories, that find so much faith and at
least are not so badly challenged, circulate uselessly or with impunity, and even
insinuate themselves into academic writings, even though they do not have the
67
support of the proof of profit (argumentum ab utiliV which is the most convincing of
all? (AK 2:317; Walford, 305; Goerwitz, 37-8; my trans.)
Kant's topic is the spirit world: the Schattenreich. the Geisterreich. the unsichtbaren Reich.
The description of this realm as an "unbegrenztes Land" presages Kant's discussion of
metaphysics at the end of Dreams as "a science of the limits of human reason" ("eine
Wissenschaft von den Grenzen der menschlichen Vemunft") (AK 2:368; Walford, 354;
Goerwitz, 113; trans. Walford, emphasis in original).12 Kant is also interested in the stories
that circulate about this kingdom, finding broad acceptance among the common people and
even insinuating themselves into learned works—learned works like Dreams. Finally, Kant is
interested in the source of these stories: the visionary (Phantastl or enthusiast (Schwarmerl
who claims to know heavenly secrets, ultimately focusing his attention on only one example
of the type. Kant also establishes his style of treatment: wry and ironical, irreverent and
polemical. Kant's reference to "hvpochondrische Dunste" presages the reductionist account
of the origins of mystical visions offered in 1.3.
The most prominent feature of the first paragraph is, however, its oft-repeated
references to the standard of utility in judging spiritual phenomena. It is no wonder that
stories of spiritual apparitions are commonly connected to the alliance of throne and altar,
for such stories are useful. The Roman Catholic Church is said to have profitable
(eintraeliche) provinces in the spirit world; its heavenly dominions are said to be useful in
establishing its earthly powers; the keys to the kingdom are also useful for opening the
strong-boxes of this world; Rome's heavenly jurisdiction is politically useful to earthly
states. Outside of the alliance of throne and altar, however, stories about spirits are not so
useful. Kant claims that such stories circulate widely and "uselessly" (ungenutzt),
sometimes turning up in academic writings, "even though they do not have the support of
12. Kant announces that he is busy on a work entilted “Grenzen der Sinnlichkeit und des
Verstandes” in his letter to Marcus Herz of June 7, 1771. Ten years later, this project was
published as the Critique of Pure Reason (AK10:123, Zweig 2, 127).
68
the proof of profit rVorteil] (argumentum ab utiliT which is the most convincing of all."13
It is the very uselessness of these tales that makes their continued existence so pu llin g
Similar references to the theme of utility recur throughout Dreams, establishing the
principle of utility as the architectonic principle o f the entire book. Once Kant enthrones
utility as his highest standard, it plays two important roles. First, utility allows Kant to
reconstruct the idea of a spirit world on moral or practical grounds after the metaphysical
and epistemological grounds for believing in it have been destroyed by skepticism. Second,
utility provides the careful reader with a standard for evaluating Kant’s rhetorical strategies
and his claims about his own authorial intentions. I shall deal with each usage in turn in the
following two sections.
4. The Preface, II: Three Perspectives on the Paranormal

Kant continues the first paragraph of the Preface: "What philosopher, tom between
the assurances of a rational and firmly convinced eyewitness, on the one hand, and the inner
resistance of an insuperable doubt, on the other hand, has not at some time cut the most
simple-minded figure one can imagine?" (AK 2:317; Walford, 305; Goerwitz, 38, my
trans.). This passage should be taken as a self-portrait, for elsewhere in Dreams, as well as
in his letter to Mendelssohn of April 8, 1766, Kant makes it very clear that he himself is
quite self-conscious about his investigations making him look foolish in the eyes of the
public, especially in the eyes of the enlightened members o f the Berlin Academy. Moreover,
Dreams has given many readers the distinct impression that Kant is o f more than one mind
about Swedenborg and about the paranormal in general. Kant seems tom between "the
assurances of a rational and firmly convinced eyewitness" and his own metaphysical
speculations, on the one hand, and "the inner resistance o f an insuperable doubt" on the
other. Indeed, I shall argue that Kant quite consciously creates this impression, and that
Dreams is, in a sense, a philosophical dialogue between three distinct perspectives on the
paranormal which are argued for by three distinct authorial personae. Recall that Kant
13. Kant also refers to the standard of utility in paragraph two of the Brief an Charlotte von
Knobloch, AK 10:44.
69
published Dreams anonymously. He did not claim to be the author of the book. I propose
to take this refusal to impute the work to a single author—or even to a singular pseudonym—
at face value. Hence in what follows I shall impute particular views not to Kant, but to the
personae he has constructed. (I will, however, argue that one o f the authorial personae is
Kant in propria persona.)
These three perspectives are described in the Preface. The first perspective is a
radical, skeptical empiricism, advocating the flat denial of the veracity of all paranormal
claims. The second perspective is metaphysical or "dogmatic"; it involves admitting the
veracity, or just the possible veracity, of just one paranormal claim (Swedenborg's claims,
perhaps?). Having admitted the veracity of a spiritualist claim, the metaphysical perspective
then uses a priori arguments to spell out the metaphysical presuppositions and implications
of such an admission. Finally, whatever these implications are, if they are rationally proven,
we must learn to live with them. The third perspective is pragmatic, in Kant's words: "not
to meddle with such prying and idle questions, but to concern oneself only with what is
useful [das Nutzliche]" (AK 2:318; Walford, 305-6; Goerwitz, 38; trans. Walford, emphasis
in original). Kant describes the pragmatic perspective as "reasonable [vernunftig]," but adds
that its very reasonability is the reason why it is "rejected by the majority of thorough
scholars fgrundlichen Gelehrtenj" (AK 2:318; Walford, 306; Goerwitz, 38; trans. Walford).
In the main text of Dreams, it is the second, metaphysical, perspective that appears
first. In part one, the first and second chapters, "A Tangled Metaphysical Knot" and "A
Fragment of Occult Philosophy," are both devoted largely to the skillful advocacy of a
metaphysical perspective on the paranormal. The authorial persona can best be described as
an ironically apologetic metaphysician, who constantly genuflects in an exaggerated way to
popular anti-metaphysical prejudices, but who presses his arguments forward nonetheless.
As I shall show, the persona o f the ironic metaphysician is simply the early, allegedly
"dogmatic" Kant. The skeptical, anti-metaphysical perspective appears in the third chapter
of part one, "Anti-Kabbalah." The authorial persona here is appropriately skeptical, his
rhetoric every bit as caustic, mocking, and puerile as Voltaire's. It is on the basis of these
chapters that most readers have concluded that Kant's considered judgment o f Swedenborg
70
was scornful and dismissive. As I read it, however, these chapters do not offer us Kant's
critique of Swedenborg, but Kant's exaggerated parody of how a tough-minded, skeptical
materialist would critique Swedenborg. This becomes especially apparent at the end of 1.3,
where the enlightened skeptic becomes so shrill that he comes to seem like a very
unenlightened dogmatist.
The enlightened skeptic's tirade is followed by the fourth chapter of the First Part,
the "Theoretical Conclusion Established on the Basis of all the Observations in the First
Part," which is devoted to the third, pragmatic perspective on the paranormal. It is here, I
believe, that we encounter arguments from Kant in propria persona. The pragmatic persona
is also found throughout the Second Part o f Dreams, where his style is exceedingly coy and
elusive. As we shall see, the relationships between these personae become considerably
more complex as the book wears on, for it becomes clear that (1) the pragmatic persona is
simply the persona of the ironic metaphysician after having been chastened by the
enlightened skeptic, and (2) the enlightened skeptic is not simply the dialogical opponent of
the ironic metaphysician; he is, rather, a persona assumed by the ironic metaphysician
himself in order simultaneously to critique his own metaphysical perspective and to parody
the perspective of enlightened, anti-metaphysical skepticism. In other words, there is
ultimately only one authorial voice in Dreams, a voice which in Dreams 1.1 poses a question
to which Swedenborg is the answer, in Dreams 1.2 offers the Swedenborgian answer, in
Dreams 1.3 steps outside o f his own point of view and takes on the persona of an
enlightenment skeptic to criticize his Swedenborgian metaphysics, and finally, in Dreams 1.4
and II, concedes all theoretical grounds for belief in a spirit world to the critic and offers
pragmatic grounds instead.
The three perspectives on the paranormal constitute a dialectical triad.14 The
dogmatic perspective, which establishes the existence of the spirit world, is the thesis. The
skeptical perspective, which denies the possibility of knowing the spirit world, is the
antithesis. And the pragmatic perspective is the synthesis. In his pragmatic perspective
Kant preserves the dogmatist's belief in the spirit world but cancels his rationalist grounds
14. I deal with the nature o f this dialectic at length in chapter nine below.
7\
for conviction; he preserves the skeptic's critique of dogmatic rationalism and of visionary
raptures, but cancels his equally dogmatic belief in the impossibility of the spirit world.
Kant does this by shifting the grounds for belief in the spirit world from theoretical to
practical considerations. Kant shows that he is willing to abandon all dogmatic arguments
for the existence of the spirit world to the skeptic; he is also willing to abandon
Swedenborg's unverifiable claims about what he had seen and heard. But Kant is not willing
to abandon the spirit world altogether. Having abandoned the dogmatic and mystical
perimeters, Kant falls back and retrenches, digging in and defending the spirit world on
pragmatic grounds. Kant argues that although we cannot confirm Swedenborg's vision of
the spirit world either through direct experience or through metaphysical argumentation, we
do have license to believe that something like Swedenborg's visions are true because such a
belief preserves our moral experience and gives us grounds for hope for the afterlife. This, I
believe, is Kant's mature and considered judgment of Swedenborg. It clearly presages his
mature critical metaphysics, which denies the possibility o f knowledge o f God, the cosmos,
and the human soul based upon mystical intuition or metaphysical argumentation, but which
brings them back as ideal regulative principles o f theoretical reason, as postulates of
practical reason, and as the convictions of moral faith.
S. The Preface, III: Kant's Reasons for Publishing

The third paragraph of the Preface introduces Kant's reasons for publishing Dreams.
The author begins with a critique of the dogmatic skepticism that would dismiss in advance
all paranormal phenomena as impossible, calling instead for the open-minded investigation
of the paranormal: "[I]t is just as much a foolish prejudice to believe without reason none of
the many things which are recounted with some semblance of truth, as to believe anything
which is spread by popular rumor without p ro o f...'' (AK 2:318; Walford, 306; Goerwitz,
38; my trans.).
Having justified such investigations, the author then somewhat sheepishly admits
that he himself has engaged in them. "[For this reason] the author of this essay, in
attempting to avoid the former prejudice [of dogmatic skepticism], allowed himself to be in
72
part carried away by the latter [believing popular rumor]. He confesses, with a certain
humiliation, to having been naive enough to investigate the truth of some of the stories of
the kind mentioned. He found what one usually finds where one has no business to be,
exactly nothing" (AK 2:318; Walford, 306; Goerwitz, 38-9; trans. Walford, modified). I
have already dealt with the contradictions between this statement, the letter to Charlotte von
Knobloch, and other statements in Dreams. It is noteworthy that the author, instead of
maintaining a scrupulous objectivity, claims that he errs on the side o f common rumor. This
presages both Kant's emphasis on the sensus communis as a standard of objectivity and a
counterweight to the private intuitions of the visionary (Phantast) and enthusiast
(Sellwarmer), as well as his bias toward common moral convictions concerning hope for the
afterlife.
fhe author then offers his reasons for publishing Dreams. The author offers a total
of five reasons. In the "Preface" the author offers three reasons which constitute "the
origins of the present treatise." The other two are offered near the end of Dreams II.2. I
shall treat each reason in the order o f its appearance.
(1) Speaking o f himself in the third person, the author "confesses, with a certain
humiliation, to having been naive enough to investigate the truth of some of the stories of
the kind mentioned [i.e., stories of paranormal phenomena]. He found what one usually
finds when one has no business searching at all, exactly nothing! Now, I suppose that this in
itself is already sufficient reason for writing a book" (AK 2:318; Walford, 306; Goerwitz,
39; trans. Walford, modified). The author claims, in short, that he wrote Dreams to report
the negative findings of paranormal research.
But, judged by the author's principle of utility, this reason is unconvincing. As a
general rule, investigators do not bother to report merely negative findings, for the simple
reason that the absence of any results is a slim motivation to sustain an author through the
labors o f writing and publishing—especially through the vast labors involved in writing a
book, even a small book like Dreams.
(2) The author continues: “But there was also another factor, which has already on a
number of occasions extorted [abeedruneen] books out of modest authors: the insistent
73
importunity of friends, both known and unknown” (AK 2:318; Walford, 306; Goerwitz, 39;
trans. Walford). The author repeats this reason near the end of Dreams 11.2: “In examining
his subject, I have devoted myself to a thankless task, which the enquiries and insistent
demands o f inquisitive and idle friends have imposed upon me” (AK 2:367; Walford, 353;
Goerwitz, 112; trans. Walford). Similar reasons are offered in Kant’s letters to
Mendelssohn of February 7 and April 8, 1766.15 In the first letter, Kant writes that Dreams
“is, so to speak, a book extorted from me fEs ist eine gleichsam abeedruneene Schriftl”
(AK 10:68, my trans.). In the second, he asks Mendelssohn if he noticed, “certain
15. John H. Zammito, in his The Genesis o f Kant's Critique o f Judgment (Chicago: University
of Chicago, 1992), 34, speculates that the composition of Dreams may have in part been
motivated by Kant's desire to respond to Hamann's seduction of Herder—whom Kant regarded
as a promising student—from the cause of enlightenment to the cause of counter
enlightenment. In support of this suggestion, Zammito notes Kant's claims that the book was
occasioned by the enquiries of those who had heard of his interest in Swedenborg. It is true
that Hamann was aware of Kant's interest, as indicated by his letter to Mendelssohn of
November 6, 1764, where he claims that Kant was at work on a review of Swedenborg's
''opera omnia" (Malter, 111). If Kant's goal was, however, to rebuke Herder and Hamann, it
certainly went wide o f its mark, judging from Herder's friendly review of Dreams in Hamann's
newspaper, the Koniesbergische Gelehrten und Politischen Zeituneen. March 3, 1766 (Malter,
118-24). Many years later, Herder published an essay, "Emanuel Swedenborg, der grosseste
Geisterseher des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts," in his journal Adrastea 3, no. 2 (1802):350-68; in
Johann Gottfried Herder, Samtliche Werke. vol. 23, ed. Bernhard Suphan (Hildeshein. Georg
Olms, 1967). This essay shows a wide knowledge o f Swedenborg, but no real sympathy for
his claims. Indeed, Herder devotes a good portion of his essay to a "Psychologische
Erklarung der Swedenborgschen Geschichte," which, while its details bear little resemblance
to the psychological account of Dreams L3, certainly partakes of its reductionistic spirit
Hamann too displays no sympathy for Swedenborg. See Johann Georg Hamann, Hamanns
Schriften. 8 vols., ed. Friedrich Roth (vols. 1-7) and G.A. Weiner (vol. 8) (Berlin: Reimer,
1821-43), vol. 7, 179, 348. Given both Herder's and Hamann's lack of sympathy for
Swedenborg, attacking Swedenborg would hardly have been an efficient way of attacking
them. I see no reason to assume that Kant would not have known this. It seems dubious that
Kant's conception of enthusiasm was as homogeneous as Zammito's, such that an attack on
one enthusiast (especially such a singular figure as Swedenborg) would automatically imply an
attack on all the others. Zammito's claim, furthermore, largely presupposes the received view
of Dreams as merely an enlightened skeptic's attack on enthusiasm and metaphysical system-
building. On my view, however, both Kant's alignment with the enlightenment and his
antipathy toward enthusiasm are far more ambivalent and ambiguous—and in the precise
fashion that would make it possible for Herder to write and Hamann to publish a generally
favorable review, and yet still be counter-enlighteners and enthusiasts.
74
indications of my reluctance FUnwillen] to write it. For I saw that my prying inquiry
fVorwitzige Erkundigung) into Swedenborg's visions would make a great stir among people
who knew him personally or from his letters and published works and that I would never be
at peace from their incessant questions funablassige Nachfrage] until I had got rid of the
alleged cognitions mentioned in all these anecdotes (AK 10: 69; Zweig 1, 55; trans. Zweig,
modified).
But judged by the standard of utility, this reason too is implausible. After all, in the
absence o f any published works on Swedenborg, how many admirers of Swedenborg would
have even known of Kant's interest? And how many o f those would have bothered to ask
him questions about Swedenborg? It hardly seems likely that Kant was so deluged with
queries about Swedenborg that it would have seemed a cost-effective use of his time to
write and publish an entire book just to rid himself of them. Why not simply dismiss
personal queries curtly? Why not brush off written ones with a brief form-letter? Why not
simply ignore them? Why publish the book anonymously? Would not a published work on
Swedenborg-even an anonymously published one—make it more, rather than less likely that
Kant would be pestered with questions? It seems difficult, then, to take Kant’s explanation
at face value.
There is, however, one construal of the identity o f these “inquisitive” and “idle”
friends and the nature of their “extortion” that would provide sufficient motivation to write
and publish a book simply to satisfy their curiosity. In his letter to Mendelssohn of February
7, 1766, Kant asks Mendelssohn to distribute copies of Dreams to six gentlemen: “I have
sent you by mail some dreams leinige Traumerev]. Please keep a copy for yourself and
hand the others out to the following gentleman: Court Preacher Sack, High Councillor of
the Consistory Spalding, Provost Sussmilch, Professor Lambert, Professor Sulzer, and
Professor Formey. It is, so to speak, a book extorted from me and contains more of a
desultory sketch of the way one should judge such questions rather than the fulfillment of
the same. Your judgment on this and other manners will be very valuable to me” (AK
10:68; my trans.). Friedrich Samuel Georg Sack (1738-1817) was the court preacher to the
court of Frederick the Great. Johann Joachim Spalding (1714-1804), High Councillor of
the Consistory, presided over Prussia’s Protestant equivalent of the Holy Inquisition.
Provost Johann Peter Siissmilch (1707-67) was an academic politician of some power and a
defender of Hamann's account of nature as symbolic theophany, a view very similar to
Swedenborg's. Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728-77) was regarded by Kant as “the leading
genius of Germany” because of his accomplishments in philosophy, mathematics, and
cosmology. Johann Georg Sulzer (1720-79), a “popular philosopher” of the “Leibniz-
Wolff ’ school, was best known for his work in aesthetics (which influenced Kant, Schiller,
and the Sturm und Drang) and for his translations of Hume. Pierre Samuel Formey (1711-
97), another popular philosopher, was the author or editor of nearly 600 books and carried
on the widest intellectual correspondence since Leibniz. Sussmilch, Lambert, Sulzer, and
Formey were all members of the Berlin Academy. Indeed, they were among its most
powerful members. Formey was the permanent secretary, and Lambert was the only
individual admitted to all four classes (mathematics, natural philosophy, speculative
philosophy, and letters). This list thus gives deeper meaning to the phase "inquisitive and
idle friends," for Spalding was, in effect, Prussian "Grand Inquisitor" and the other men
were prominent scholars, a word derived from the Greek word for idleness or leisure, skole.
Kant, in short, sent copies o f Dreams to the leading figures of both the Prussian
church and the Berlin Enlightenment, the very people whose disapproval o f Swedenborg
Kant would have feared the most. Kant's primary purpose was likely to clear himself of all
rumors of heterodoxy and enthusiasm, rumors which could have ruined his career.16
But is there evidence that any of these men knew of Kant's interest in Swedenborg
before they received their copies of Dreams? Consider the letter dated November 6, 1764
from Kant’s sometime friend in Konigsberg Johann Georg Hamann to Mendelssohn:
“Perhaps I can also include for you a small treatise.. . from Herr Magister Kant, with
whom I have presently restricted my dealings. Therein he will review, amongst others, the
Opera omnia of a certain Schwedenberg. which runs to nine large quarto volumes and came
out in London.” 17 This letter indicates not only that Kant was working on Swedenborg in
16. For a fuller treatment of this topic, including replies to objections, see my “Did Kant
Dissemble his Interest in Swedenborg?”, esp. 542-56.
17. Hamann, Brief an Moses Mendelssohn (6. November 1764), Malter, 111, my trans.
76
the Fall of 1764, but that predicted the imminent completion of a small treatise dealing at
least in part with him. If this treatise in not Dreams itself it is at least its precursor. Given
that Mendelssohn moved in the same circles as the aforementioned gentlemen, it seems
highly likely that they were aware o f Kant’s interest in Swedenborg. (Kant clearly thought it
highly likely, or he would not have dispatched copies of Dreams to them.)
There is, however, a positive reason for writing Dreams as well. Note the peculiar
description of Kant’s nagging friends. First, he speaks of "the insistent importunity of
friends, both known and unknown"—"das ungestume Anhalten bekannter und unbekannter
Freunde." But what is an "unknown friend"?.
Two explanations come to mind. First, Kant could simply be rather generously
referring to anonymous correspondents and/or previously unknown enquirers as "friends";
he could even be referring to the censors as friends. Second, Kant could be using the phrase
"unknown friends" to refer to people who are potential friends, people who would be
friends if the author were to meet them, but who are at present unknown. The trouble with
this reading is that "insistent importunities" do not issue from unknown people. Kant could,
however, be using the idea of an insistent importunity of an unknown friend as a
metaphorical way of referring to his own strong desire to find and communicate with such
people.
But what kind of people are these? Kant later refers to "the enquiries and insistent
demands of inquisitive and idle friends"—"die Nachfrape und Zudringlichkeit vorwitzjger
und mussieer Freunde" (AK 2:367; Walford, 353; Goerwitz, 112; trans. Walford). The
adjectives "inquisitive" and "idle" seem, at first glance, to be pejorative and deflationary; we
are led to believe that Dreams was written merely to satisfy lazy and prurient mentalities.
But, again, it is hard to credit Kant with enough respect for such motivations to write a
book to satisfy them. However, at second glance, the words "inquisitive" and "idle" need
not be construed as pejorative. For as we have noted, another word for idle men is
"scholars." And those scholars who are best known for their inquisitiveness, their zetetic
eras, are philosophers.
77
Putting the two descriptions together, we arrive at a most plausible motivation for
writing Dreams. Kant wrote Dreams because he had a strong desire to communicate a
particular metaphysical teaching to philosophers; he was not, however, concerned to
communicate it to all philosophers, but only to "friends" both known and unknown, actual
and potential, i.e., to like-minded philosophers. We can also infer that Kant's primary
concern in writing Dreams would have been communication with unknown friends, simply
because communication with known friends would not have required a book.
But even this reason is not a plausible explanation for the publication of Dreams if
we retain the received view that the purpose of the book is merely to attack dogmatic
metaphysics by connecting it to Swedenborg. Even the most universal skeptics destroy in
order to create, in order to advance some positive cause. If Kant was guided by the
criterion of utility, then we must ask: What is the use of Dreams? What is Kant's positive
goal?
(3) To the previous reason, the author adds, "But not only that, but the author went
to the expense o f purchasing a lengthy work, and, what is worse, he put himself to the
trouble of reading it as well! Such effort was not to be wasted" (AK 2:318; Walford, 306;
Goerwitz, 39; trans. Walford). But if Kant felt that his time and money had been wasted on
the Arcana, why would he waste even more o f it writing a book about it? This simply defies
credibility.
(4) Near the end of Dreams II.2, the author offers another reason, which is related
to the third. "I have not surreptitiously substituted my own reveries for those of our author.
I have made a faithful selection, offering it to the comfortable and economical reader (who
may not be that ready to satisfy his curiosity by sacrificing seven pounds sterling)" (AK
2:366; Walford, 353; Goerwitz, 111; trans. Walford). This reason is just an altruistic
version of the third. Having wasted his time and money on the Arcana. Kant has written
Dreams to spare his fellow men the trouble. This is surely an admirable undertaking. But it
is also a stupid one, given that Kant could have spent his scarce time on other projects much
more beneficial to his fellow men. It is hard to credit Kant with such stupidity.
78
Even taken together, these four reasons hardly constitute a compelling case for
taking the time and trouble (and risks) involved in writing and publishing Dreams. Broad
sums up the troubles nicely: "Obviously these cannot have been Kant's main motives. He
was not at all a wealthy man and he was a very busy one. It is most unlikely that he would
have spent seven pounds on the Arcana Coelestia and then ploughed through it and given a
careful synopsis of its teachings about the spirit world merely to satisfy the idle curiosity of
some or to save the pockets o f others."18 But if the aforementioned reasons are not
sufficient, then we are faced with two questions. First, we must discover what is Kant's real
reason for publishing Dreams. And two, we must determine why Kant felt it necessary to
dissemble his true motive.
(5) Shortly after he states his fourth reason for publishing, the author offers a fifth.
Moreover, he prefaces this fifth reason with the extraordinary admission that his previous
four reasons are indeed insufficient, and that they were not his true reasons, indeed, that
they were conscious and deliberate deceptions:
I have worked on a thankless task, which the enquiries and insistent demands of
inquisitive and idle friends have imposed upon me. In putting my efforts at the
service o f this frivolity I have not only deceived their expectations, I have also, at the
same time, failed to contribute anything towards satisfying either the curious with
reports or the studious with reasons. If this was the only purpose of this effort, then
I have been wasting my time. I have lost the confidence o f the reader, for, by
following a tiresome detour, I have conducted him in his enquiry and in his thirst for
knowledge to precisely the point o f ignorance from which he set out in the first
place. But in fact, I did have a purpose in mind, and one which is, it seems to me,
more important than the purpose I pretended to have, and that, I believe, I have
attained. (AK 2:367; Walford, 354; Goerwitz, 112-13; trans. Walford)
And what does the author say his true purpose is? Dreams is an essay in metaphysics.
18. Broad, 126.
79
Metaphysics, according to Dreams, has two functions. First, "it can solve the
problems thrown up by the inquiring mind, when it uses reason to spy after the most hidden
properties of things fverborgenem Eieenschaften der Dingel." The author claims that, "as
fate would have it, I have fallen in love [verUebt]" with this sort of metaphysics, but she has
granted him only few favors (einige Gunstbezeueuneen). and in this case he has been
disappointed. His enquiries have produced no insight into spiritual phenomena.
Fortunately, however, metaphysics has a second function: to assay the limits of
human reason; in Kant's words, "metaphysics is a science of the limits of human reason
[Grenzen der menschlichen Vemunft]" (AK 2:368; Walford, 354; Goerwitz, 113; trans.
Walford). It is in this task that Kant claims to have had more success, by showing that no
questions should be entertained if the data required for their answer comes not from the
world of sense experience, but from the realm of the supersensible. The author concludes:
"Thus, I have wasted my time in order to save it. I have deceived my reader in order to
benefit him. And although I have not furnished him with any new insight, I have,
nonetheless, eliminated the illusion and vain knowledge which inflates the understanding and
fills up the narrow space which could otherwise be occupied by the teachings o f wisdom
and of useful instruction" (AK 2:368; Walford, 354; Goerwitz, 114; trans. Walford).
It seems, then, that the method, purpose, and conclusion of Dreams is skeptical and
empiricistic, even "Humean." Dreams is Kant's attempt to illustrate the limits of human
reason-and to illustrate the value of determining these limits prior to metaphysical
speculations—by taking his readers through an extended metaphysical investigation that
comes to naught precisely because of its uncritical optimism about reason's powers "to spy
after the more hidden properties of things" (and, we might add, the celestial arcana as well).
It is at this point that the received view of Dreams congeals. The reason, it is said, that
Kant focuses on Swedenborg to make this argument has nothing to do with the intrinsic
merits of Swedenborg's work. Indeed, Kant seems to regard Swedenborg merely as a
pathological case, a caricature of the dogmatic metaphysics of his time, the criticism of
which was the primary purpose of writing Dreams.
Above I raised two questions: (1) What is Kant's true purpose in writing Dreams?
and (2) Why did Kant feel that he had to dissemble his true motive? This second question
can be put more precisely: Why did Kant feel the necessity of prefacing his fifth motive,
which is the most straightforward and plausible, with four patently dubious motives which
he himself later admits are deceptive? Now, the received view of Dreams, by taking Kant's
fifth motive at face value, does answer the first question. But it does not answer the
second. This is, moreover, somewhat problematic, for Kant's fifth reason for publishing
cannot be interpreted independently of the other four. Given that Kant prefaced the fifth
reason with four others which he himself admits are deceptive, why take the fifth at face
value?
The main reason why so many interpreters take the fifth reason at face value is
Kant's use of a rhetoric of disarming frankness. Kant knew that most readers would be
somewhat uneasy with his first four reasons for publishing. Kant confirms these suspicions
by admitting that he has been deceiving his readers all along. But by confirming the readers'
past suspicions, Kant also, paradoxically, allays their future suspicions. Therefore, when
Kant offers us his fifth reason and claims that it was his real reason all along, most readers
take it at face value. But given that Kant has admitted to giving four deceptive reasons,
surely it is naive to take the fifth at face value simply because Kant says that we should, for
if Kant gives us reason to suspect that not all o f his statements should be taken at face
value, this would include his protestations of honesty and forthrightness as well.
Without giving away too much o f my argument at this point, I wish to suggest that
Kant's fifth account o f the purpose of Dreams—which is the basis for the received view of
the book—is intended to be exoteric. It is, strictly speaking, a truth But it is not the whole
truth, and is therefore crucially deceptive. The reason that Kant prefaced the fifth reason
with four admittedly deceptive ones is twofold.
First, as we have seen in the previous paragraph to raise the suspicions o f one's
audience and then to "come clean" about one's deceptions before admitting one's "true"
81
motives is a rhetorically powerful way o f disarming and deceiving people with half-truths or
outright lies, i.e., it is a very effective tool of exoteric teaching.19
Second, there is a certain beauty to the fact that this technique, in virtue of its
effectiveness as a tool o f exoteric rhetoric, is also an effective tool of esoteric rhetoric as
well, for the very presence of such a device is likely to alert the careful reader to the
presence of a depth dimension in the text; careful readers are more likely to question the
truth of "truths" that are ushered forth with a bodyguard of admitted lies. And it is by
questioning the truth of exoteric teachings that one begins to move toward the esoteric
ones.
So we are forced to enquire further. And since it is risky to take any of the text's
statements at face value, we are forced to enquire in a different way. Why did Kant seek to
define the limits of reason in Dreams? My answer is: for the same reason that he would
delimit reason in the Critique of Pure Reason. "I have . .. found it necessary to cancel
knowledge fdas Wissen aufheben). in order to make room for faith."20 (The same verb,
aufheben. is used in the title of Dreams 1.3, "Anti-Kabbalah: A Fragment of Common
Philosophy to Cancel fan fcih eh en ] Community with the Spirit World.")
Faith in what? Ultimately, I would argue, the faith that something (ike Swedenborg's
visions of the spirit world is true. How will this teaching come to light, given that it is risky
to take any of the text's statements at face value? My contention is that this teaching
19. Paul Johnson, in his Intellectuals (New York: Harper and Row, 1988), 302, has a
fascinating discussion o f the deceptiveness o f false candor:
As has been shown repeatedly, the memoirs of leading intellectuals—Sartre, de

Beauvoir, Russell, Hemingway. . . are obvious examples—are quite unreliable. But
most dangerous . . . are those who disarm the reader by what appears to be shocking
frankness and admission of guilt. Thus Tolstoy's diaries, honest though they appear to
be, in fact hide far more than they reveal. Rousseau's Confessions, as Diderot and
others who really knew him perceived at the time, are an elaborate exercise in
deception, a veneer of candor concealing a bottomless morass of mendacity. [Lillian]
Heilman's memoirs conform to this cunning pattern. She often admits to vagueness,
confusion, and lapses of memory, giving readers the impression that she is engaged in
making a constant effort to sift exact truth from the shadowy sands o f the past.
20. Kant, Kritik der reinen Vemunft (Riga: J.F. Hartknoch, 1781/1787), Bxxx, emphasis in
original.
82
emerges if we pay attention not only to the "speeches" that comprise Dreams, but also to
the "deeds" of the text. We must carefully compare what the text says it does with what the
text actually does, the conclusions it says it supports with the conclusions it actually
supports. The meaning o f the text cannot, in short, be reduced simply to what it says.
Rather, the meaning is what emerges as the total effect of reading both the speeches and the
deeds o f the text in light of one another and in light of the whole. If we follow this method,
I contend that the text supports my interpretation.
Chapter Four:
"A Tangled Metaphysical Knot, which can be Either Untied or Cut as One Pleases":
Dreams LI
This relation between the mind and m atter. . . is the problem which has exercised the
wonder and the study of every fine genius since the world began; from the era of the
Egyptians and the Brahmins, to that of Pythagoras, o f Plato, of Bacon, of Leibnitz, of
Swedenborg. There sits the Sphinx at the roadside, and from age to age, as each
prophet comes by, he tries his fortune at reading her riddle.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature1
1. Prospectus of "The First Part, Which is Dogmatic”

The first part of Dreams consists of four chapters: chapter one, "A Tangled
Metaphysical Knot, which can be Either Untied or Cut as One Pleases"; chapter two, "A
Fragment of Occult Philosophy to Reveal Our Community with the Spirit World"; chapter
three, "Anti-Kabbalah: A Fragment of Common Philosophy to Cancel Community with the
Spirit World," and chapter four, "Theoretical Conclusion Established on the Basis of All the
Observations Contained in the First Part."
There two senses of “dogmatic” (dogmatisclri to keep in mind. The pejorative sense
describes an unreasonable yet strongly-held belief. The non-pejorative sense refers to
“universal” as opposed to particular or “historical” knowledge. The first part of Dreams is
clearly dogmatic in the latter sense. But the received view treats it as dogmatic in the former
sense. And, if I am correct to argue that the received view is the “exoteric” teaching
constructed by Kant, then Kant himself is responsible for this impression.
At first glance, though, it seems odd that Kant refers to the entire first part as
"dogmatic" in the pejorative sense, for strictly speaking, only the first two chapters are
devoted to "dogmatic" metaphysical arguments, and, as we shall see, these arguments and the
authorial persona who elaborates them are hardly dogmatic. The third chapter is
1. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature, ch. 4, "Language," in Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essavs and
Lectures, ed. Joel Porte (New York: The Library of America, 1983), 25.
83
84
devoted not to dogmatic metaphysics, but to a skeptical critique o f dogmatic metaphysics.
The fourth chapter is devoted to drawing a theoretical conclusion from the previous
chapters from what I have deemed a "pragmatic" perspective.
It is hard, therefore, to find anything obviously "dogmatic" in the first part to which
we can attach the term. Kant seems to imply that all four chapters are just as much and just
as little "dogmatic." By this technique, Kant forces the careful reader to suspend loose talk
about the "dogmatic" and to question the meaning o f the term and its proper application.
One clear tendency of chapter three, for instance, is that it forces us to ask: Who is more
dogmatic, the ironic metaphysician or his skeptical, "Enlightened" empiricist opponent?
2. The Authorial Persona (f 1)

The first two chapters of Dreams I compose a unit. They are unified both by their
argument and by their authorial persona. I have described this persona as that of an
ironically apologetic metaphysician, who genuflects in the direction of popular anti
metaphysical prejudices, but pushes his arguments forward nonetheless. The author is a
metaphysician because of a deep commitment to the metaphysical vocation, which he
conceives of as the search for knowledge o f the unconditioned, the supersensible, the
ultimately real. He is an ironist because of his highly developed sense of the perils and
pitfalls of the metaphysical quest.
This ironic sense is amply displayed in the first paragraph o f 1.1. First, when it
comes to discussions of spirits, the metaphysician places the "demonstrations of the
philosophers" alongside the recitations o f schoolboys and the stories told by the common
folk. Second, he claims that a careful reflection on the common concept of Geist would
quickly prove a most awkward embarrassment for the "know-it-alls." Third, he
characterizes the academic discourses of "the higher schools" as "methodical gossip" often
based merely on changing word-meanings. Fourth, he claims that what is often the best and
most reasonable answer, "Ich weiss nicht" is frowned upon in the schools. Fifth, he claims
that many philosophical theories are merely elaborations o f the unexamined prejudices of
childhood, and that offtimes, "the man of thoroughness will in the end be at best merely the
sophist of his youthful delusion” (AK 2:320; cf. Walford, 307; Goerwitz, 42; trans.
85
Walford). (In Kant, "thoroughness" fGnindlichkeitl is a code-word for the metaphysical
system-building of the Wolffian school. See chapter eight.)
At the beginning of paragraph five, the metaphysician warns his reader against the
"rash decisions" so common in treatments of metaphysical topics (AK 2:322; Walford, 310;
Goerwitz, 45). At the end of paragraph six, he confesses that whereas most metaphysicians
see only "even and comfortable footpaths" along which they think that they are advancing,
he often finds himself at the foot of "towering Alpine peaks" (AK 2:324; Walford, 312;
Goerwitz, 48). In paragraphs eight and nine, he characterizes most academic battles as
futile exercises in which each side proves not its own knowledge, but merely the other's
ignorance (AK 2:326, 328; Walford, 314, 316; Goerwitz, 51, 54). He also speaks of the
limits of his faculty of understanding in the face of the secrets of nature (AK 2:328;
Walford, 316; Goerwitz, 54).
One wonders: if this is "dogmatic" metaphysics, then what is skepticism? In spite of
these skeptical provisos, however, the metaphysician nonetheless presses forward with a
daring series of metaphysical arguments and hypotheses. Because of these arguments, one
must therefore distinguish this authorial persona from the skeptical persona on display in
1.3, who dismisses all such arguments as dogmatic nonsense.
Now, although I think that caution requires us to treat the ironic metaphysician as a
persona behind which Kant hides, we should never lose sight of the fact that it is also a
persona through which Kant speaks, and indeed, there is a great deal of continuity between
the rhetoric of the ironic metaphysician and Kant's own rhetoric in the publications that
precede Dreams. Nobody seriously denies that Kant’s writings before Dreams are
"metaphysical,” yet, as I shall show, there is abundant reason to characterize them as
ironically, rather than dogmatically, metaphysical.
First, let us consider The False Subtlety of the Four Syllogistic Figures.2 which Kant
completed and published in the Fall of 1762, and where he laments that, "The fate of the
human understanding is such that it is either given to brooding over deep matters and falls
into bizarre ideas, or it audaciously chases after objects too great for its grasp and builds
2. Kant, Die falsche Spfrzfindigkeit der vier svllogistischen Figuren (1762), AK 2:45-61.
castles in the air. Among the common herd of thinkers, there is one who chooses the
number 666, another the origins of animals and plants, or the mysteries of providence. The
error into which they each fall is very different in character, and that difference corresponds
to the difference between their mental constitutions" (AK 2:57; Walford, 100; trans.
Walford), he likens academic philosophy to a "colossus, who hides his head in the clouds of
antiquity, and whose feet are made o f clay"; he derides academic philosophy’s conspicuous
displays of logical acumen as empty "academic athleticism" (AK 2:57; Walford, 101; trans.
Walford).
Similar sentiments are on display in the next work Kant published, The Only
Possible Argument for a Demonstration of the Existence of God.3 which was completed in
the Fall of 1762 and published that December dated 1763, and where, in the Preface, Kant
speaks of venturing "the bottomless abyss of metaphysics . . . a dark and shoreless ocean,
marked by no beacons," to navigate which one must hug the shoreline of experience and
frequently check one's coordinates to make sure one has not strayed off course;4 then Kant
apologizes in advance for writing a book in which, "many of the things I shall say will be
incorrect,. .. many of the elucidations I shall offer will be inadequate, and . . . many of the
positions I shall develop will prove frail and defective" (AK 2:68; Walford, 113-14; trans.
Walford).
Later in the same text, Kant denigrates academic rationalism as a kind of conceptual
alchemy: "I have as little taste as the next man for the fastidious wisdom of those who spend
so much time in their logic-laboratories subjecting sound and serviceable concepts to
excessive analysis, distilling and purifying them until they evaporate altogether in vapors and
volatile salts" (AK 2:75; Walford, 120; trans. Walford). Finally, Kant claims that it is
desirable to develop philosophical "methods which are most in harmony both with the
3. Kant Per Einzig mogiiche Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstration des Daseins Gottes
(Konigsberg: Johann Jakob Kanter, 1763), AK 2:63-163.
4. Kant is fond of likening metaphysics to a deep ocean and experience to the coastline. See
the Monadologiam Phvsicam of 1756 (AK 1:475; Walford, 51), the Inaugural Dissertation of
1770, Scolium after § 22 (AK 2:410; Walford, 405), and the Critique of Pure Reason (1781),
A 395-6.
87
dignity and with the weakness o f the human understanding" (AK 2:123; Walford, 164;
trans. Walford).
Kant's next philosophical work is his "Preisschrift" the Inquiry Concerning the
Distinctness o f the Principles of Natural Theology and Morals, which was completed in
December of 1762 and published in 1764.5 Here, in his Introduction, Kant counsels a
"simple and cautious” method of metaphysical enquiry that begins neither from the doctrines
of academic philosophy nor by means of deduction from definitions, but instead "contains
nothing but empirical propositions which are certain and the inferences that are drawn
immediately from them," and does not hesitate to employ propositions that are not 100%
certain if such a proposition serves to elucidate the problem at hand (AK 2:275; Walford,
247; trans. Walford). Later, Kant condemns the "shallowness of the proofs offered by the
metaphysicians" who customarily deduce imposing systems from stipulated definitions,
systems which collapse as soon as their foundations are shown to be shaky (AK 2:287-8;
Walford, 260-1; trans. Walford).
The same sentiments are even more abundantly displayed in the Attempt to
Introduce the Concept of Negative Magnitudes into Philosophy.6 a work completed in June
of 1763, where Kant commends his work to those possessed of "general insight," but "As
for the metaphysical intelligentsia who are in possession of a perfect insight into things, one
5. Kant, Untersuchung tiber die Deutlichkeit der Grundsatze der natiirlichen Theoloeie und
der Moral (Berlin: Konigliche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1764), AK 2:273-301;
henceforth Inquiry.
6. Kant, Versuch den Begriff der negativen Grossen in die Weltweisheit einTufhhren (1763),
AK 2:165-204; henceforth Negative Magnitudes. Cf. Kant's description of "Aberwitz" (or
"vesania") in § 52 o f the Anthropology of 1798:
Lunacy (vesania) is the sickness of a disordered reason. The patient disregards all the
facts of experience and aspires to principles which can be entirely exempted from the
tests of experience. Such a patient fancies that he comprehends the incomprehensible,
and that such things as the invention of a method for squaring the circle, perpetual
motion, and unveiling o f the transcendental forces of nature, and the comprehension of
the mystery of the Trinity are all within his power. He is the quietest o f all hospital
patients; and, because o f his self-contained speculation, he is the farthest removed
from a state of frenzy. With complete self-sufficiency, he closes his eyes to all the
difficulties o f investigation. This . . . type of derangement could be labeled systematic.
(Anthropology. AK 7:215-16; Dowdle, 113; Gregor, 85; trans. Dowdell)
88
would have to be very inexperienced to imagine that their wisdom could be increased by any
addition, or their madness diminished by any subtraction" (AK 2:170; Walford, 210; trans.
Walford). Kant then characterizes academics as book-blinkered pedants (AK 2:184;
Walford, 223).
Later in the same text, Kant defends the tentative, experimental, and fallibilist
character of his work against those academics who "demand an assertive and dogmatic
tone" (AK 2:187; Walford, 227; trans. Walford; cf. AK 2:197-98; Walford, 235), a group
he later deems the "learned rabble" (AK 2:200; Walford, 238; trans. Walford); Kant claims
that his tentative method better harmonizes with the "the frailty of my insight," a frailty
which is hidden or denied by the "self-styled thorough philosophers" (AK 2:201-2; Walford,
239; trans. Walford)—"philosophers who lay claim to the possession of an insight which
knows no limitations [Schranken]" (AK 2:204; Walford, 241; trans. Walford).
Finally, in the Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, a work
completed in the Fall of 1763 and published near the beginning of 1764, Kant laments that
"philosophy is distorted by many empty subtleties, and the superficial appearance of
profundity. . ." (AK 2:215; Goldthwait, 57; Goldthwait trans.).
In all o f these passages, either Kant sets forward a fallibilistic, tentative,
experimental metaphysical method that is grounded upon both experience and self-
knowledge, knowledge o f the limits and frailties of the human understanding that leads us to
scale back our metaphysical ambitions so that they do not outstrip our intellectual
resources-or Kant condemns academic philosophy for failing to reflect upon and govern
itself in light o f the limits of the understanding, instead adopting a rationalistic method that
quickly leaves the coastline of experience behind and loses itself in the abyss of groundless
and arbitrary speculation.
Do these passages then simply prove that the anti-metaphysical skepticism ascribed
to Dreams has to be pushed back to an earlier stage of Kant's thought? No. The rhetoric in
these passages is the rhetoric of the persona of the ironic metaphysician, a persona who, as
we shall see, uses a substantially different rhetoric than the persona of the anti-metaphysical
skeptic found in Dreams 1.3.
The ironic metaphysician in Dreams LI is none other than Kant, specifically Kant
before his encounter with Swedenborg. The basis of this attribution is twofold. First, we
have already examined the similarities of tone, method, and persona. Second, as this
chapter unfolds, I will show doctrinal identities between Dreams 1.1 and earlier writings by
Kant, particularly the Physical Monadoloev (1756) and the essay on Negative Magnitudes
(1763). As we shall see in the next chapter, the ironic metaphysician of Dreams 1.2 is Kant
after having encountered Swedenborg.
3. The "Tangled Metaphysical Knot"

What, then, is the "tangled metaphysical knot" of Dreams 1.1, which Swedenborg
helps to unravel or cut in Dreams 1.2? To what question is Swedenborg the answer?
Kant's tangled metaphysical knot is the longstanding seventeenth- and eighteenth-
century debate about the nature of the interaction of minds and bodies.7 If one accepts a
fundamental ontological distinction between spiritual and material substances, one must then
give an account of (1) whether these substances interact, and (2), if they interact, how they
interact.
To the question of whether material and spiritual substances interact, only two basic
answers are possible: "Yes" or "No"-"interactionism" or "non-interactionism." Historically,
there are two forms of non-interactionism: (1) the system of occasionalism, defended by
Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715), Geraud de Cordemoy (d. 1684), and Arnold Geulincx
(1624-69), which holds that no finite being, spiritual or material, has any causal efficacy
whatsoever, and that God is the sole cause of alt interactions, whether between bodies,
between minds, or between minds and bodies,8 and (2) the system of pre-established
harmony, defended by Leibniz, which holds that no finite being, spiritual or material,
7. Schopenhauer, perhaps alluding to Kant, refers to the problem of mind-body interaction as

a "knot," which we have the option of cutting (or untying). See Arthur Schopenhauer,
"Sketch of a History of the Doctrine of the Ideal and the Real," in his Parerea and
Paralipomena: Short Philosophical Essavs. 2 vols., trans. E.F.J. Payne (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1974), vol. L page 8.
8. See Nicholas Malebranche, De la recherche de la verite (1674-75), Book VI, part 2, ch. 3;
in English: The Search after Truth, trans. Thomas M. Lennon and Paul J. Olscamp
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 446-52.
90
causally interacts with any other being; that all modifications of a substance are produced
spontaneously by the substance in accordance with its unique, divinely created and sustained
nature; and that all apparent causal interactions between substances are merely apparent, the
product of the harmonious coordination of substances and their spontaneous self
modification established at the time o f creation.
There are three possible interactionist positions: (1) mutual interactionism. which
holds that bodies can affect minds and minds can affect bodies, a position defended by
Descartes in Meditations. VI,9 (2) physical influx, which holds that bodies affect minds,10
associated with the Scholastics, Locke, Wolff, and Knutzen, as well as such figures as
Kenelme Digby, John Sergeant, Walter Charleton, Pierre Gassendi,11 and (3) spiritual
influx, which holds that material bodies are inert, and that all motion must, therefore, come
from non-material vital or animating principles, such as spirits or minds. When applied to
cognition, the spiritual influx theory stresses the importance of the subject's spontaneous
and vivifying activity in transforming the inert matter of sensibility into cognition.12 The
9. Precisely how Descartes can hold a form of mutual interactionism given the apparent
radicalism of his substance dualism is quite problematic. See Margaret Wilson, "Descartes on
the Origin of Sensation," Philosophical Topics 19 (1991 ):293-323.
10. In Arcana Coelestia. no. 6322, Swedenborg offers a nice statement of the physical influx
doctrine: "it is according to all appearance that the external sense, as the sight and hearing,
flow into the through, and excite ideas there; for it appears that objects, and also speech,
move the senses, first the external, and then the internal senses." Elsewhere, Swedenborg
attributes the doctrine to the Scholastics. See Soul-Bodv Interaction, in Emanuel
Swedenborg, The Universal Human and Soul-Bodv Interaction. 254.
11. See Eileen O’Neill's important essay 'Tnfluxus Phvsicus." in Steven Nadler, ed., Causation
in Early Modem Philosophy: Cartesianism. Occasionalism, and Preestablished Harmony
(University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993). In confining myself to
accounts of mind-matter interactions (specifically accounts of the cognition of corporeal
objects), 1 am using a narrower sense of physical influx than O'Neill.
12. In Arcana Coelestia. no, 6322, Swedenborg discusses the spontaneity of consciousness:
"what is external, being gross and material, cannot flow into and move what is internal, which
is pure and spiritual: this is contrary to nature. It is the internal sense, that is the sense o f the
spirit itself, which senses through the external sense and disposes the external sense organs
fsensorium externum] to receive objects according to its dictates; and therefore the sense
organs. .. instantly accommodate themselves to all objects in accordance with the nature of
these; which would not take place in the sense organs fsensoriis] unless there were an influx
from within" (trans. modified).
91
system o f spiritual influx is defended by the Savoyard Vicar in book four of Rousseau's
Emile (Emile. 272-3). It is defended in Dreams 1.1. and 1.2. It is defended by
Swedenborg.13 The spontaneity of consciousness is, furthermore, a central tenet of Kant's
mature critical philosophy.
Although, logically speaking, there are only four possible types of answers to the
question of soul-body interaction-non-interactionism, mutual interactionism, physical
influx, and spiritual influx—only three "live options" were debated throughout the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: occasionalism, physical influx, and preestablished
harmony. Leibniz established this tripartite classification.14 It was then taken up by Wolff
and became a commonplace in eighteenth-century German philosophy.15
There is some sense to Leibniz's narrower classification. First, to my knowledge, no
thinker has held that bodies can affect minds but that minds cannot affect bodies.
Historically speaking, therefore, the concepts of mutual interactionism and physical influx
are co-extensive, and are both referred to as systems o f physical influx. Second, it is
tempting to reduce the system of spiritual influx to occasionalism. Swedenborg himself
notes that some people call spiritual influx "occasional influx."16 Furthermore, as we shall
see in chapter seven, according to Swedenborg's conception of providence, God is far more
13. In the Arcana Coelestia. Swedenborg serializes a treatise "Concerning Influx, and the
Intercourse of the Soul and the Body," after his commentaries on Genesis, chapters 46-30
(AC nos. 6053-58, 6189-215, 6307-27, 6466-96, 6598-6626). See also his De Commercio
Animae et Corporis of 1769. In the latter volume, Swedenborg attributes the system of
spiritual influx to the Cartesians (Soul-Bodv Interaction. 254). Swedenborg seems to defend
a theory of physical influx in his earlier treatise, Concerning the Mechanism o f the Soul's and
the Body's Operation, published as the second part o f the Prodromus philosophiae
ratiocinantis de infinite et causa finali creationis: deque mechanismo operationis animae et
corporis (Dresdae et Lipsiae: Frederici Hekelii, 1734); in English: The Infinite and the Final
Cause of Creation, also the Intercourse Between the Soul and the Body. Outlines of a
Philosophical Argument, trans. J.J.G. Wilkinson (London: Swedenborg Society, 1902).
14. See, inter alia. "First Truths" (ca. 1680-84); the Letter to Amauld o f July 14, 1786; and
"A New System of the Nature and the Communication of Substances, as Well as the Union
Between the Soul and the Body" (1695), all in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Philosophical
Papers and Letters, ed. and trans. Leroy E. Loemker, 2nd ed. (Boston: Kluwer, 1989).
15. See Christian Wolff, Psvchologia Rationalis (1728V §§ 558-88, in his Gesammelte
Schriften. ed. H.W. Arndt, et. al. (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1965), part n, vol. 6.
16. Soul-Bodv Interaction. 227.
92
involved in creation than even according to Malebranchers occasionalism. Swedenborg is
not, however, an occasionalist, if occasionalism implies that God is the only agent, and that
there is no real interaction between finite created substances. Moreover, the systems of
spiritual influx presented in Emile and in Dreams betray no hint o f occasionalism. Finally,
logically speaking, the system of spiritual influx is consistent with deism and even atheism
and cannot, therefore, be identified with occasionalism.
It is interesting to note that Kant himself may have appreciated the difference
between systems of spiritual influx and occasionalism. Kant mentions three systems of soul-
body interaction in the Critique of Pure Reason, but with an interesting difference.17 Kant
does not speak of occasionalism as such, but of the system of "supernatural assistance," a
peculiar locution that certainly covers occasionalism, but also, as we shall see, covers (and
may have been intended to cover) the system of spiritual influx found in Swedenborg,
Rousseau, and in Dreams 1.1. and 1.2.18
In addition to staking out a position in this philosophical controversy, Kant was also
trying to unravel a more personal knot. Kant's early writings possess a curious pathos
generated by the unresolved tension between two principles which he held to be equally
true.
On the one hand, he was completely convinced of the Newtonian view o f the world,
including the human body, as a complex machine, a system of material bodies completely
determined in accordance with the laws of motion and requiring no recourse to such
explanatory principles as teleology, special providence, or spiritual influxes, including free
will.19 The clearest sign of the early Kant's Newtonianism is his "physical" monadology,
17. Critique of Pure Reason. A390, in the A edition Paralogisms of Pure Reason.
18. Kant, o f course, rejects the dogmatic system o f supernatural assistance, but his attitude
toward spiritual influx cannot be fully appreciated from the Critique of Pure Reason alone, for
in the Critique of Practical Reason. Kant's treatment o f the feeling of respect for the moral law
bears strong resemblance to the spiritual influx doctrine of Dreams 1.2, which we treat in
chapter seven below.
19. Richard Hassing has argued convincingly that Newton's formulations of the laws of
motion do not entail metaphysical commitments to reductionism, materialism, and omni
determinism. Kant's formulations of the laws of motion, however, do entail such metaphysical
commitments. See Richard Hassing, "Wholes, Parts, and Laws o f Motion," Nature and
93
which reduces matter to geometrical points and accounts for extension in terms of a field of
repulsive force emanated by each point. This geometrical ballet of forces is, of course,
precisely how the world appears to modem mathematical physics. Kant's early metaphysics
identifies reality with those phenomena subject to the methods o f mathematical physics.20
On the other hand, Kant was equally convinced o f the freedom, dignity, and moral
responsibility of the human person, a conviction which he received at his mother's knee and
which was powerfully reinforced in his thirties by his encounter with the writings of
Rousseau. Kant declared Rousseau to be the Newton o f the moral world, the discoverer of
the moral "laws o f freedom" (Gesetzen der Frevheit) as opposed to the physical laws of
determinism.21
Rousseau, however, identified nature with the good, and this led to a problem, for
there was good reason to think that Rousseau accepted a materialistic and deterministic
philosophy of nature. For instance, as an admirer of Lucretius and a careful reader of
Rousseau, Kant probably did not overlook the broadly Epicurean character of Rousseau's
account of the evolution of man and society in his Discourse on the Origins of Inequality
(1754). Furthermore, in his famous letter to Voltaire of August 18, 1756 on providence,
Rousseau defends the idea of universal causal determination and rejects the notion that there
are random, inexplicable events in nature that cannot be subsumed under and explained in
terms of universal and eternal natural laws.22
System 6 (1984): 195-215 and "Animals Versus the Laws o f Inertia," The Review of
Metaphysics 46 ( 1992):29-61.
20. Kant held this view throughout his philosophical career, forcefully reasserting it after his
Copemican revolution in his Metaphysical Foundations o f Natural Science (1786), trans.
James W. Ellington, in Immanuel Kant, Philosophy of Material Nature (Indianapolis: Hackett,
1985), AK 4:470; Ellington, 7.
21. Bemerkungen. AK 20:58-9; Rischmuller, 48; my trans. On the project of Newtonian
moral philosophy, cf. the conclusion to the Kritik der praktischen Vemunft (Riga: Johann
Friedrich Hartknoch, 1788), AK 5:163; in English: Critique of Practical Reason, trans. Lewis
White Beck (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1956), 167-8; henceforth cited as Beck; see also the
translation in Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy, ed. and trans. Mary J. Gregor
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 270; henceforth cited as Gregor.
22. Rousseau, Letter to Voltaire, August 18, 1756, trans. Terence E. Marshall, in The
Collected Writings of Rousseau, vol. 3, ed. Roger D. Masters and Christopher Kelly (Hanover
and London: Dartmouth College/University Press of New England, 1992). Although there is
94
Now, these two perspectives are not wholly consistent, for Epicureanism treats the
order of nature as the evolutionary by-product o f chaos, whereas the letter on providence
treats chaos as merely an illusion fostered by our ignorance of the eternal and regular laws
which explain everything. However, from the practical point o f view, both perspectives are
identical, for freedom is just as much excluded from an Epicurean chaos as it is from a
Newtonian cosmos. But, if Rousseau's philosophy of nature provides no place for freedom,
dignity, and moral responsibility, then his identification of nature and goodness is absurd and
the idea of moral "laws o f freedom" is an oxymoron.
Rousseau's moral philosophy is, therefore, in direct contradiction with his natural
philosophy, which raises the question: How does the human world, with its laws of
freedom, fit into the physical world, with its laws of necessity? Moral freedom and
complete physical determinism cannot exist in the same world. The laws of nature and the
laws of freedom cannot be reconciled within a single system. Something has to give. Susan
Shell nicely encapsulates the aporia of Kant's Rousseauian ethics as follows.
The ‘Remarks’ . . . leave us with two principles of world ‘unity’, two forces of
‘attraction’ whose relation remains unresolved: a ‘natural instinct of active
benevolence’ rooted in sexual desire (and inequality), and a non-instinctual
benevolence associated with the free community of equals . . . . The first is
‘indeterminate’ and destabilizing, but also dynamic; the second is determinately
bound up with the timeless concept of a perfected moral/political whole.23
Elsewhere I have argued that in the Profession de foi du vicaire Savoyard in book
four of Emile. Rousseau himself solves this problem by adopting a dualistic metaphysics
which holds that there are two worlds, the material and the spiritual, which are governed by
no positive evidence that Kant read Rousseau's letter, the letter was illicitly published and
widely available.
23. Susan Meld Shell, "Kant's Political Cosmology," in Essays on Kant's Political Philosophy.
ed. Howard Lloyd Williams (Chicago: University o f Chicago, 1992), 105.
95
distinct sets o f laws and in which mankind holds dual citizenship.2* Kant was, of course, a
careful reader of Emile, but I shall argue below that although both the method and the
content of Kant's own solution are sketched out in Emile. Kant's primary debt to Rousseau
is methodological whereas the content o f his new dualistic metaphysics is Swedenborgian.
The second sense o f the tangled metaphysical knot, then, is: What is the place of
spirit (free, responsible, and dignified) in the world of Newtonian bodies (inert, passive,
fungible)? The question to which Swedenborg is the answer is: How do we salvage our
humanity in the Newtonian pinball machine?
4. The Meaning of "Spirit" (f 2)

At the beginning of the second paragraph o f Dreams 1.1, Kant claims that he knows
neither whether spirits exist, nor to what the word "spirit" refers. He is dissatisfied with the
view of "certain modem philosophers" who simply define a spirit as a being endowed with
reason, for this would imply that human beings, as beings endowed with reason, are spirits.
But at most our spirits are only a part of us—and an invisible part at that. Because spirits
are invisible, they are not given in experience, but only referred to with words. And as it
turns out, the meaning of the word "spirit" is quite obscure.
This presents a problem. When we wish to clarify the meaning of most words, all
we need do is look at the objects referred to. But spirits are invisible. The concept of a
spirit is not, therefore, derived from experience by a process of abstraction. It is, instead,
what Kant calls a "surreptitious" (erschlichene) concept, a concept which is "the product of
covert and obscure references within experience; these concepts then proceed to propagate
themselves by attaching themselves to other concepts, without there being any awareness of
the experience itself on which they were originally based or of the inference which formed
the concept on the basis of that experience" (AK 2:320, n; Walford, 308, n; Goerwitz, 42,
n; Walford, trans.).
24. Gregory R. Johnson, "Rousseau, Kant, and the Theodicy o f the Human World," in The
Cultural Turn: Essays in Honor of Donald Phillip Verene. ed. Glenn Alexander Magee
(forthcoming).
96
Kant is, however, carefui to note that while many a surreptitious concept is merely
an "illusion of the imagination," others are nevertheless true, for even "murky inferences"
are not always erroneous. Surreptitious though it may be, therefore, we cannot simply
discard the concept of spirit, for it may actually refer to something.
We must, therefore, clarify its meaning, and since we cannot do so by looking at its
referent, Kant proposes an alternative method. Even though we do not understand the
meaning of the world "spirit," we use it all the time, which clearly indicates that the concept
has some sort o f meaning—what Kant refers to as a "hidden sense"—even if it refers only to
a figment o f the imagination. In order to unfold and articulate the hidden sense of the
concept, Kant proposes to compare his ill-understood concept to the various usages o f the
word, noting those cases in which the concept seems rightly or wrongly applied.
This method accords with Kant's moral populism and methodological pragmatism.25
Note that Kant grants the possibility that common concepts, even though they are not
derived in a manner that can be validated by philosophy, might nonetheless be true, while
concepts derived by approved methods could just as well be false. It is, in short, possible
that unmethodical practical approaches to knowledge might produce truth where methodical
theoretical approaches might fail.
Note also that Kant employs this common concept of a spirit and its everyday usage
as the standard by which he judges the concepts methodically elaborated by philosophers.
Kant seems, in short, to believe not only that practical knowledge may be superior to
25. By Kant’s “p op u lism ,” I mean his sentiment o f solidarity with the common man against
the elite, which is one o f the implications of his Rousseau-inspired turn from the primacy of
theoretical reason to the primacy of practical reason. This populist sentiment is most clearly
expressed in the most famous o f his Bemerkungen:
I am by inclination an inquirer. I feel in its entirety a thirst for knowledge and a

yearning restlessness to increase it, but also satisfaction in each forward step. There
was a time when I thought that this alone could constitute the honor of mankind, and I
despised the people, who know nothing. Rousseau set me right. This blind prejudice
vanished. I learned to honor human beings and I would be more useless than the
common worker if I did not believe this view could give worth to all others to
establish the rights of mankind. (AK 20:44; Rischmuller, 38; trans. Shell, The
Embodiment o f Reason. 81)
97
theoretical knowledge, but that it can serve as the standard by which theoretical knowledge
can be judged. As we shall see, Kant's implicit populism and pragmatism are made fully
explicit and are used as new grounds for believing in the reality of the spirit world in the
conclusion to the first part of Dreams (1.4).
S. Material and Immaterial Substances (f 3)

In paragraph three, Kant proposes a thought experiment. Take a cubic foot of space
and imagine that something fills it, i.e., an extended substance. Kant defines an extended
substance as a substance which exercises a "repulsive force," repelling the attempts of other
beings to invade and occupy its space. Such a being, it is claimed, would never be called a
spirit. It is instead a material or corporeal substance. Material substances are characterized
as extended, impenetrable, capable of division, and subject to the laws of motion.26
Kant then bids us to imagine a spirit as defined by the current schools of philosophy,
i.e., as a simple being endowed with reason. Kant proposes to deal with this simple rational
being gua simple being, not gua rational, i.e., he proposes to treat it not in terms of its
internal quality of rationality, but in terms of its external relations.
Does such a being so treated fully correspond to the popular concept of a spirit?
The answer is no, for if we were to put such a rational being into the aforementioned cubic
foot filled with matter, we would have to remove a corresponding portion of matter to make
room for it. For each additional rational being we add, we would have to subtract an
additional portion of matter, until at last the entire cube would be packed full of rational
beings. This cube of rational beings would not only be extended, it would offer resistance
to other beings, be divisible, and be subject to the laws of motion. It would, in short, be
indistinguishable from an aggregate of simple material substances. The concept o f a simple
being endowed with reason would not, therefore, answer to the common concept of a spirit.
What would answer to the common concept is a being that could be present in space
that is already occupied by matter, a being that lacks the property of impenetrability and will
never constitute a solid whoie, no matter how many of them are united together. Such
26. See Physical Monadology. propositions i-viii (AK 1:477-83; Walford, 53-60);
Metaphysical Foundations, ch. 2 (AK 4:496-502; Ellington, 40-49).
98
beings are called immaterial beings. ImmateriaT beings endowed with reason are spirits.
And as immaterial rational beings, spirits are not extended; they do not exercise a repulsive
force against material beings; they are not divisible; they are not subject to the laws of
motion; and as we shall see, they are, by implication, invisible.27
In a note, Kant distinguishes between finite spirits, which "belong to the universe as
parts" and "the infinite spirit, who is its creator and sustainer," i.e., God. Kant's discussion is
confined to finite spirits. He claims that it is easy to form a concept of the spiritual nature of
God, "for it is merely negative, and consists in denying to it the properties of matter, which
are incompatible with an infinite and absolutely necessary substance." By contrast, it is
difficult to form a concept of finite spirits, for the only model we have for spirit-body
relationships is body-body relationships, but the spiritual is precisely the non-bodily, the
incorporeal. (AK 2:32In; Walford, 309n; Goerwitz, 44n; my trans.)
6. Conceivability, Possibility, and Actuality (f 4)

In the fourth paragraph, Kant points out that to clarify the concept of a spirit is one
thing, to establish the possibility of spirits is another, and to establish the reality of spirits is
still another. He then offers as an example one of the "very sound and reliable proofs"
found in the writings o f philosophers: (1) Everything that thinks must be simple. (2) Every
rational being is simple. (3) The indivisible "I" is not distributed throughout a being which
is a composite o f material and immaterial substances, but is instead localized within it. (4)
Therefore, the human soul is a simple substance.28
This argument is, however, inadequate because: (I) it does not establish whether the
soul so conceived is material or immaterial, and (2) it does not establish whether spiritual
beings are even possible. Nor does it establish that they are actual. The difficulty in
27. Kant uses the same cubic foot thought-experiment in Metaphvsik Herder (1763-64), AK
28:145 as well as in Metaphvsik LI (mid-1770s), AK 28:272; in English: Lectures on
Metaphysics, ed. and trans. Karl Ameriks and Steve Naragon (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1997), 84; henceforth cited as Ameriks.
28. Walford (449, n4) offers two sources for this argument: Joachim Georg Danes (1714-
91), Elements metaphvsica (Jena, 1743), esp. Psvcholoeia metaphysics §4, and Alexander
Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714-62), Metaphvsica (Halle, 1739), §742.
99
establishing both the possibility and the actuality o f these beings is grounded in their
invisibility.
7. The Inconceivable Actuality of Spirit ( f S)

In the fifth paragraph, Kant warns against "rash decisions," specifically the inference
that spiritual beings are impossible because we cannot understand what makes them
possible. Kant argues that, although we do not and cannot know how spiritual beings are
possible, it is a non-sequitur to conclude that they are impossible. The source of this
erroneous inference is the natural prejudice in favor of experience. The natural tendency of
thought is to take familiar experiences as the starting point of all enquiry, to conceive all
new phenomena on the analogy of the familiar, and to dismiss all putative phenomena that
cannot be so conceived as impossible.
Kant offers a two-step argument against this error. First, he notes that the material
objects familiar to everyday experience have something uncanny about them. All matter is
extended. The extendedness of a material body consists in part in the possession o f a
resistance, a repulsive force that prevents other material bodies from occupying the space in
which it is extended.29 Experience can recognize the existence of this force, but it cannot
understand what makes it possible. The ultimate ground o f the extendedness of material
objects is, therefore, inscrutable. Everyday material entities suddenly seem uncanny. But
the inexplicability of what makes material extension possible would in no way license the
inference that such bodies are impossible, for they are clearly actual, even if we cannot
know what makes them possible.
The next step o f the argument deals with spiritual beings. Spiritual beings (defined
as immaterial rational beings), are not subject to the laws of motion. On the assumption
that subjection to the laws of motion is required for interaction with material bodies, we can
therefore conclude that they cannot interact with material bodies. On the assumption that it
is only by interaction with material bodies that an object can be given to the senses, spirits
29. See Physical Monadoloev. propositions v-viii (AK 1:480-83; Walford, 56-60);
Metaphysical Foundations, ch. 2 (AK 4:496-500; Ellington, 40-45); cf. Negative Magnitudes.
Section 2, 1 (AK 2:179-80; Walford, 218) and Inquiry (AK 2:287; Walford, 260).
100
cannot be given to the senses. Because spirits are immaterial, they cannot be understood
on the analogy of familiar material beings. Spirits, therefore, are unknowable by the senses
and have "a kind o f incomprehensibility" (AK 2:323; Walford, 311; Goerwitz, 46).
But the incomprehensibility of spirits no more justifies the inference of their
impossibility than the incomprehensibility of the ground o f matter implies its impossibility
The conclusion is that the possibility of spiritual beings can neither be proven nor refuted—
a remarkably agnostic claim for a "dogmatic" metaphysician.
It should also be noted that in this argument, Kant criticizes empiricism's prejudice
in favor o f what it takes to be common, everyday experience of material bodies.
Empiricism, by attempting to start with the ordinary and prosaic, finds itself skeptical of
the very spiritual entities that are no less a part of common knowledge than middle-sized
material objects. The metaphysician who is open to the possibility of spirits is, therefore,
closer to the common and everyday than the empiricist who denies their possibility.
8. The Presence of the Spirit in Space ( f f 6-7)

Paragraph six is devoted to arguing the thesis that spiritual beings, although simple
and non-extended, nonetheless take up space and have activity in it, although they do not
fill it. Kant uses an analogy to explain how a simple immaterial substance can occupy
space without filling it. In material bodies, even the simplest elements must nonetheless
occupy some space, else the body itself will not occupy space. But how can this be so,
given that the simplest elements o f a body are likened to points, which do not occupy space
but are, rather, the limits of space?
Kant answers that simple bodies, even if they are non-spatial points, can
nonetheless occupy space insofar as each material point possesses a field of repulsive force
around it. Through this field of force, the non-spatial material point can nonetheless hold
sway over an expanse of space. Thus, in the case of matter, filling space is completely
consistent with being a non-spatial point.30 The same, therefore, can be true of simple
spiritual beings. Simple spiritual beings do not, of course, emit fields of repulsive force,
30. Physical Monadoloev. propositions i-ii (AK 1:477; Walford, 53); Metaphysical
Foundations, ch. 1 (AK 4:480; Ellington, 18-19).
else they would be material beings. Nonetheless, it is possible that simple spiritual beings
might emit different fields of influence, allowing them to hold sway over a spatial domain
without filling it up.31
Kant ends paragraph six with two points. First, since a being's shape consists in the
limits of its spatial extension, and spiritual beings have no spatial extension, spiritual beings
have no shape. Second, with characteristic humility and open-mindedness, Kant invites his
readers to supply him with better reasons for the conjectured impossibility of spiritual
beings, asking them "to enlighten one who is eager to learn, and who, in the course of his
investigations, has often found himself confronted with Alpine peaks, where others only
see before them an easy and comfortable pathway, along which they advance, or think they
do1' (AK 2:324; Walford, 312; Goerwitz, 48; Walford, trans.).
If it is possible that simple spiritual beings might emit spiritual fields of influence,
allowing them to hold sway over a spatial domain without filling it up, this would allow
simple spiritual beings to hold sway over a spatial domain that is filled with matter, i.e., it
would allow spirits to hold sway over material bodies. This is the subject of paragraph
seven. Kant reminds the reader that the human soul has not been proved to be a spirit, but
asks him to imagine that it has been proven so anyway. He then raises the question,
"Where is the place of this human soul in the world o f bodies?" (AK 2:324; Walford, 312;
Goerwitz, 48; Walford, trans ). This question, he claims, is based upon a Cartesian
assumption mentioned in paragraph four: that the thinking "I" occupies a particular place in
the body, and this place is distinct from the other parts of the body which are not occupied
by the “I" but simply owned by it.
Against this Cartesian position, Kant cites the evidence of common experience:
31. Kant makes essentially the same distinction, between "virtual" and "local" presence, in §
27 of the Inaugural Dissertation of 1770. Kant, Inaugural Dissertation. On the Form and
Principles of the Sensible and Intelligible World. AK 2:414; Walford, 409-10; trans. Walford;
cf. Inaugural Dissertation. § 30, Note. The same distinction is recorded in several sets of
student notes on Kant's Lectures on Metaphysics. See Metaphvsik LI of the mid-1770s (AK
28:282; Ameriks, 92), Metaphvsik Mroneovius of 1782-83 (AK 29:909; Ameriks, 275),
Metaphvsik Dohna o f 1792-93 (AK 28:685; Ameriks, 386-7), and Metaphvsik Vigilantius.
a.k.a. Metaphvsik K3. of 1794-95 (AK 29:1027-8; Ameriks, 495).
102
. . . no one is immediately conscious o f a particular place in his body; one is only
immediately conscious of the space which one occupies relatively to the world
around. I would therefore . . say, for the time being: Where I feel, it is there that I
am. I am as immediately in my fingertip as I am in my head. It is I myself whose
heel hurts, and whose heart beats with emotion. And when my heel hurts, I do not
feel the painful impression in some nerve located in my brain; I feel it at the end of
my toe. No experience teaches me to regard some parts of my sensation of myself
as remote from me. Nor does any experience teach me to imprison my indivisible
"I" in a microscopically tiny region of the brain .. . (AK 2:324-5; Walford, 312;
Goerwitz, 49; trans. Walford)
Because of this experiential evidence, Kant demands a rigorous demonstration before he

will dismiss as absurd the "scholastic" formula, "Mv soul is wholly in mv whole body, and
wholly in each o f its parts" (AK 2:325; Walford, 313; Goerwitz, 49; Walford, trans.).32
He then adds three points. First, he reaffirms the value of common experience as a
starting point for philosophical investigations: "Sound common sense often apprehends a
truth before it understands the reasons by means of which it can prove or explain that
truth" (AK 2:325; Walford, 313; Goerwitz, 49; trans. Walford). Second, he claims that he
would not be disconcerted by the objection that his conception of the soul as diffused
32. Walford (449, n il) claims that this phrase derives from Daries, Elementa metaphvsica.
esp. Psvchologia rationalis § 103 and Corollary I, which contains the phrase, "totam animam
in toto corpora omnibusque partibus corpori oreanicis praesentam esse." The idea is,
however, clearly much older: cf. Hobbes, The Elements of Law. Part 1: Human Nature
(1640): "It is a plain contradiction in natural discourse to say of the soul of man, that it is tota
in toto. and: tota in qualibet parte corporis, grounded neither upon reason nor revelation."
See Thomas Hobbes, The Elements o f Law. Natural and Politic, ed. J.C.A. Gaskin (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1994), 66. To my knowledge, the earliest formulations of this idea
are to be found in Plotinus, Ennead IV.7, On the Immortality of the Soul ch. 8.2.
Versions of this principle are found in the Metaphvsik Mroneovius: "The ancients also
said: anima est tota in corpore. sed totum tamen in parte ejus [the soul is whole in the body,
but yet wholly in a part of it]" (AK 29-909; Ameriks, 274; Ameriks, trans.); in Metaphvsik K2
(early 1790s). "The ancients said: the soul is wholly in the whole body, and wholly in each
part, i.e., nothing more than: where the human body is, there the soul is as well" (AK 28:757;
Ameriks, 398; trans. Ameriks); and in Metaphvsik Vicdlantius: "The ancients rather said.
anima est tota in toto corpore et tota in quavis parte [the soul is whole in the whole body and
whole in any part]" (AK 29:1029; Ameriks, 496; trans. Ameriks).
103
throughout the body is similar to the naTve illustration o f the soul for children in the "orbis
pictus" of the Czech philosopher, theologian, and encyclopaedist Comenius (see Figure).33
Kant insists that his assertion that the soul is present in space implies only that it has a
sphere of activity; it does not imply that it has extension, shape, or a multiplicity of internal
parts.34 Third, he concludes by observing that if his experience of the soul's extension
throughout the body is proven mistaken, then he would know nothing at all of the soul's
place in the body, and would be more content with this agnosticism than with the Cartesian
position.35
9. Against Physicalism ( f 8)
Paragraph eight is devoted to arguments against the physicalist hypothesis that the
mind is simply the brain, or part of the brain. According to such physicalists, Kant's
hypotheses suffers from "incomprehensibility" and "impossibility." Kant, however, turns
33. John Amos Komensky, also known as Comenius (1592-1670), Orbis sensualium pictus.
noc est omnium fundamentalium in mundo rerum et in vita actionum picture et nomenclatura
("The Painted World of the Things we Perceive, Being the Pictures and Names of all the
Fundamentals in the World of Things and the Life of Actions") (Numberg, 1658). The Orbis
pictus was widely used in the eighteenth century, particularly by Pietists, so Kant may have
encountered it in his childhood. He mentions a generic Orbis pictus in his Uber Padagoeik
§70. See Kant on Education, trans. Annette Churton (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner
& Co., 1899), 74; henceforth cited as Churton.
34. In the Metaphysical Foundations (AK 4:497; Ellington, 41), Kant is careful to distinguish
between filling and occupying spaces. This distinction is applicable here: Physical monads fill
spaces insofar as their presence excludes other physical monads. Spiritual monads can occupy
space without filling it, insofar as their presence does not exclude physical monads from
occupying the same space.
35. Johann Heinrich Lambert, in his Brief an Holland, April 7, 1766, writes:
Shortly after posting my last letter, I received a little treatise: Dreams o f a

Spirit-Seer Elucidated bv Dreams o f Metaphysics, by Magister Immanuel Kant. This
philosopher, with whom I among others have the greatest affinity of thought,
recommends therein Comenius's Orbus pictus if one wishes to fashion an image o f the
human soul. Because of this, I decided to recommend this in itself original little
treatise to you, and especially the aforementioned position. (My trans.)
See Johann Heinrich Lamberts deutscher aelehrter BriefwechseL ed. Johann Bernoulli, vol. 1
(Berlin: bey dem Herausgeber/Dessau: in der Buchhandlung der Gelehrten, [1781]), 136.
Malter, 124-5.
104
the tables on those who accuse him o f obscurantism, likening these tough-minded
materialists to exotic "wise men" dispensing their revelations to awed disciples sitting at
their feet. He describes their conception of the soul as a tiny spider sitting at the center of
a web of nerve fibres, awaiting the vibrations that announce the entanglement of some
unfortunate fly.
Kant's critique of this position is two-pronged. First, he examines the origin of the
idea in common experience. Second, he examines the hypothesis's practical implications.
His method is, in short, both populist and pragmatic. What he does not do is examine the
philosophical arguments for physicalism, nor does he respond to them in kind, claiming
that propositions of the type he is examining admit of very superficial proof to begin with;
therefore, they can be refuted only in a comparably weak fashion. He therefore sets aside
the quest for a rigorous critique, being unwilling to involve himself in mere "scholarly
wrangles in which it is commonly the case that both sides have the most to say precisely
when their ignorance of the subject is the most complete" (AK 2:326; Walford, 314;
Goerwitz, 51; trans. Walford). Again, for a "dogmatic" metaphysician, he has a
remarkable sense of the limits of reason's powers and an unusual disdain for rigorous
scholarly polemics.
Kant's first line of weak criticism, in which he examines the experiential origins of
the physicalist hypothesis, is found in a footnote. The claim that the mind is identical to the
brain seems to be based upon the experience of strain in the nerves of the brain when one
engages in deep thought. But this kind of argument cannot establish its conclusion, for as
soon as we examine mental activities other than reflective thought—such as anxiety, joy,
anger, and pity~we are led to position these parts of the soul in the heart, the diaphragm,
or the intestines.36 Kant also mentions alleged instances of injuries in which substantial
36. In the same note, Kant explains why our heads become tired when we reflect. Kant
distinguishes between "ideas" and "signs." Ideas require signs to be "awakened." Signs must
"accompany" and "support" ideas "to attain the required degree of clarity." The signs that
accompany our ideas are primarily received either through hearing or sight, which impart
vibrations to the adjacent parts of the brain. Kant identifies these vibrating signs with
Descartes' "ideas materiales." He claims that they are "really a stimulation o f the nerves to a
motion similar to that which is produced by sensation." In reflection, the generation of ideas
will give rise to the associated signs, the vibrating ideas materiales which will cause "the tissue
105
parts o f a personrs brain have been damaged or lost without loss of life or impairment of
thought—an outcome that would be simply impossible if the mind were identical to the
brain as a whole (but which is, one might object, quite possible if the mind is identified with
only part of the brain).
Kant's second line of weak criticism is to examine the practical implications of the
physicalist hypothesis. First, according to physicalism, the soul is simply another piece of
matter. Since the soul's rationality is an "inner property," it follows that, on the physicalist
hypothesis, there are no external marks by which an ensouled piece of matter can be
distinguished from a non-ensouled piece of matter. This implies that any and all pieces of
matter might well be ensouled. If this is the case, however, then Leibniz's joke that in
drinking our coffee we are swallowing atoms destined to become human souls would no
longer be a laughing matter.37 Second, if the soul is material, then it must suffer the fate of
all material beings: mortality, annihilation. Drawn by Epicurean contingency from the
chaos of matter, to chaos it would eventually return. A material soul cannot be immortal,
and Kant treats this implication as a reductio ad absurdum of physicalism.
Kant concludes paragraph eight with a noteworthy sentence: "It is sometimes
necessary to startle the thinker who has gone astray by drawing his attention to the
consequences of his error, so that he pays more careful attention to the principles by means
o f which he has allowed himself to be led on, as in a dream" (AK 2:327; Walford, 314;
Goerwitz, 52; Walford, trans.). Contrary to the received view, it is not the Leibnizian
rationalists who are being identified with dreamers and spirit-seers, but rather the tough-
minded Epicurean materialists. (La Mettrie comes to mind.) The physicaiists are the most
of the brain. . . to vibrate in harmony with the former impression, and thereby grow tired"
(AK 2:326n; Walford, 3 13-14n; Goerwitz, 50-5 In; my trans.). On ideas materiales. see
Descartes, Treatise on Man. in The World and Other Writings, ed. and trans. Stephen
Gaukroger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 149-50. For Kant's thoughts on
ideas materiales. Walford (449, nl3) suggests two other sources: Christian Wolff Philosophia
rationalis (Frankfurt, 1728) § 102 et passim, and Friedrich Christian Baumeister (1709-85),
Philosophia definitiva (Wittenberg. 1735).
37. Kant's likely source for this story is Michael Gottlob Hansche, Godefridi Guilelmi
Leibnitti Principia philosophia more geometrico demonstrata (Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1728),
135.
106
extravagant o f spirit seers, because, on their account of spirits, everything we see, insofar
as it is material, could be a spirit. They are dreamers, or, more accurately, sleepwalkers,
because, mesmerized by their theories, they tumble into the pit of mortalism and atheism.
(Many such theorists, of course, walked in with eyes wide open.) Contrary to the received
view, the "dogmatic" metaphysician does not blunder into spiritualist dreams. Indeed, it is
the role of "dogmatic" metaphysics to startle the physicalist dreamers awake.
10. Living and Dead Bodies ( f 9)

Paragraph nine concludes the chapter. Kant begins with a confession. He is quite
inclined to assert the existence of immaterial natures and to include his own soul in their
company. In a note, he confesses further that he does not fully understand the source of
these convictions, and he expects that it will remain obscure to him.
This source is the apparent distinction between living and non-living matter. Dead
matter is determined solely by external forces, whereas living matter is spontaneous, active,
and self-determining. The source of this spontaneity and self-determination cannot lie in
the material component of living beings; it must, therefore, be found in an immaterial
component. Given the hypothetical nature of such immaterial sources of life, it is not
surprising that they are, and are likely to remain, obscure. At the most we can distinguish
between the immaterial principles of animal life and the immaterial principles we call
rational natures.
The existence of spiritual beings and their intercourse with the body are hard to
comprehend. But this incomprehensibility itself is not difficult to comprehend. All our
concepts o f the interactions of beings are derived from our experience of the interactions of
material beings. These concepts do nothing to illuminate the interactions of material and
immaterial beings.
Kant asserts that immaterial spirits would not exert force within the nexus of
external physical relations that inhere between material bodies, else they would be physical
themselves. He then ventures that immaterial spirits may, however, have the power to act
upon "the inner principles of their states. .. . For every substance, including even a simple
element of matter, must after all have some kind of inner activity as the ground of its
producing an externa! effect, and that in spite ofthe fact that I cannot specify in what that
inner activity consists" (AK 2:328; Walford, 315; Goerwitz, 53-4; trans. Walford). (In a
note, he defends Leibniz's suggestion that the inner ground of a substance's external
relations and their changes is the power of representation.) He also suggests that his
account would not only explain how souls can affect bodies, but how bodies affected by
external bodies can come to cognize them.
Kant then ends the chapter on a typically humble and skeptical note. He claims that
the processes by which soul and body are joined and sundered "transcend the capacity of
my understanding," and that, "I am not normally particularly bold in measuring the capacity
of my understanding against the mysteries of nature" (AK 2:328; Walford, 316; Goerwitz,
54; Walford, trans.). He adds, however, that these limitations apply to his opponents as
well. Thus he is comfortable entertaining his hypotheses and cultivating his convictions,
secure that his opponents, in their equal ignorance, have no better alternatives to offer.
Again, an astonishingly skeptical conclusion for an allegedly uncritical, "dogmatic"
metaphysician.
Reproduced with permission o fth e copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Chapter Five:
The Spirit World as Metaphysical Hypothesis:
Dreams L2: "A Fragment of Occult Philosophy
to Reveal Our Community with the Spirit World,"
Paragraphs 1-7
I am as much inclined as anyone to believe in a world beyond the visible, and I have
enough poetic and vital drive that even my own constricted self expands to feel a
Swedenborgian spirit world.
—Goethe, Letter to Lavater, 17811
1. Overview of Dreams L2
Dreams 1.2 is a continuation of the argument of Dreams 1.1 by the same authorial
persona. Dreams 1.2 consists of fifteen paragraphs and is divided into three main sections.
The first paragraph is introductory. The first section, comprising paragraphs two through
seven, sets forth metaphysical reasons for advancing, as the authorial persona's hypothesis, a
philosophical reconstruction o f Swedenborg's spirit world. These paragraphs are the topic of
the present chapter. The second section, comprising paragraphs eight and nine, sets forth
reasons drawn from moral experience for believing in the hypothesis of a spirit world. This
section is the topic of chapter seven. The third section, comprising paragraphs ten through
fifteen, discusses the epistemological conditions for the possibility o f influxes from the spirit
world. This section is the topic of chapter eight.
2. The Authorial Persona ( f 1)

The continuity o f authorial persona from the first chapter is displayed in the following
places.
1. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Briefe an J.K. Lavater. Goethes Werke. 134 vols. (Weimar:
Hermann Bohlau, 1887-1912), v., pt. iv., 213. Quoted in Kirven, "Swedenborg and Kant
Revisited,” 105.
108
In paragraph one, the author ironically draws parallels between the argument of the
previous chapter and an occult initiation rite: "The initiate has already accustomed the
untutored understanding, which clings to the outer senses, to concepts of an abstract
character. He is now able to see spirit-forms, stripped of their corporeal shell, in the weak
light of metaphysics which reveals the realm of shades. Let us now, therefore, having
completed our difficult preparation, embark upon our perilous journey." Then follows a
quotation from Virgil (AK 2:329; Walford, 316; Goerwitz, 55; trans. Walford):
Ibant obscuri sola sub nocte per umbras.

Perque domos Ditis vacuas et inania reena.
Now dim to one another, in desolate night they walked

on through the gloom,
Through Dis's homes all void and empty realms.2
Apparently the "perilous journey" that the reader is about to undertake is nothing less than
a katabasis into the spirit world, for this quote is drawn from Book vi of the Aeneid. "The
World Below." The two travellers are Aeneas and the Sibyl, his guide, which suggests an
identification of the author with the Sibyl and the reader with Aeneas. Their destination is
the underworld. To characterize the argument of Dreams 1.2 in this manner is not,
however, an unsympathetic parody, but a turn of self-deprecating irony, given that the
author of 1.2 immediately, and quite serious-mindedty, continues to develop the arguments
he has just characterized as an occult initiation.
The same persona is apparent two pages later, where the author, after reviewing
sympathetically several conjectures about the nature of organic life, remarks, "None of this
is necessary for my argument, for, apart from the fact that I have very little to say in favor
o f such conjectures, these conjectures, which are regarded as dusty and outmoded whims,
are also exposed to fashionable mockery" (AK 2:331, Walford 318; Goerwitz, 58; trans.
2. Virgil, The Aeneid. vi, 268-9, trans. Robert Fitzgerald (New York: Random House, 1981),
169.
110
Walford). Here the author admits something shameful. He refuses to adopt principles, not
only because he has little to say in their defense, but also because he is afraid of being
ridiculed for adopting "dusty and outmoded" ideas. This is clearly an ironic statement, for
the beliefs in question are far less dusty and outmoded, and far less subject to ridicule, than
the hypotheses about the spirit world that he does adopt and defend The likely purpose of
this shameful admission is to encourage the careful reader to reflect upon the motivations
for his own reservations and to shame those who are less concerned with seeking truth
than avoiding ridicule.
On the same page we find the statement that the ancient distinction between the
vegetative, animal, and rational souls is "something which, although, o f course, probably
not capable o f proof, was not for that reason absurd" (AK 2:331, Walford 318; Goerwitz,
58; trans. Walford). Here again, we have what appears to be a concession to anti
metaphysical prejudice, which is immediately taken back by asserting that what is not
provable by current metaphysical standards need not be absurd.
Also on the same page, the author refers to the appeal to immaterial principles in
the explanation of living phenomena-an appeal which he himself makes—as "the resort of
lazy philosophy." He continues.
For that reason, explanation of this sort is to be avoided at all costs, if the causes of
phenomena in the world, which are based upon the laws of the motion of mere
matter and which are uniquely and alone capable of intelligibility, are to be known
in their full extent. Nonetheless, I am convinced that Stahl, who is disposed to
explain animal processes in organic terms, was frequently closer to the truth than
Hofmann or Boerhaave. to name but a few. These latter, ignoring immaterial
forces, adhere to mechanical causes, and in so doing adopt a more philosophical
method. This method, while sometimes failing of its mark, is generally successful.
It is also this method alone which is of use in science. But as for the influx of
incorporeal beings: it can at best be acknowledged to exist; the nature of its
operation and the extent o f its effects, however, will never be explained. (AK
2:331; Walford, 318-19; Goerwitz, 59; trans. Walford, rev.; emphasis in original)
I ll
There is a clear irony in conceding that the materialist method is more "philosophical" and
"scientific” than the appeal to immaterial principles and then embracing immaterial
principles nonetheless-presumably because they come closer to the truth. The author's
contrast between the received understandings o f philosophy and science on the one hand
and the truth on the other clearly indicates: (1) that he regards these conceptions of
philosophy and science to be limited, and (2) that he is covertly appealing to other methods
for discovering and standards for evaluating the truth.
Another ironical statement appears at AK 2:333 (Walford 320; Goerwitz, 61).
After setting forth the main features of his account of the spirit world, the author remarks:
"The constant use of the careful language of reason is now actually becoming tiresome.
Why should I not be permitted, as well, to speak in the academical tone? It is more
decisive and it dispenses both the author and the reader from the duty of thinking" (trans.
Walford). The joke is clear. By contemporary academic standards, especially by the
standards of the Berlin Academy, the account of the spirit world in Dreams 1.2 is decidedly
not an example of "the careful language of reason"; it is an example of extravagant
enthusiasm. Yet the author claims that his enthusiastic theory is phrased in the careful
language of reason, while contemporary academical discourse combines a tone of certitude
with dogmatism and mindlessness, a conjunction which may indicate that the author thinks
that there is also a connection between genuine thoughtfulness and a tentative, self-
deprecating, and ironical tone—the very tone adopted by the author.
3. The Influx of Life 2)

Paragraphs two through seven are devoted to setting forth a philosophical
reconstruction of Swedenborg's account o f the spirit world as a metaphysical hypotheses
invented by the authorial persona whom I have dubbed the ironic metaphysician.
Paragraph two takes up the thread o f the argument of Dreams 1.1. It begins by
recalling the previous chapter's distinction between dead matter and the principles of
vitality, of life. Dead matter is characterized by solidity, extension, and shape. Its
activities can be explained mechanically, through the principles of mathematical physics.
112
The principles ofiife, on the other hand, do not have solidity, extension and shape.
Instead, they are characterized by an immaterial kind of interiority, an "inner activity."
They are not dead matter. Indeed, their function is to make dead matter alive. Therefore,
the principles ofiife are not explicable by means of mathematical physics.
Kant then offers a carefully worded hypothesis about the principles ofiife: "If one
turns one's attention to this type of being [i.e., living things], one will find oneself
persuaded, if not with the distinctness of a demonstration, then at least with the
anticipation o f a not untutored understanding, of the existence of immaterial beings" (AK
2:329; Walford, 316-17; Goerwitz, 56; trans. Walford).
Note the suggestive phrase, "anticipation of a not untutored understanding"
(Vorempfindune eines nicht ungebuten Verstandes). First of all, this phrase is further
evidence of the undogmatic character of this allegedly "dogmatic" metaphysician. He does
not claim demonstrative certainty for his hypothesis; instead, he offers it as an educated
guess. Second, we are entitled to wonder just what kind of education his guess has
received, i.e., just who has tutored our author's understanding. As we shall see in chapter
eleven below, Dreams II.2 gives us some reason to believe that Swedenborg himself is the
tutor.
Since the principles ofiife cannot be understood in terms o f mathematical physics,
Kant suggests that their activities are to be understood in terms of pneumatic and organic
laws: "The particular causal laws in terms o f which they operate are called pneumatic, and,
in so far as corporeal beings are the mediating causes of their effects in the material world,
they are called organic."
Kant then offers an even more daring suggestion: "Since these immaterial beings
are spontaneously active principles, and thus substances and natures existing in their own
right, it follows that the conclusion which first suggests itself is this: these immaterial
beings, if they are directly united, may perhaps together constitute a great whole, which
could be called the immaterial world (mundus intellieibilis)" (parentheses in original) (AK
2:329; Walford, 317; Goerwitz, 56; trans. Walford).
Kant then goes on to argue that it is far more plausible to think of the principles of
life existing in immediate community with one another than to suggest that their
113
interactions can take place only through the mediation o f the dead matter which they
animate, for this latter claim is "even more puzzling" than the idea of an immaterial world.
Kant's claim that all living things receive their life from the influx of a vital,
animating principle from an immaterial spirit world in which these principles interact in
accordance with distinctively organic or pneumatic laws is found throughout the Arcana
Coelestia. where Swedenborg claims that vegetable, animal, and rational souls alike are
influxes from the spirit world, and ultimately from God, who is life itself: "The case with
the life of everyone, whether man, spirit, or angel, is this: that it flows in solely from the
Lord, who is life itself' (AC, no. 2888), "As there cannot be more than only one fountain
of life. . . it is evident that all life is from the Lord, who is the first of life" (AC, no. 4524),
"Influx through heaven from the Lord produces all things that are in the three kingdoms of
the earth, especially the animal kingdom" (AC, no. 4322), and "There is an influx of the
Lord through heaven also into the subjects of the vegetable kingdom, as into trees of every
kind, and into the fructifications, and into plants of various kinds, and their multiplications"
(AC, no. 3648), (cf. AC, nos. 1399, 3001, 3338, 3484, 3629, 3648, 3742, 4321-23, 6314,
6321, 6466, and 6467).
4. The Immaterial World (f 3)

Paragraph three of Dreams 1.2 states that, "This immaterial world may . . . be
regarded as a whole existing in its own right; the parts o f that immaterial world stand in a
relation of reciprocal connection and community with each other, even without the
mediation of corporeal things" (AK 2:330; Walford, 317; Goerwitz, 56; trans. Walford).
In the material world, the relationships of spiritual beings are mediated through matter. In
the spirit world, spiritual beings stand in direct and immediate relationships to one another,
without the necessity of the mediation of matter. Furthermore, since the relationship of
spirit and matter is merely contingent, the relationship o f spiritual beings through the
mediation of matter is contingent as well and can be comprehended only as "resting upon
special divine providence" (AK 2:330; Walford, 317; Goerwitz, 57; trans. Walford).
By contrast, the relationship of spiritual beings to the spirit world is a necessary
one: to be a spiritual being is just to be in the spirit world; therefore, the relationship of
114
spiritual beings to one another in the spirit world would have a greater necessity than their
relationship to one another through their contingent relationship with matter, the
immediate relationship that exists among spirits is "natural and indissoluble" (AK 2:330;
Walford, 317; Goerwitz, 57; trans. Walford).
Swedenborg too claims that the relationships between spirits in the spirit world are
far more direct and mutually transparent than the relationships o f embodied spirits in the
material world. This is particularly clear in Swedenborg's comparisons of spiritual and
natural language; “Men, during their life in the body, cannot speak with one another except
by languages distinguished into articulate sounds, or expressions, and cannot understand
one another unless they are skilled in those languages.. .. But spirits converse with one
another by a universal language distinguished into ideas, such as are those of thought itself,
and thus can converse with any spirit, of whatever language and nation he had been in the
world” (AC, no. 2472; cf. nos. 1394, 4652, 5855, and 6199). Human thoughts can be
transmitted only through the material medium of articulated sounds (and written words, for
that matter). The very same material medium that allows us to reveal our thoughts,
however, also allows us to conceal, dissemble, and falsify them. Natural language is as
much a medium of lies, manipulation, and domination as it is of truth and candor. Natural
language is as opaque as it is transparent. Spiritual language, by contrast, is a direct form
of communication between one mind and another, requiring no material medium. The lack
of any need for a material medium for communicating thoughts also, however, means the
lack of any medium of falsehood and concealment. Spirits, therefore, are completely
transparent to one another; the mind o f each is an open book for the perusal o f all.5
3. In the Anthropology of 1798, Kant writes:
Since foolishness fTorrheit] combined with a trace of evil (which is then called folly
rNarrheitl) is an unmistakable feature of the moral physiognomy of our species, the
mere fact that any prudent man finds it necessary to conceal a good part of his
thoughts makes it clear enough that every member of our race is well advised to be on
his guard and not to reveal himself completely. And this already betrays the propensity
o f our species to be ill disposed to one another.
It could well be that some other planet is inhabited by rational beings who have
to think aloud—who, whether awake or dreaming, in company with others or alone,
can have no thoughts they do not utter. How would their behavior toward one
another then differ from that o f the human race? Unless they were all as pure as
angels, we cannot conceive how they would live together peacefully, have any respect
115
Swedenborg also would claim that the relationships among spirits in the spirit
world are more "necessary" and "natural" than the relationships of embodied spirits in the
material world, insofar as the spirit world can exist without the material world, but the
material world cannot exist without the spirit world, and the linkage of spirits to material
bodies is an additional, contingent relationship over and above the relationship between
spirits in the spirit world (AC, nos. 2991 and 3485).
However, although Swedenborg claims that spirits can, in principle, exist without
any relationship to material bodies, he claims that as a matter of contingent fact, all spirits
do spend at least part of their careers so linked, insofar as all inhabitants of the spirit world
are or were once the inhabitants o f the material world as well (AC, nos. 1880 and 5053).
Swedenborg would also warmly applaud the phrase "special divine providence," for as we
shall see, he was a strong advocate of particular providence.
S. The Immaterial World, Continued 4)

Paragraph four begins with a resume of the foregoing and then raises again the
topic of the principle of life: “If, in this way, we combine all the principle of life in the
whole of nature, construing them as so many incorporeal substances standing in
community with each other, while also construing them as in part united with matter, we
shall thereby imagine a great totality o f the immaterial world, an immeasurable but
unknown hierarchy of beings and active natures, in virtue of which alone the dead stuff of
the corporeal world is animated” (AK 2:330; Walford, 317; Goerwitz, 57; trans. Walford).
Kant tries to steer a sensible course between two rival accounts of the principle o f life:
"Hvlozoism. which animates all, and Materialism.. . . which kills all" (AK 2:330; Walford,
317-18; Goerwitz, 57; my trans.). Hylozoism is identified with the principles of Pierre
Louis de Moreau de Maupertuis (1698-1759) and Georg Ernst Stahl (1660-1734).
at all for one another, and get on well together. (AK 8:332; Dowdell, 250; Gregor,
192; Gregor trans.; emphasis in original)
116
Materialism is identified with the principles o f Friedrich Hofinan (1660-1742) and
Hermann Boerhaave (1668-1738).4
The argument runs as follows: the "undisputed characteristic mark of life" is "free
movement. .. springing from the power of choice" (AK 330; Walford, 318; Goerwitz, 57;
my trans.). The evidence for such free movement is readily available to the senses. And if
the existence of life is empirically verified, then materialism is empirically falsified.
To prove the falsehood of materialism is not, however, to prove the truth of
hylozoism. To prove empirically that some things are alive is not to prove empirically that
all things are alive. Indeed, we do not observe the characteristics of life everywhere. But
the fact that we do not presently observe life everywhere does not rule out the possibility
that we might eventually come to observe it everywhere. In sum. we are to conclude that
the existence of life is empirically verified; materialism is empirically falsified; and
hylozoism is empirically unverified, but not in principle unverifiable.
At this point, Kant digresses. He argues that the fact that we cannot observe free
movement in some things does not entitle us to conclude that they are not alive. He offers
the example o f plants. Boerhaave is cited as saying "somewhere" that "The animal is a
plant which has its root in its stomach (inside itself)" (AK 2:330-1; Walford, 318;
Goerwitz, 57; trans. Walford). Because an animal is nourished only from food that is
inside itself, it must have the capacity to put food inside itself; i.e., it must have the
capacity for free movement. A plant, however, can just as easily be described as "an
animal which has its stomach in its root (outside itself)" (AK 2:330; Walford, 318;
Goerwitz, 57; trans. Walford). Because a plant can draw nutrients directly from the
environment outside itself it has no need of the capacity for free movement; it can, instead,
passively absorb its sustenance from the world around it. Therefore, it is possible for
plants to be alive without displaying free movement.
The obvious conclusion here is that free movement is a sufficient but not a
necessary condition for assigning life to a given object. It does not, however, weaken the
argument against materialism. Materialism is refuted by a single example of a living thing,
4. Near the end of his life, Boerhaave abandoned materialism for a form of vitalism.
117
not by a universally valid definition o f a living thing. The digression ends with a phrase
indicating that it is in fact a digression: "None of this is necessary for my argument..."
The rest of the sentence introduces a new topic, which occupies the rest of the
paragraph: the scientific and philosophical credentials of appeals to immaterial principles, a
topic which is treated most ironically. The ancient division between vegetative, animal,
and rational souls is introduced as a useful distinction for understanding the difference
between'plants and animals and also for understanding the existence of one of the essential
qualities of life, irritability, even in the amputated parts of some animals. Apparently the
reasoning here is that the ancient idea of distinct souls allows us to make sense of the
animation o f distinct and separated body parts.
These rather tame suggestions are ushered in by a bodyguard o f ironic tropes, all of
which are discussed above in the section on "The Authorial Persona." First, Kant claims
that the conjectures he is about to offer are "dusty and outmoded whims" which would
subject one to "fashionable mockery." This suggests that he regards the dominant
materialism to rest less on scientific merit than on taddishness and prejudice. Then he
asserts that the division of the three souls is "unprovable" but not, for that reason,
"absurd." This indicates that he thinks that fashionable methods of proof should not be the
standard for what counts as reasonable or absurd. Both o f these assertions indicate Kant's
dissent from the regnant ideas of scientific explanation. Then he asserts that
. . . the appeal to immaterial principles is the resort of lazy philosophy. For that
reason, explanation of this sort is to be avoided at all costs, if the causes of
phenomena in the world, which are based upon the laws of the motion of mere
matter and which are uniquely and alone capable of intelligibility, are to be known
in their full extent. .. . [Hofmann and Boerhaave], ignoring immaterial forces,
adhere to mechanical causes, and in so doing adopt a more philosophical method.
This method . . . is generally successful. It is also this method alone which is of use
in science. (AK 2:331; Walford, 318-19; Goerwitz, 58-9; trans. Walford)
118
Now, this would seem to be a major concession to materialism; indeed, it sounds
like a ringing endorsement. But Kant does not let it go at that. He claims that,
"Nonetheless, I am convinced that Stahl [the vitalist], who is disposed to explain animal
processes in organic terms, was frequently closer to the truth than [the materialists]
Hofmann or Boerhaave.11 He then as that the mechanical method of materialism, while
more philosophic and scientific, "sometimes goes wide of its mark."
Again, by underlining the gap between fashionable science and philosophy on the
one hand and truth on the other, Kant registers his dissent from the prevailing modes of
explanation. He concludes the paragraph by stating that, fashionable philosophical and
scientific methods aside, nonetheless "the influence of incorporeal beings . .. can be best
acknowledged to exist; the nature of its operation and the extent of its effects, however,
will never be explained" (AK 2:331; Walford, 319; Goerwitz, 59; trans. Walford).
6. The Spirit World and the Unreality of Space and Time (f 5)

Paragraph five begins with an enumeration of the kinds o f beings which compose
the spirit world. First, the spirit world contains rational, animal, and vegetable souls:
This immaterial world would . .. include, firstly, created intelligences, some of

them being bound with matter so as to form a person, others not; the immaterial
world would, in addition, include the sensible subjects in all animal species; finally,
it would include all the other principles of life wherever they may exist in nature,
even though this life does not manifest itself by any o f the external characteristic
marks of voluntary motion.
Kant further divides these "immaterial natures" according to "whether they exercise their
influxes [Einflusse] on the corporeal world or not." He also divides "all rational beings, of
which the animal nature is an accidental state o f their being” into those which "exist here
on earth or on other heavenly bodies" and into those which are "now animating the raw
stuff o f matter, or will do so in the future, or have done so in the past" (AK 2:332;
Walford, 319; Goerwitz, 59; trans. Walford).
As we have seen, Swedenborg too claims that the spirit world is the source of the
animating principles of vegetable and animal life, as well as the dwelling place of the souls
of all rational beings, whether they are presently embodied, were embodied in the past, or
will become embodied in the future. The reference to the inhabitants of other heavenly
bodies is not merely a reference backward to Kant's discussions of the inhabitants of other
worlds in Part III of the Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens (1755), a
possibility which remained a "live option" for him for the rest of his philosophical career.
It is also consistent with Swedenborg's accounts o f his psychic conversations with the
spirits of extraterrestrial beings appended to each chapter of his commentary on Exodus in
Arcana Coelestia. vols. vi-viii.5
Next, paragraph five deals with the mode o f "community" (Gemeinschaft) in the
spirit world which is "consonant" with the nature o f spirits. First, this is a community
"which would not be based on the conditions which limit the relationship of bodies, and
where the distance o f places or ages fdie Entfemung der Orter oder der Zeitalter], which in
the visible world makes up the great chasm which cancels all community, vanishes" (AK
2:332; Walford, 319; Goerwitz, 60; trans. Walford). In the material world, spirits can
relate to one another only through the mediation o f physical bodies. These physical bodies
are separated from one another by the "great chasm" of distance between "places" and
"ages." However, in the spirit world, the distance between places and ages "vanishes."
This implies that differences of place (Ort) and age (Zeitalter) exist only in the material
world and not in the spirit world.
This passage is important, for it records Kant's first gropings in the direction o f the
doctrine of the ideality of space and time which first appears four years later in the
Inaugural Dissertation of 1770 and then reappears in the Transcendental Aesthetic of the
Critique of Pure Reason (1781/1787). With only slight terminological changes the Critique
5. Swedenborg reworked and republished these sections as De Telluribus in Mundo nostro

Solari. quae vocantur Planetae: et de telluribus in coelo astrifero: deque illarum incolis: turn de
spiritibus et aneeli ibi: ex auditis et visis (London, 1758); The Earths in Our Solar System
which are Called Planets and the Earths in the Starry Heaven and their Inhabitants: also the
Spirits and Angels There: from Things Heard and Seen, trans. J. Whitehead (New York: The
Swedenborg Foundation, 1913).
o f Pure Reason argues that only material objects o f the "phenomenal" world, i.e., the world
of things as they appear to us, are differentiated from one another by spans of space
(Raum) and time (Zeit). By contrast, the objects of the "noumenal" or "intelligible" world,
the world o f things as they are in themselves, are not differentiated in terms of spans of
space and time.6
These parallel lines of thought meet, however, and fuse into a direct line of
development when one notes that in Dreams the spirit world is also referred to as the
"intelligible world," the same intelligible world Kant discusses in the Inaugural
Dissertation, and which Kant equates with the noumenal world in the Critique of Pure
Reason. There is, however, an important difference between Dreams and the Critique of
Pure Reason, at least at this point in Dreams, for we do not yet find the claim that space
and time (or place and age) are ideal forms of intuition. Although the elements from which
we can construct this claim appear later, thus far, all we have is the assignment of space
and time to the material world and their exclusion from the spirit world.
Similar passages are abundant in the Arcana Coelestia:
There are two things which, during man's life in the world, appear essential,
because they are proper to nature, namely, space and time; hence living in space
and time is living in the world or in nature. But in the other life these two things
become as of no account;.. . there is neither space nor time there, but states
instead o f these, and that states in the other life correspond to spaces and times in
nature . . . . (AC, no. 2625)
6. Shell comments that, "It is easy to see in Kant's sketch of intelligible worldhood the model
for his later noumenal realm" (Shell, The Embodiment of Reason. 111). I concur, however
with Richard Velkley’s important qualification that, “Whereas by 1766 Kant already possess
the elementary distinctions between the experiential object or ground and the supersensible
object or ground, and the phenomenal and noumenal realms of their application, he at that
time does not see clearly that there is a natural ‘dialectic’ conflating them, nor does he see
what is required by way of ‘critique’ to end the conflation. As Kant remarks, the year 1769
gives him ‘much light’ in these metaphysical matters . . . ” (Velkley, Freedom and the End of
Reason. 124). Kant does, however, recognize in Dreams H.2 that it is necessary to “critique”
the limits o f human reason.
121
We shall deal at greater length with Kant and Swedenborg on the nature o f space and time
in chapter eight, below.
7. Man's Dual Nature ( f 5)

Paragraph five then concludes with a discussion of the state of human beings in the
material world:
The human soul, already in this present life, would have to be regarded as
simultaneously tied to two worlds, of which it, insofar as it is united with a body to
[form] a personal unity, clearly senses only the material, whereas, as a member of
the spirit world, receives and imparts the pure influxes of immaterial natures, so
that, as soon as that union has ceased, the community, in which it at all times stands
with spiritual natures, alone remains and would reveal itself to its consciousness
through clear intuition.7 (AK 2:332; Walford, 319; Goerwitz, 60; my trans.)
Here we have the first appearance of the philosophical anthropology of the Critique of
Pure Reason: the whole is divided into phenomenal and noumenal worlds and mankind
straddles the divide; we are citizens of both worlds; each human being participates
simultaneously in the phenomenal, sensible, or material world and in the noumenal,
intelligible, or immaterial world.
This teaching is also a prominent feature of the Arcana Coelestia:
. .. there is an internal man and an external man, and . . . the internal man is in the
spiritual world, and the external man in the natural world; thus. . . the former is in
the light of heaven, and the latter in the light of the world. . . . The internal man is
so distinct from the external man that the former, being prior and interior, can
subsist without the latter, b u t . . . the latter or external man, being posterior and
7. Goerwitz does not translate " . . . und sich ihrem Bewusstsein zum klaren Anschauen
eroffhen musste" (Goerwitz, 60).
122
exterior, cannot subsist without the former. . . . The internal man is what is
properly called the intellectual or rational man . . . . (AC, no. 6055)
Elsewhere, he states: "the soul of man is in the spiritual world, and his body is in the
natural world" (AC, no. 6319). Here Swedenborg divides man into two aspects: the outer,
physical man, who participates in the world of material things which are present to the five
senses, and the inner, spiritual man, who participates in the spiritual world. Because man
straddles the divide between the spiritual and the material worlds, he is the primary conduit
of influxes from the spiritual world into the material world: "in man the spiritual world is
conjoined with the natural world, consequently,. . . with him the spiritual world flows into
the natural world in so vivid a manner that he may notice it, provided he pays attention"
(AC, no. 6057; cf. no. 4042).
The paragraph from Dreams quoted above also establishes an important correlation
between material existence and sensuous knowing (Empfindung) and between spiritual
existence and intuitive knowing (Anschauung). Insofar as our soul is united to a material
body, we perceive only material beings through our power of sensation (Empfindung).
However, if our souls were separated from our bodies, we would cease to have a sensuous
form o f knowledge and acquire instead a faculty of pure intuition (Anschauung). which
would reveal to us the place we have always occupied in the nexus of "pure influxes" that
exist among "immaterial natures" (AK 2:332; Walford, 319; Goerwitz, 60).
This teaching is found in the Arcana as well. Swedenborg claimed that embodied
human knowers are dependent upon the five senses for their knowledge. Because of this,
they find the phenomena given to them opaque and are therefore ignorant o f their inner
spiritual meaning (AC, no. 69). Spiritual knowers, however, although they still experience
the afterlife in terms of the forms o f sensuous intuition, nonetheless find these appearances
relatively transparent and see through them to the inner spiritual states they signify.
Furthermore, as noted above, embodied knowers, because of their sensuous mode of
intuition, find one another relatively opaque, whereas spiritual knowers, because they have
a non-sensuous form of intuition, find one another's minds transparent.
Death is the end o f our embodied existence, the cessation of our dependence upon
sensuous intuition; it is not, however, the end of the soul which existed in an embodied
condition. Instead, death is experienced as the embodied soul's passage from the material
world to the spiritual world. Although I have not found a treatment o f this in Swedenborg,
it would seem logical that after death, the embodied soul will, in effect, "meet" its other
half, the spiritual self that always-already existed in and aware of the spirit world, and
recognize the identity between the two.
Swedenborg is quite explicit on another point. When the embodied soul departs
from the body and leaves behind its sensuous form of intuition, it acquires a new, spiritual
form o f intuition: "Human thought, after the decease of the body, becomes more distinct
and clear" (AC, no. 1757); after death one discovers that one always-already knew,
although in a fashion occluded by our bodily existence, how to understand the transparent
language of the spirits (AC, no. 1639) and how to "perceive what is signified by the
representatives that appear in the other life" (AC, no. 3226); one's discourse becomes more
copious and expressive (AC, no. 3226); one's cognition becomes "far more exquisite" (AC,
no. 4622).
8. Heaven and Hell (f 5, note)

Appended to the end of paragraph five of Dreams 1.2 is a footnote in which heaven
is identified with the blessed part of the spirit world. By implication, hell would be the
damned part of the spirit world. This is the first place in Dreams where a connection is
drawn between the idea of a spirit world and traditional religious conceptions o f the
afterlife. It is then argued that heaven is not properly represented as "on high," somewhere
in "measureless outer space," for the inhabitants of other worlds could just as well regard
Earth as their heaven. This false representation arises from the fret that, "the high flight
taken by hope is always connected with the concept of ascent." But if heaven really is the
spirit world, then it cannot be represented in terms of the "distances or nearnesses between
corporeal things, but according to the spiritual connections of its parts to each other" (AK
2:332; Walford, 319-20; Goerwitz, 60; my trans.).
124
These comments are completely In accord with Swedenborg's Arcana Coelestia.
First, Swedenborg insists that heaven is not rightly conceived as located on high, for spaces
and directions exist only in the material world, and heaven is not located in the material
world at all (AC, no. 4S0). Instead, "heaven is not in what is high, but what is internal"
(AC, no. 1769), the interior of nature contacts the spiritual world (AC, no. 4524), and God
is the inmost thing of all (AC, no. 6322). Second, for Swedenborg, the spirit world
consists of heaven and hell and an intermediate world of spirits, heaven being reserved for
the blessed, hell for the damned, and the intermediate world of spirits for souls hovering
between and moving in one direction or another.8 Furthermore, throughout his career,
Kant repeatedly refers to Swedenborg's account of the spirit world in his discussions of the
afterlife, both in his lectures on metaphysics, as preserved by his students' notes,9 and in
the Critique of Practical Reason, where Kant clearly alludes to Swedenborg and his,
"enthusiastic .. . theosophical dreams" (schwarmende .. . theosophische TraumeV10
9. Conclusions ( f 6)
Paragraph six draws conclusions from the previous five. It opens with a contrast
between the "cautious language of reason" and the "academic tone." The careful language
8. Swedenborg's discussions of heaven and hell in the Arcana Coelestia are collected together
in Heaven and Hell.
9. Kant refers explicitly to Swedenborg's account of the spirit world in the following
discussions of the afterlife: Metaphvsik Herder f 1763-641. AK 28,1:113-14, 121- 2;
Nachtrace Herder (1763-64), AK 28.1:897-8, 905-6; Metaphvsik LI (1770s), AK 28.1:298-9;
Metaphvsik Volckmann (1784-85). AK 28.1:445-9; Fragment einer spateren
Rationaltheologie nach Baumbach (1789-90 or 1790-91), AK 28.2,2:1324-5; Metaphvsik L2
(1790-91), AK 28.2.1:593: Metaphvsik K2 (1791-92 or 1792-93), AK 28.2,1:768; and
Metaphvsik Dohna (1792-93), AK 28.2,1:689. Kant clearly alludes to Swedenborg in his
discussion o f the afterlife in the Metaphvsik Mrongovius (1782-83). AK 29.1,2.919-20. For
complete translations and detailed commentaries on these passages, see my two articles,
Gregory R. Johnson, "Kant on Swedenborg in the Lectures on Metaphysics: The 1760s-
1770s," Studia Swedenboreiana 10, no. 1 (Fall 1996): 1-38, and "Kant on Swedenborg in the
Lectures on Metaphysics: The 1780s-1790s." Studia Swedenborgiana 10, no. 2 (Spring
1997): 11-39.
10. Kant, Critique of Practical Reason. AK 5:122-23; Beck, 127; emphasis in original. For a
fuller discussion o f the context of this allusion to Swedenborg, see my essay, "Swedenborg's
Spirit World and Kant's Kingdom of Ends," unpublished ms, part 3.
125
of reason is identified with the task o f deep thinking or pondering. This task is, however,
"tiresome" and leads both author and reader to "a state of vexing indecision." Vexing
indecision, however, is less the conclusion of enquiry than a spur to enquire further; a
project of enquiry that never reaches conclusion and always enquires further is traditionally
known as "zetetic skepticism." The academic tone, by contrast, "exempts" one from
pondering; it lifts the weight of reflection from one's shoulders and delivers one from the
vexation of indecision. It offers one easy and comforting conclusions. The allegedly
"dogmatic" metaphysician clearly identifies himself with the path of cautious reason, i.e.,
with zetetic skepticism.
But how is zetetic skepticism compatible with metaphysical enquiry? Zetetic
skepticism is clearly incompatible with the dogmatic academic metaphysics which claims to
issue in final, unrevisable episteme. Is zetetic skepticism consistent, then, with a form of
metaphysical enquiry that understands itself as always fallible, revisable, and lacking in firm
foundations? Perhaps. But there is still a problem.
A zetetic skeptic may advance metaphysical principles as hypotheses open to
revision, but even revisable hypothetical conclusions are conclusions nonetheless, and what
is yet to be clarified is how one can arrive at any conclusions at all if reason is described as
always leading "sooner or later" to "vexing indecision." Indecision is not conclusion, but
its lack. Zeteticism seems to lead to Pyrrhonism. Thus to arrive at any decision, one
would have to leap ahead o f the orderly unfolding of cautious enquiry, throw caution to
the wind, and venture a conclusion that is not and cannot be grounded in reason. But such
a leap would seem to be indistinguishable from dogmatic metaphysics.
An awareness of the difficulty of reaching any conclusion without leaving behind
cautious reason in favor of metaphysical dogmatism is clear in the first lines of the
paragraph, where Kant, in order to draw his conclusion, asks why he should not be
permitted to dismiss careful reason and be permitted to speak in the academic tone. The
difficulty is also apparent in the manner in which Kant finally phrases his conclusion: "It is,
accordingly, as good as demonstrated, or it could be easily proved, if one would go on at
length, or better yet, it will be proved in the future, I know not where or when, that the
126
human sort, even in this life, stands in an indissolubly connected community with all
immaterial natures of the spirit world" (AK, 2:333; Walford, 320; Goerwitz, 61; my trans.).
What this passage makes clear is that Kant does not know how to cash out belief in
the spirit world on the grounds of what he described in paragraph two as the "anticipation
of a not untutored understanding" in terms of the language of proof. How to bridge the
gap between inconclusive zetetic research and metaphysical conclusions, without falling
into dogmatic metaphysics, emerges as the central problem of the ironic metaphysician's
perspective.11 It is a problem which is exploited by the skeptical empiricist persona of
Dreams 1.3 and which, I argue, is solved by the pragmatic persona of Dreams 1.4.
The remainder o f paragraph six summarizes the foregoing account of the spirit
world and poses the problem of how embodied knowers can know the spirit world and
how disembodied spirits can know the corporeal world; then it suggests a solution. Both
of these topics are treated at greater length in part three of the chapter.
11. In a document published shortly before Dreams. M. Immanuel Kants Nachricht von der
Einrichtune seiner Vorlesungen in dem Winterhalbenjahre von 1765-1766 (Konigsberg:
Johann Jacob Kanter, 1765), AK 2:303-213 (Magister Immanuel Kant's Announcement of the
Program of his Lectures from the Winter Semester 1765-1766) (Fall 1765), Kant writes:
The method of instruction peculiar to philosophy, is zetetic, as some of the

philosophers of antiquity expressed it (from zetein). In other words, the method of
philosophy is the method of enquiry. It is only when reason has grown more practiced
and only in certain areas, that this method becomes dogmatic, that is to say, decisive.
(AK 2:307; Walford, 293; trans. Walford)
This passage does not, however, make clear precisely how practice allows the passage from
enquiry to knowledge.
In the Bermerkungen of 1764-65, Kant shows the complimentarity of Pyrrhonian and
Zetetic skepticism:
The doubt which I accept is not dogmatic but that of procrastination. Zetetic (zetem)
seeker. I would elevate the reasons for both sides. [ This is Pyrrhonism ] It is
remarkable that one fears danger from this. Speculation is not a necessary thing.
Knowledge with respect to the final is surer. The method of doubt is useful to die
extent that it preserves the spirit to act not according to speculation, but according to
sound understanding and sentiment. I seek the honor of Fabius Cunctator [Fabius the
Procrastinator]. (AK, 20:175; Rischmuller, 130; my trans.)
127
10. Transition 7)
Paragraph seven is transitional. The foregoing discussion is characterized as an
attempt to infer, or at least to suppose probablisticaily about the "systematic constitution of
the spirit world" based only on the concept o f a spiritual nature as such. This concept is,
however, declared "far too hypothetical" to be a satisfactory ground for belief. Therefore,
Kant begs the reader's indulgence to offer a set o f suppositions that are based on "some
real generally accepted observation." The next section of the chapter, consisting of
paragraphs eight and nine, is devoted to this task.
Chapter Six:
The Spirit World as Moral Hypothesis:
Dreams L2, Paragraphs 8-9
In the Vera Christiana relieio § 400 Swedenborg says that, "The egoistical man
with his bodily eyes certainly sees the rest as men, but with his spiritual eyes he sees as
men only himself and his relations, whilst the rest he sees only as masks." According
to their innermost meaning, these words are the same as Kant's precept that, "We
should never consider others merely as means but as ends in themselves." But how
differently expressed is the idea; how vivid, sharp and to the point, graphic and
immediately adequate are the words of Swedenborg (whose manner and way of
thinking I do not usually find enjoyable), and how indirect, abstract and expressed
through a derived connotation are the words of Kant!
—Arthur Schopenhauer, Dresden Manuscript, 1817l
I. Two Moral Phenomena

In paragraphs eight and nine of Dreams 1.2, our author seeks to ground the hypothesis
o f a spirit world in experience by turning his attention to the forces that move the human
heart. Kant's method in these paragraphs can be described as hypothetico-deductive. He sets
forth the idea of the spirit world as a hypotheses and then deduces two moral predictions
which can be empirically confirmed or disconfirmed. If there is a spirit world of which we are
already members, we would expect to experience, if only occasionally, the pull of spiritual
forces drawing us outside of ourselves and into the larger community of rational beings. Two
of these forces are the inclination to harmonize our private ideas with the "universal human
understanding" (allgemeinen menschlichen Verstande). a topic which is treated only in
passing, and non-selfish, non-egocentric moral motivations, which are the main focus of the
passage.
1. Arthur Schopenhauer, Manuscript Remains. 4 vols., ed. Arthur Hubscher, trans. E.F.J.
Payne (New York: Berg, 1988), vol. 1, Early Manuscripts (1804-1818). no. 674, p. 521.
128
2. The "Universal Human Understanding" and the Sensus Communis 8)
The tendency to harmonize one's opinion with the universal human understanding is a
species of a drive which makes human beings universally and strongly dependent upon the
judgment of others and causes us to regard the approval of others as necessary for our
approval o f ourselves The universal human understanding in the positive form of this drive.
The "delusion of honor” is its negative form. The precise nature of the delusion of honor can
be inferred from its contrast terms, superlative unself-interestedness (uneieennutzigstenl and
sincerity of character, which indicate a conception of delusive honor as a narcissistic and
manipulative tendency to live in and through the opinions of others.
The universal human understanding is a kind of unity, concord, or harmony of rational
beings. Yet the universal human understanding also aims to confer a "unity of reason" upon
the "totality of thinking beings." Thus the universal human understanding must be
distinguished from the unity it brings about. The universal human understanding is the
timeless and perfect concord of rational beings considered as things in themselves. The unity
of reason is an imperfect, yet gradually perfectible concord established over time between
rational beings in the phenomenal world. The universal human understanding is the
transcendental condition for the possibility o f the unity of reason among phenomenal beings.
The "totality of thinking beings" apparently exists prior to the unity of reason conferred upon
it and consists of all rational beings in both their phenomenal and their noumenal aspects.
But how, precisely, is the phenomenal subject drawn to imitate the unity of its
noumenal better half? Through certain kinds of feelings: "drives," a "secret tendency," a "felt
dependence." These cannot, however, be classed as ordinary feelings, for these belong
entirely to the material body which is part o f the phenomenal order, and these feelings bridge
the gap between the phenomenal and the noumenal aspects of the subject.2
2. They are, therefore, analogous to the "feeling of respect" (Gefuhl der Achtung) of the
Critique of Practical Reason. Part I, Book 1, Ch. 3, "On the Incentives of Pure Practical
Reason."
The allgemeine Menschenverstand ofDreams reappears in the Critique of
Judgment. §§ 20-22 and § 403 as the concept o f sensus communis or Gemeinsinn. Kant offers
this concept to answer the following question: How it is possible for human beings to
communicate with one another "after Babel." Communication begins from a plurality of
individual perspectives, cultures, and languages. Then it moves, through what Kant calls
universal communication, to a common point o f view. Given that interpersonal and cross-
cultural communication does take place, what makes the emergence of this unity out of
plurality possible? Kant's answer is that communication is based upon and guided by the
sensus communis, a tacit, pre-existing concord or rapport.
In the Critique of Judgment. Kant defines sensus communis as the transcendental
condition for the possibility of human communication. In trying to explain what makes
possible the intersubjective universality of judgments of taste, Kant states that such judgments,
“must have a subjective principle, which determines only by feeling rather than by concepts,
though nonetheless with universal validity, what is liked or disliked. . . . Only under the
presupposition . . . that there is a common sense (by which, however, we do not mean an
outer sense . .. )~only under the presupposition of such a common sense, I maintain, can such
judgments of taste be made” (KU, § 20; AK 5:238; Pluhar, 87; Pluhar trans.). The existence
of such judgments presupposes their universal communicability (Mitteilbarkeitl. The universal
communicability of judgments presupposes the communicability o f the attunement
(Stimmungl o f the cognitive powers that transform mere representations (Vorstellungen) into
the cognition of given objects. If two knowers are to turn their cognitive powers in the same
direction, it can only be in virtue of sharing a common attunement o f their powers. Since this
attunement must already be at work before one rises from representations to cognition, from
perception to conception, "this attunement can be determined through nothing else than
feeling (Gefuhlj (not by concepts rBegriffenlV1(KU, §21; AK 5:238-39; Pluhar, 88; my
trans.). Finally, "the universal communicability o f feeling presupposes a common sense
rGemeinsinn]: so this can be assumed with reason, and indeed without depending upon
3. Kritik der Urteilskraft (1790), AK:5:165-485; henceforth cited as KU; in English: Critique
of Judgment trans. Werner S. Pluhar (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987); henceforth cited as
Pluhar.
psychological observations, but rather as the necessary condition of the universal
communicability of our knowledge, which must be presupposed in every logic and in every
principle of knowledge that is not skeptical" (KU, § 21; AK, 5:239; Pluhar, 88; my trans.).
In Critique of Judgment. § 40, "On Taste as a Kind of Sensus Communis." Kant offers
a general account of sensus communis that closely parallels the passage quoted above from
Dreams 1.2:
. . . by sensus communis one must understand the idea of a communal

fgemeinschaftlichen] sense, i.e., a capacity to judge, which in its reflection takes into
consideration fa priori), in thought, the mode of representation of everyone else, in
order, as it were, to hold one's judgment up to the whole of human reason and thereby
to escape the illusion of subjective private conditions, which can easily be mistaken for
objective, which has a detrimental influence on the judgment. Now this happens as
follows: one holds one's judgment up to another, not so much actual as rather merely
possible, judgment and transposes oneself into the place of everyone else, in which one
merely abstracts from the limitations that accidentally cling to our own judging. . . .
(KU, § 40; AK 5:295; Pluhar, 160; my trans.; emphasis in original)
Kant then offers three maxims for thinking in accordance with the sensus communis:4 " 1. to
think for oneself; 2. to think in the place of everyone else; 3. always to think self-consistently"
(KU, § 40; AK 5:295; Pluhar, 160; my trans.).
The analogies between Dreams and the Critique o f Judgment are quite precise. The
universal human understanding of Dreams corresponds with the sensus communis/Gemeinsinn
of the Critique of Judgment. Both concepts are transcendent harmonies between distinct
subjects introduced as transcendental explanations for the common viewpoints that arise from
interpersonal and intercultural communication between empirical subjects. In Dreams, this
common viewpoint is called a unity of reason. In the Critique of Judgment it is called a
4. Kant clearly identifies his sense of sensus communis with the eemeine Menschenverstand
(KU, § 40; AK 5:293; Pluhar 160), although Pluhar interpolates a few misleading words
implying that Kant is drawing a contrast between the two (Pluhar, 160).
'‘universal standpoint" falfgemeinen StandpunkteT In both Dreams and the Critique of
Judgment it is feeling that provides the link between the universal human
understanding/sensus communis and empirical subjects, drawing these subjects together into
an empirical unity in imitation of the transcendent unity. In Dreams, these feelings are referred
to as "drives" and "tugs." In the Critique of Judgment. Kant refers simply to "feeling"
(GefuhlV Yet in the Critique o f Judgment the metaphysical foundations of the sensus
communis in the spirit world remain hidden.
3. Swedenborg and the Sensus Communis

Eighteenth-century treatments of the concept of the sensus communis immediately
bring to mind such writers as Shaftesbury (Anthony Ashley Cooper) (1661-1713), whose
writings Kant read, as well as Giovanni Battista Vico (1668-1744) and Friedrich Christoph
Oetinger, whose works on the topic are not referred to by Kant.5 If we wish to search for
influences, however, we need not range so far afield, for Swedenborg himself sets forth a
conception of sensus communis in the Arcana Coelestia and explicitly connects it to the spirit
world.
The metaphysical foundation of Swedenborg's conception of sensus communis is a
doctrine of internal relations. Swedenborg claims that, "That which is unconnected does not
exist” (AC, no. 2886); "It is a general law that nothing can exist and subsist from itself, but
from another, that is, by means o f another .. . That the human body is kept in form by the
atmospheres from without, is well known, and unless it was also kept in form from within by
some acting or living force, it would instantly fall to pieces" (AC, no. 3627). Here
5. On sensus communis, see Shaftesbury (Anthony Ashley Cooper), "Sensus Communis: An

Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour," in his Characteristics of Men. Manners. Opinions.
Times. 2 vols., ed. J.M. Robinson (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1964); Giovanni Battista
Vico, The New Science of Giambattista Vico (1744), trans. Thomas Goddard Bergin and Max
Harold Fisch (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1968), §§ 141-45; see also John D. Schaeffer,
Sensus Communis: Vico. Rhetoric, and the Limits of Relativism (Durham, North Carolina:
Duke University Press, 1990; and Friedrich Christoph Oetinger, Inquisitio in sensum
communem et rationem . . . (Tubingen: Johann Christoph Loftier, 1753) and Die Wahrheit des
sensus communis oder des allgemeinen Sinnes . . . (Stuttgart: Johann Nicolaus Stoll, 1754).
See also Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method. 2nd rev. ed., trans. Joel Weinsheimer and
Donald G. Marshall (New York: Crossroad, 1989), 19-30.
Swedenborg claims that both the existence and the Identity (form) of every created being is
derived from its relationship to other beings: to other created beings, and ultimately, to God.
This mutual interdependence and internal relatedness extends into the realm of thought as
well:
Such being the nature of heaven, no angel or spirit can have any life unless he
is in some society, and thereby in a harmony of many. A society is nothing but a
harmony of many, for no one has any life separate from the life of others. Indeed, no
angel, or spirit, or society, can have any life (that is, be affected by good, exercise will,
be affected by truth, or think), unless there is a conjunction thereof through many of
his society with heaven and with the world of spirits. (AC, no. 687)
No one whatsoever, whether man, spirit, or angel can will and think from himself but
only from others, nor can these others will and think from themselves, but all again
from others, and so forth, thus each one from the first o f life, which is the Lord. (AC,
no. 2886; cf. AC, nos. 4319, 5986, and 6470)
Although all rational beings—men, spirits, angels—participate in this sensus communis.

they participate in different ways, because of the differences between natural and spiritual
forms of communication discussed above. Angels and spirits not only think through and from
one another, they are mutually transparent to one another, so they are fully conscious of their
interdependence. Embodied human beings are also cognitively interdependent upon other
rational beings, but they are only half-conscious of this fact because the material media
through which they communicate makes embodied rational minds only partially transparent to
one another. Furthermore, Swedenborg claims that whatever communication is possible
between embodied men is based upon the occluded traces of the language o f spirits that
remain in their internal memory. Thus Swedenborg, like Kant, holds that after Babel
embodied human beings are capable o f interpersonal and cross cultural communication
because through the sensus communis they already tacitly participate in a state of mutual
intelligibility.
134
4. Egoism, Benevolence, and the Moral Point of View (f 9)

Paragraph nine is entirely devoted to the second moral phenomenon, which is offered
as a "more illuminating and important" piece of evidence for the spirit world: non-selfish, non
egocentric moral motives. The underlying presuppositions of this paragraph's argument is that
if humans are purely material beings, our actions will be entirely self-interested, and if we are
purely spiritual beings, our actions will be entirely unselfish. Egoistic behavior, therefore, can
be taken as a sign of the truth of materialism.
But not all of our motives are egoistic. Though we do tend to selfishness, our selfish
motives are occasionally overridden by "the strong law of duty fstarke Gesetz der
Schuldiekeitl and the weaker of benevolence Idas schwachere der Gutigkeit]. each of which
extort from us many a sacrifice fAufopferungl."6 Since we observe that the soul is
simultaneously pulled in two directions, towards the self and towards the other, it is
reasonable to infer that the soul has two levels or parts. Insofar as the soul is joined to the
body, it is a citizen of the kingdom o f nature and displays egoistic drives. Insofar as the soul
acts unselfishly, it must transcend the material world and its egoistic incentives and exist in a
spiritual world governed by moral laws. Since the human soul exists in both realms
simultaneously, the moral life will always involve a struggle between moral and merely natural
incentives.
The distinction between the strong law of duty and the weaker law of benevolence is
illuminated by Kant's 1764 book Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime.
where he characterizes benevolence as, "A certain tenderheartedness, which is easily stirred
into a warm feeling of sympathy." Because it motivates moral behavior, this
tenderheartedness is "beautiful and amiable," but because it is merely a feeling, it is also "weak
and always blind."7 The strong law o f duty, by contrast, enjoins sacrifices not out of passing
feelings o f sympathy for particular men, but from "universal affection toward the human
species," which has "become a principle" to which one always subordinates one's actions.
6. Compare this argument with the argument o f Rousseau's Savoyard Vicar against the thesis
that men are motivated solely by self-interest (Emile. 287).
7. Observations. AK 2:215-6; Goldthwait, 58; trans. Goldthwait.
Once this benevotent "feeling has arisen to its proper universality, it has become sublime,
but also colder."8
The Observations describes the law of duty as a matter of "moral feeling." In his
mature moral philosophy, however, Kant rejects moral sense theory, retaining its language in
only a delimited and highly qualified manner. Dreams represents a transition between the two
positions.
The mature Kant does not regard any action motivated solely by feeling as moral, no
matter how salutary it may be. This applies to feelings of duty as well as to feelings of
benevolence. Tmly moral acts are motivated by duty alone. Kant rejects feelings as moral
motives because the moral law is a law of freedom and feelings belong to the deterministic
realm of nature. "In the subject there is no antecedent feeling tending to morality; that is
impossible, because all feeling is sensuous, and the incentives o f the moral disposition must be
free from every sensuous condition."9 Kant does grant that we have a "feeling" of respect
(Achtung) for the moral law. But because the moral law is a law of freedom, the respect that
it commands cannot be merely sensuous: "because of its origin . . . this particular feeling
cannot be said to be pathologically effected; rather, it is practically effected"; "Thus respect
for the law is not the [merely sensuous] incentive to morality; it is morality itself, regarded
subjectively as incentive"; "This feeling, under the name of moral feeling, is .. . produced
solely by reason" (KPV, AK 5:76-7; Beck, 78-9; trans. Beck).
As we shall see below, Dreams rejects moral sense theory for the same reasons the
mature Kant does. The moral law is a law of freedom and feelings belong to the realm of
nature. Benevolence, however, belongs to the realm o f feeling. Dreams does not, however,
reject benevolence as a moral motive. Instead, it merely calls it a "weaker" moral motive than
duty. However, insofar as benevolence is a feeling, it reveals only our participation in the
order of nature. Thus it is only the strong law o f duty that reveals the soul's participation in a
non-material order.
8. Observations. AK 2:216; Goldthwait, 58; trans. Goldthwait.

9. Kritik der praktischen Vemunft (1788); AK 5:76; henceforth KPV; in English: Critique of
Practical Reason, trans. Lewis White Beck (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1956), 78;
henceforth cited as Beck; trans. Beck.
136
S. Swedenborg on the Moral Life

Swedenborg's account of the moral life in the Arcana Coelestia is strikingly similar to
the account of Dreams 1.2, as well as to Kant's mature moral philosophy.10 Swedenborg's
account is founded on his dualistic conception of man's nature as straddling both the material
and the spiritual worlds:
I have been instructed concerning these degrees of life . . . . the last or ultimate degree
of life. . . is called the external or natural man by which man is like animals as regards
lusts and phantasies;. . . the second degree of life . . . is called the internal and rational
man by which man is above animals, for it is through this that he is able to think and
will what is good and true, and have dominion over the natural man, by restraining and
also rejecting its lusts and the resultant phantasies, and also by reflecting within himself
concerning heaven, nay, concerning the Divine, which brute animals are altogether
incapable of doing; and lastly . . . the third degree o f life is that which is the most
unknown to man although it is that through which the Lord inflows into the rational
mind, whereby man has the faculty of thinking as a man, and also has conscience, and
perception of what is good and true, and also elevation by the Lord towards Himself.
(AC, no. 3747)
The "first degree" of life is the life of the natural man: man insofar as he is part of the
natural world. Insofar as we are parts o f the material world, our actions are conditioned by
sensuous incentives, "lusts and phantasies" that we share with the animals and that tend to
turn our concern away from our relationships with others, including God, and toward the
10. See my essay "From Swedenborg's Spirit World to Kant's Kingdom of Ends,"
unpublished ms, where I argue that Kant's concept of the kingdom o f ends (Reich der
Zwecke) in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics o f Morals is derived from Swedenborg's
descriptions o f the spirit world. Swedenborg actually calls the spirit world a kingdom o f ends
and a kingdom o f uses: "Universum reenum domini est regnnm finium et usim m " ("The
universal kingdom of God is a kingdom of ends and uses") (AC, no. 3645; cf. AC, nos. 696,
997, 1645, 3646, 3796, 4464, 4633, 6490, 6574, 9828; HH, nos. 112, 387; DP, no. 26; CL,
no. 7). This is the only use o f the phrase "kingdom of ends" that I can discover before Kant's.
empirical self. We always find ourselves M ing away from the love o f God and the love of
the neighbor and toward the love of self and the love of one's own. Swedenborg calls the
natural self the "proprium" and regards it as the principle of evil (AC, nos. 4319, 5848, 5854,
5993, 6201).
The "second degree" of life is the life of the internal or rational man. This appears to
be a higher level of the empirical self, rather than the spiritual self that exists in the spirit
world, which seems to be identified with the "third degree" of life. The inner, rational man
can know the good, the true, and the holy, and regulate the actions of the natural man in their
light. The inner, rational man can hearken to the call of conscience, the voice of duty, the
oracle of the moral law, which comes through the conduit of the "third degree" of life, our
spiritual self which exists always-already in the spirit world.
The man who turns toward the proprium will pursue the good only for its extrinsic
rewards, such as pleasure, honor, and reputation; he does his duty from rational self-interest—
a motive with a political usefulness Swedenborg does not disdain (AC, nos. 6213, 9982). The
man who hearkens to the moral law, however, does good simply because it is good; he does
his duty for duty’s sake: "A man who has the property of another in his possession, without
the knowledge of the other, and who thus can keep it for himself without any fear of the law
or o f the loss of honor and reputation, if nevertheless he surrenders it because it is not his
own, has conscience, for he does good for the sake of what is good, and what is right for the
sake o f what is right" (AC, no. 9120; cf. nos. 6207, 6208, 9983).
Swedenborg treats the voice of conscience as a divine or angelic influx from the spirit
world: "Conscience is the plane and receptacle of the influx of heaven" (AC, no. 9122; c f nos.
1919, 6207). The moral law revealed by conscience is the love of God and the love of the
neighbor. Conscience also condemns the love of self and the love of the world as moral
depravity, as evil (AC, no. 7178).
For Swedenborg the moral life is a constant struggle between the natural man and the
spiritual man (AC, no. 8961). Since man is divided equally between the material and the
spiritual worlds, he is faced with a constant choice: to look "above" to the spirit world and be
guided by its laws of love of God and neighbor, or to look "down" to the material world and
be governed by Its sensuous and brutish incentives; we can choose to be guided by the
"better angels of our nature," or by our worst animal impulses (AC, nos. 6201, 7814-1821).
The capacity to choose citizenship in the kingdom of nature or the kingdom of God is
man's most fundamental, radical form o f freedom. If we choose the love of God and the love
of the neighbor in this life, this means that we are already in heaven; when the empirical self
chooses to live by heavenly laws, the spiritual self enters into heaven. If, however, we choose
the love of self and the love of the world, we are already in hell; when the empirical self turns
toward the proprium. the spiritual self descends into hell (AC, nos. 2870,6195). Thus
Swedenborg also speaks of man's freedom as an equilibrium between heaven and hell (AC,
nos. 2870-2893, 5982, 5993, 6193, 6308, 6477). Indeed, Swedenborg even claims that "man
cannot live without communication with the hells through spirits from them" (AC, no.
5993).11
6. The Rule of the General Will in Rousseau and Swedenborg

Having set forth his conception of the moral life, Kant formulates the conclusion of his
argument in surprising terms. "Thus we see that, in our most secret motives, we are dependent
upon the rule of the general will, and from it springs, in the world of all thinking natures, a
moral unitv and systematic constitution, according to purely spiritual laws" (AK 2:335;
Walford, 322; Goerwitz, 64; my trans.). The natural reading of this passage is that it is Kant's
first published reference to Rousseau's concept of the general will (volonte generate).12 This
LI. Swedenborg's claim that man's freedom, and even his health, is constituted in the tension
between heaven and hell is the foundation o f William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and
Hell, c. 1790-93, a text that is widely but mistakenly regarded as primarily a critique or a
parody of Swedenborg rather than an (admittedly irreverent) exploration of Swedenborg's
own intimations.
12. Rousseau's On the Social Contract and Emile, both of which contain accounts o f the
general will, were published in 1762. Kant's first published reference to Rousseau is in the
Beobachtuneen uber das Gefuhl des Schonen und Erhabenen (Konigsberg: Johann Jacob
Kanter, 1764), AK 2:247, (written and published late in 1763, and dated 1764); Kant also
refers to Rousseau explicitly in his brief Raissonement on the "goat prophet" Jan
Pawlickowicz Komaraicki, AK 2:489, in the Konigsbergische Gelehrte und Polidsche
Zeitungen. from January 1764, and in the "Versuch uber die Krankheiten des Kopfes," AK
2:267, published in the in the Kdnigsbenzische Gelehrte und Politische Zeitungen in February.
1764. Rousseau is clearly alluded to in Kant's Nachricht von der Einrichtune seiner
reading cannot be entirely wrong given the immense impact of Rousseau on Kant's thought
at the time. But we also find the concept of the general will in Swedenborg's Arcana
Coelestia as well. (Although the Arcana was published from 1749-56 and Rousseau's On the
Social Contract appeared in 1762, and although there is tantalizing evidence of lost
correspondence between Swedenborg and Rousseau,13 it would be rash to infer a
Swedenborgian influence on Rousseau's concept of the general will, since, as we will see in §
7 below, there is ample evidence that both Swedenborg and Rousseau derive their conceptions
of the general will from a common tradition.)
In the Arcana Coelestia. Swedenborg's concept o f the general will is inextricably (and
untranslatably) entwined with his conception of sensus communis. In the standard
translations, it is rendered by the opaque phrase "general voluntary sense":
. . . those who in the other life constitute the sensum communem voluntarium . . . are
those who by cognitions of good and truth have acquired the faculty of looking at
things from what is general, and thence contemplate things broadly, and distinguish
instantly whether a thing is so . . . . This communis sensus voluntarius falls to none
but the wise. .. . sensus communes voluntarii still more perfect exist in the interior
sphere of heaven; and . . . when angels are in a general or universal idea, they are at
the same time in the smallest details, which are set in distinct order by the Lord in the
universal; also . . . the general and the universal are nothing unless there are particulars
and singulars in them from which they exist and are so called, and . . . they exist just in
so far as these are in them; and . . . it is thence manifest that a universal providence of
the Lord, without verimost singulars—which are in it, and from which it exists—is
nothing at all, and . . . it is stupid to maintain that there exists with the Divine a
universal, and then to take away singulars from it. (AC, no. 4329)
Voriesungen in dem Winterhalbeniahre von 1765-1766. AK 2:311-12, published around the

same time as Dreams. Finally, Kant's Auseinandersetzung with Rousseau is recorded in the
Bemerkungen of 1764-65.
13. Acton, Letters and Memorials. II, 767.
At first glance, this is an exceedingly puzzling passage, but it can be understood in terms of
central seventeenth and eighteenth century debates about the nature of morality and divine
providence.
The first puzzling claim is that in the other life spirits do not just participate in or
somehow manifest the communis sensus voluntarius: instead, it is said actually to consist of a
particular group o f spirits. This claim follows from one of Swedenborg’s most startling
teachings, his doctrine of the Maximus Homo or Grand Man, which holds that heaven appears
as a giant man, whose limbs, organs, and tissues are constituted out of different angelic
communities.
This extraordinary doctrine follows quite logically from a literal interpretation of the
claim in Genesis that God made man in his own image, which implies that we may understand
God in our own image. The human microcosm is the key to the divine macrocosm.
Swedenborg's Maximus Homo is a version of the Kabbalistic doctrine of Adam
Kadmon, the heavenly exemplar o f the created Adam.14 This heavenly arcanum is hidden in
the very name of God, the Hebrew Tetragrammaton, which, when turned on its side, looks
like a stick-figure o f a man. Now Adam Kadmon is not God himself, but he is God's first
creation, his first manifestation, who remains with God in heaven, while God remains hidden
above and beyond him. Thus the Kabbalists claim that there is a giant man in heaven, while
Swedenborg claims that heaven just is a giant man.
In the Arcana Coelestia Swedenborg puts the Grand Man on the dissecting table,
describing in exhaustive detail-right down to the lymph nodes and hair follicles~the different
angelic communities that compose him and their correspondences with the parts of the human
body.15
14. This idea is actually older than the Kabbalah, dating back to late antiquity, to the Shiur
Komah o f the Jewish Gnostics and Merkavah mystics. See Gershom Scholem, On the
Mystical Shape of the Godhead: Basic Concepts of the Kabbalah, trans. Joachim Neugroschel
(New York: Schocken Books, 1991), ch. 1.
15. Swedenborg's discussions of the Maximus Homo in the Arcana Coelestia nos. 3624-49,
3741-50, 3883-96, 4039-55, 4218-28, 4318-31, 4403-21, 4523-34, 4622-34, 4652-60, 4791-
4806,4931-53, 5050-62, 5171-90, 5377-96, and 5552-73 have been gathered together under
the title "The Universal Human" in Emanuel Swedenborg, The Universal Human and the Soul-
In heaven, the communis sensus votunfarius is composed o f a community of wise
angels "who by cognitions of good and truth have acquired the faculty of looking at things
from what is general, and thence contemplate things broadly, and distinguish instantly whether
a thing is so," and, by analogy, the communis sensus voluntarius is the faculty of knowing and
acting in accordance with the universal; by cultivating this faculty, the individual becomes
wise.
7. Providence and the General Will in Rousseau and Swedenborg

Swedenborg's next puzzling claim is the connection he draws between the communis
sensus voluntarius and divine providence. Swedenborg defines the communis sensus
voluntarius as the universal point o f view and then identifies the universal point of view with
the divine point of view and universal laws with the edicts of divine providence. He is,
however, adamant that the edicts o f divine providence should not be confined solely to
universal laws and argues that divine providence is present in particulars as well. Why does
Swedenborg connect the communis sensus voluntarius to controversies about universal and
particular providence? Do these controversies throw any light on the connection Kant may
have seen between Swedenborg's and Rousseau's concepts o f the general will?
The connections between providence and the general will are illuminated by Patrick
Riley's The General Will Before Rousseau: The Transformation of the Divine into the Civic.16
Riley argues that, "the notion of the "general will' was originally a theological one, referring to
the kind of will that God (supposedly) had in deciding who would be granted grace sufficient
for salvation and who would be consigned to hell."17 In scholastic terminology, Godfs
"antecedent will" is that all men be saved; however, after the Fall, God's "consequent" will is
that only some men be saved. According to Riley, Antoine Amauld (1612-94) coined the
phrases "volonte generate" for God's antecedent will and "volonte particuliere" for his
consequent will. In short, the Christian aspect of the concept of the general will also refers to
Body Interaction, ed. and trans. George F. Dole (Ramsey, New Jersey: The Paulist Press,
1984). See also HH, nos. 59-67; DLW, nos. 11-12, 288.
16. Patrick Riley, The General Will Before Rousseau: The Transformation of the Divine into
the Civic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986); henceforth cited as Riley.
17. Riley, 4.
an objective and universal moral law, God's providential plan of salvation and damnation;
the general will is the law of the kingdom of grace.
The theological terminology o f the general and particular will was taken up and
applied in moral and political contexts by Blaise Pascal (1623-62) and by Malebranche. Pascal,
in his Pensees. identities the general will with the collective good of a corporate entity, be it an
individual body or a body politic. Malebranche, in his Traite de la nature et de la erace18
(1680), associates the general will not only with the antecedent will to universal salvation, but
also with the eternal order of natural law; the general will is the law of the kingdom of nature
as well as the kingdom of grace.
This innovation provides the foundation of a theodicy harmonizing the justice of God
with the existence of earthly evils and the horror of eternal damnation. God supposedly
establishes the providential order through volontes generates, which aim at the good of the
whole in the kingdom of nature and at universal salvation in the kingdom of grace. But in the
kingdom of nature, the good of the whole permits the suffering of particular individuals, even
though this suffering is not willed by God, just as in the kingdom of grace, the antecedent will
to universal salvation is consistent with the consequent will that some will suffer eternal
damnation.
Why does God's consequent will diverge from His antecedent will? God's antecedent
or general will consists of certain simple, universal, and impartial laws, laws that are no
respecters o f persons or particular situations, and therefore condemn countless men to hell. In
order to save such men, God would have to contravene his providence generate with
innumerable volontes particulieres. But, Malebranche argues, such a course o f action would
call into question the wisdom of God's initial volontes generates. Indeed, Malebranche, who
was a great admirer o f the universality and simplicity of Cartesian natural laws, seemed to
think that if they are good enough for Descartes, they are good enough for God. The
hallmark of (Cartesian) wisdom is, "to establish general laws, and to choose the simplest ones
which are at the same time the most fruitful, [which] is a way of acting worthy of him whose
18. Nicolas Malebranche, Treatise on Nature and Grace, trans. Patrick Riley (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1992); henceforth cited as Malebranche.
wisdom has no limits,"19 whereas, "to act by volontes particulieres shows a limited
intelligence which cannot judge the consequences or the effects of less fruitful causes."20
We know that Swedenborg read Malebranche’s work with care as early as 1710.21
Swedenborg also devoted considerable space to Malebranche’s ideas in notes dating from
1740-41, where his name appears along with Plato, Aristode, Augustine, Grotius, Descartes,
Leibniz, and Wolff in Swedenborg's own list o f his philosophical influences.22 However, in
spite of his respect for Malebranche, it is precisely Malebranche's denial of particular
providence that Swedenborg attacks as "stupidum" at Arcana Coelestia. no. 4329; cf. nos.
5850, 5993, 6481-82, 6489-94, 7256, and 10773. For Swedenborg, therefore, the general
will is God's providential order, which is framed in terms of universal and general laws which
the wise strive to know and live by.
But those creatures who do not live in accordance with general providence require
particular providence:
From the Lord through the spiritual world into the subjects of the natural world, there
is a general influx and also a particular influx—a general influx into those things that
are in order, a particular influx into those things that are not in order.. .. Men are not
in their order, nor in any law of order, and therefore they receive particular influx; that
is, there are with them angels and spirits through whom the influx comes. And unless
these were with men, they would rush into every wickedness and would plunge in a
moment into the deepest hell. Through these spirits and angels man is kept under the
auspices o f the Lord. .. . Therefore, as the life of man is altogether contrary to
19. Malebranche, quoted in Riley, 29.

20. Malebranche, quoted in Riley, 29.
21. George F. Dole and Robert H. Kirven, A Scientist Explores Spirit: A Compact Biography
of Emanuel Swedenborg with Key Concepts of Swedenborg's Theology (West Chester,
Pennsylvania: The Swedenborg Foundation, 1992), 87.
22. These notes are preserved as ms. cod. 36-110 in the Royal Swedish Academy of Science
and have been published as A Philosopher's Note Book: Excerpts from Philosophical Writers
and from the Sacred Scriptures on a Variety of Philosophical Subjects: together with some
Reflections, and sundry Notes and Memoranda bv Emanuel Swedenborg, ed. and trans. Alfred
Acton (Philadelphia: Swedenborg Scientific Association, 1923); for the list of influences, see
page 10.
heavenly order, he is ruled by the Lord through separate spirits and angels. (AC,
no. 5850)
Why is particular providence needed by man? Why is it extended to him? For his salvation.
Why does he need it? Because he is “not in order.” Man’s freedom allows him to break the
moral law, to stray from the path of salvation toward damnation. But Swedenborg holds that
all men are predestined to heaven and none are predestined to eternal damnation. He who
wills the end must will the means, and the only means of assuring universal salvation is
particular providence.
One might wonder if Swedenborg denies the existence of eternal damnation
altogether. He apparently does not. Instead, he denies only that God predestines some men
to eternal damnation. He does, however, claim that men can be eternally damned if and only if
they themselves choose eternal damnation. But it is hard to see how any man could or would
choose eternal damnation in light of Swedenborg's teachings: (1) that all men are implanted
with the desire for salvation, a desire for the good, a desire for G od-a desire that does not
seem to be completely corrigible by original sin; (2) that those who are in hell choose hell only
because of the perversion of their desires, a perversion which causes them to experience
hellish torments as ecstasies; and (3) that God works even though these hellish pleasures to
turn their sufferers toward salvation. (This is further evidence that Blake's The Marriage of
Heaven and Hell does not stray too radically from the implications of Swedenborg's own
teachings.) It seems doubtful that anyone could slip through the mesh of such a finely woven
divine providence and fall into eternal damnation.
Swedenborg's account of eternal damnation is essentially identical to Leibniz's in his
Theodicy23 and therefore invites the same suspicion: that an orthodox Christian pessimism
founded upon the idea of original sin has been replaced by an optimistic doctrine combining
the Socratic thesis that all men desire the good with Neoplatonic and Hermetic cosmologies of
universal salvation, such as the "apokatastasis panton" of Origen (ca. 185-251/5) or the
23. See Gottfried Wilhelm Freiherr von Leibniz, Essais de theodicee (1710L in English:
Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man. and the Origin o f EviL trans.
Austin Farrer (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1985), §§ 266-88, esp. § 266 and § 268.
145
“Tikkun* of the Kabbalah o f Issac Luria (1534-72). For Swedenborg, it seems that all men
will eventually be led to align themselves with the divine volonte generate. one divine volonte
particuliere at a time.
If we keep in mind these suspicions about Swedenborg's commitment to the idea of
eternal damnation, the similarities between Rousseau and Swedenborg become even clearer.
Rousseau has a conception of the general will that melds pagan optimism about man's capacity
to will the good with Christian providence (or maybe simply with pagan, i.e., Stoic,
providence). Rousseau rejects original sin in favor of the Socratic dictum that nobody
knowingly and willingly chooses what is bad; we choose what is bad only out of ignorance, or
(in an Aristotelian mode) because we allow ourselves to be suborned by the contrary power of
desire. Thus, according to Rousseau, the general will is the will which, by the inner necessity
of its very nature, wills that which is universally and objectively good. Insofar as the general
will is the true will, not just of God, but of every individual, every individual by nature seeks
to choose the universally and objectively good. This, I would argue, is the focal meaning of
Rousseau's equivocal concept o f "the natural goodness of man."24
If individuals by nature always seek to choose the universally and objectively good,
then we need to explain why so few o f them actually succeed in doing so. Rousseau's answer
is that each individual has both a general and a particular will, the general will aiming at the
universally and objectively good, the particular will often choosing things that are neither
universally nor objectively good. Therefore, the bad behavior o f naturally good men is to be
explained by their failure to heed their own true, general will in favor of the promptings of the
particular will.
The clear presumption o f Rousseau's conception of the general will is that there is an
objective, universal moral order to which human action must correspond, and the moral
24. Given the space, I would argue that the natural goodness o f man as Rousseau portrays
him in the state of nature is merely hypothetical, the product o f an Epicurean materialist
account of man that Rousseau assumes in the Second Discourse in order to construct a
standpoint from which to offer a "total critique" o f civilization, but which he ultimately
regards as counterfactual. The Socratic conception of man's "natural goodness" is not,
however, the product of a counterfactual assumption, but is integral to his conception of the
general will. On the hypothetical Epicureanism of the Second Discourse, see section 10
below.
problem o f mankind is to clear away the impediments of ignorance and unbridled passions
that prevent us from choosing what we really want to choose, what the general will wills: the
universal and objective good.
A much attenuated form o f this Swedenborgian and Rousseauian fusion of Christian
providence and pagan optimism is also present in Kant's mature critical philosophy, in, for
example, his defense of a progressive-historical optimism and even in his doctrine of the
"radical evil in human nature" in Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, which seems so
much like Christian orthodoxy, but is entirely consistent with Rousseau's doctrine of the
natural goodness of man.
8. The Doctrine of Moral Feeling

After his remark about the general will, Kant offers a qualification: "If one wishes to
call this compulsion we feel in us to harmonize our will with the general will moral feeling.
then one speaks of it only as an appearance of what actually takes place in us, without coming
to its cause" (AK 2:335; Walford, 322; Goerwitz, 64). This passage is the first explicit sign o f
Kant's rejection of his early flirtation with the "moral feeling," "moral sentiment," or "moral
sense" theory associated with Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Hume, and Rousseau.
In essence, the moral feeling theory claims that certain feelings or sentiments, which
constitute our "moral sense," not only provide the motive force for moral action but also serve
as the criterion by which we distinguish moral from immoral actions. The moral sense is a
special faculty of the soul, distinct from both pure reason and from brute desire, by which we
distinguish between right and wrong.
In his Preisschrift. the Inquiry Concerning the Distinctness of the Principles of Natural
Theology and Morals which was completed in December o f 1762 and published in 1764, Kant
claims that, "Hutcheson and others have, under the name o f moral feeling fmoralischen
Gefuhls]. provided us with a starting point from which to develop some excellent
observations" (AK 2:300; Walford, 274; trans. Walford). This seems to indicate that Kant
regarded moral feeling as both the motive force and the justificatory foundation of moral
action.
In the Negative Magnitudes essay written and published in the first half of 1763
Kant treats "inner moral feeling" (inneres moralisches Gefiihl) as the motive force of morality.
Kant regards moral feeling as the justificatory ground of moral obligation as well, for he
speaks of "a positive law to be found in the heart of every human being . . . it commands that
we love our neighbor" (AK 2:184, Walford, 221-22; trans. Walford)
The clearest published statement o f the early Kant's moral sense theory, however, is
found in the Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime written in the Fall of
1763 and published in late 1763 or early 1764 (and dated 1764), where he writes: "true virtue
can be grafted only upon principles such that the more general they are, the more sublime and
noble it becomes. These principles are not speculative rules, but the consciousness of a
feeling that lives in every human breast and extends itself much further than over the particular
grounds of compassion and complaisance. I believe that I sum it all up when I say that it is
the feeling of the beauty and the dignity of human nature" (AK 2:217; Goldthwait, 60;
Goldthwait trans.).
More documentation o f Kant’s interest in moral sense theory is to be found in the so-
called Moralphilosophie Herder.25 which consists o f notes taken on Kant's lectures on moral
philosophy sometime between the Winter Semester of 1762-63 and the Summer Semester of
1764. Here Kant claims that, “the moral feeling is unanalysable, basic, the ground of
conscience” (AK 27:5; Heath, 4; Heath trans.); elsewhere, he states, “the supreme law of
morality is: act according to your moral nature. My reason can err; my moral feeling, only
when I uphold custom before natural feeling; but in that case it is merely implicit reason; and
my final yardstick still remains moral feeling, not true and false.. .” (AK 27:6; Heath, 5;
Heath trans.).
Kant also speaks of moral feeling in the Bemerkungen inserted in his desk copy of the
Observations in 1764-65: "The will is perfect insofar as it is in conformity with the laws of
freedom, the great ground of good in general. Moral feeling is the feeling of the perfection of
the will" (AK 20:136-7; Rischmuller, 102; my trans ).
25. Moralphilosophie Herder. AK 27:3-89. Excerpts from this text have been translated in
Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Ethics, ed. Peter Heath and Jerome B. Schneewind, trans. Peter
Heath (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); henceforth cited as Heath.
Kant's next published reference to the moral sense theory appears in the Fall of
1765, in his Announcement of his lectures for the Winter Semester 1765-66. Kant promises
to lecture on two topics in moral philosophy: universal practical philosophy and the doctrine
of virtue. Universal practical philosophy deals, among other things, with the foundations of
moral philosophy. It is under this rubric that he mentions the moral sense theories of
Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, and Hume. He then indicates that he is somewhat dissatisfied by
them and promises to supply the precision and completeness they lack. Under the second
rubric, the doctrine of virtue, he promises to describe man as he is before prescribing what he
ought to be. He then offers an account of his method for discovering man's nature, and it is
nothing less than a synopsis of Rousseau's method of laying bare human nature in the
Discourse on the Origins of Inequality.
This may lead the reader to think that Kant is moving away from the moral sense
theorists in the direction of Rousseau. But this would be mistaken for two reasons. First,
Rousseau himself is a moral sense theorist o f sorts, particularly in the Profession of Faith o f a
Savoyard Vicar, and I shall argue that Kant's likely grounds for modifying the teachings of
Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, and Hume constitute grounds for modifying Rousseau’s moral sense
theory as well—grounds for moving away from, not toward, Rousseau. Second, Kant
promises to employ his Rousseauian method in the portion of his course devoted to the
doctrine of virtue, whereas the discussion o f moral sense theory belongs to the portion
devoted to universal practical philosophy. When Kant alludes to Rousseau, he has changed
the subject.
Although Kant evidences some dissatisfaction with the doctrine of moral sense, he
does not state precisely why he finds it dissatisfying. Dreams may, however, provide some
clue to Kant’s dissatisfaction, for Kant's Announcement was published in the Fall of 1765, and
by December of 1765 he was seeing Dreams through the press. It is likely, therefore, that
Kant wrote the Announcement while writing, or shortly before writing, Dreams.
According to Dreams, to call our felt compulsion to harmonize our wills with the
general will "moral feeling" is superficial, for moral feeling is not the source of moral
obligation, but merely the way in which moral obligation makes known its claim upon us. The
ground of moral obligation does not lie within our feelings, but stirs our feelings from without.
In Dreams, the ground o f moral obligation lies in the spirit world. The moral law which
reaches out and obliges us in this world is the pneumatic law that always-already governs us
insofar as we are members of the spirit world. The "precision and the completeness which
they [the moral sense theorists] lack" is their failure to distinguish between feeling as the
motive force and feeling as the justificatory ground of moral action. Kant agrees that feeling
serves as the motive force for moral action; but it is not its justificatory ground. This is
essentially the position o f the Critique of Practical Reason. This position is stated nicely in
Kant's 1792 essay, "On the Common Saying: That May be Correct in Theory, but it is of no
Use in Practice" : "the will's receptivity to finding itself subject to the law as unconditional
necessitation is called moral feeling, which is therefore not the cause but the effect of the
determination of the will. . ,"26
The emergence o f this teaching in Dreams, in Kant's reconstruction of the
Swedenborgian spirit world, is one of the clearest signs of how enduring and important
Swedenborg's influence was for Kant. The emergence of this teaching is also a clear sign of
how Swedenborg helped Kant move beyond the central problem of Rousseau's ethics. Above
I argued that the question to which Swedenborg was the answer is: How can one be a
Rousseauian and a Newtonian at the same time? This is a problem if one identifies morality
with laws of freedom but treats moral feeling as the foundation of morality, for moral feeling,
like all feeling, is bodily; it belongs to the realm of nature; but for a Newtonian, the laws
governing the realm of nature are laws of necessity, not laws of freedom. The only way to
preserve moral laws o f freedom is to place them outside of the realm of nature, to posit the
existence of a spiritual world governed not by material laws of necessity but by pneumatic
laws of freedom, and this is precisely the model of the cosmos that Swedenborg provides.
9. Newtonian Moral Philosophy and the Problem of Theodicy
26. "Uber den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taught aber nicht fur die
Praxis," AK 8:283-4; in English, "On the Common Saying: That May be Correct in Theory,
but it is of no Use in Practice," in Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy, ed. and trans. Mary
Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 285-6; henceforth cited as Gregor.
Dreams 1.2 compares and contrasts Newtonian material laws of necessity with
Swedenborgian pneumatic laws of freedom: "Newton called the certain law governing the
tendencies inherent in all particles of matter to draw closer to each other their gravitation . . . .
Should it not be possible to represent the phenomenon of the moral impulses in thinking
natures, who are reciprocally related to each other, likewise as the effect of a genuinely active
force, through which spiritual natures flow into one another, such that the moral feeling would
be this felt dependency and an effect of the natural and universal reciprocal interaction through
which the immaterial world attains its moral unity by forming itself into a system of spiritual
perfection, in accordance with the laws governing its own cohesion?" (AK 2:335; Walford,
322-3; my trans.).
This passage sounds two themes that recur throughout Kant's moral philosophy: (1)
the general idea of laws o f the moral world analogous to Newton's laws o f the physical
world,27 and (2) the specific idea of the interplay of repulsive and attractive forces as the basic
constitution of both the physical and the spiritual worlds.28 (Although the passage here
27. See Giorgio Tonelli, "Kant's Ethics as a Part of Metaphysics: A Possible Newtonian
Suggestion? with Some Comments on Kant's ‘Dreams of a Seer’ [sic]," in Philosophy and the
Civilizing Arts: Essays Presented to Herbert W. Schneider, ed. Craig Walton and John P.
Anton (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1974).
28. On Kant's treatments of the physical laws of attraction and repulsion, see Chapter 5,
above. Kant speaks of moral laws of attraction and repulsion in the Bemerkungen of 1764-
65:
The single naturally necessary good of a man in relation to the will of others is equality
(freedom) and with respect to the whole, unity. Analogy: Repulsion
fZuriickstossung], through which a body fills its own space as all others fill their own.
Attraction fAnziehungl. through which all parts bind themselves into one. (AK
20:165; Rischmuller, 123; my trans.)
The natural instinct o f active benevolence towards others consists in love of the
[opposite] sex and children. That towards other human beings comes merely from
equality and unity. (AK 20:166; Rischmuller, 123; my trans.)
Rousseau also speaks of attractive and repulsive forms of moral sensitivity. See his Rousseau.
Judge of Jean-Jacques: Dialogues, trans. Judith R Bush, Christopher Kelly, and Roger D.
Masters (Hanover: University Press o f New England, 1990), Second Dialogue, 112. The
Dialogues were not, however, published until after Rousseau's death, the first appearing in
1780, and all three appearing (with cuts) in 1782. A complete text has been available only
'speaks only o f attractive forces, elsewhere Kant makes it clear that attractive forces must
be counterbalanced by repulsive forces, or all distinct entities, whether material or spiritual,
will collapse in on one another and lose all separate and individual existence.) We shall deal
with the second idea first.
In his letter to Mendelssohn of April 8, 1766, Kant disavows his attempt to model
pneumatic laws on the analogy of physical laws: "My analogy between a spiritual substance's
actual moral influx and the force o f universal gravitation is really not a serious opinion; but it
is an example of how far one can go with philosophical fabrications, completely unhindered,
when there are no data . . . " (AK 10:72; Zweig, 57; Zweig trans., rev.).
There is, however, good circumstantial evidence that Kant's letter is not entirely in
earnest.29 Furthermore, these allegedly unserious ideas reappear near the end of Kant's career
in the Opus Posthumum: "Newtonian attraction through empty space and the freedom of man
are analogous concepts to each other."30 They also appear in Kant's mature account of the
pneumatic laws of the moral world in the Doctrine of Virtue (1797), the second part of the
Metaphysics of Morals.31 There Kant claims that there are two ends that are also duties:
"one's own perfection and the happiness o f others" (AK 6:385; Gregor, 517; Gregor trans.).
In discussing our duties to others, Kant claims that, "Love and respect are the feelings that
accompany the carrying out of these duties" (AK 6:448; Gregor, 568; Gregor trans.). Kant
then offers an account of love and respect as pneumatic laws of the moral or intelligible world:
In speaking of laws of duty (not laws of nature) and, among these, of laws for men's
external relations with one another, we consider ourselves in a moral (intelligible)
world where, by analogy with the physical world, attraction and repulsion bind
together rational beings (on earth). The principle o f mutual love admonishes men
since 1958. Rousseau's formulations could not, therefore, have influenced Kant's on this
particular matter.
29. See my “Did Kant Dissemble His Interest in Swedenborg?”, 542-52.
30. Opus Postumum. AK 21:35; English ed.: Opus Postumum. in The Cambridge Edition of
the Works o f Immanuel Kant, ed. Eckart Forster, trans. Eckart Forster and Michael Rosen
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 237. See also Reflexion 5429, AK 18:179.
31. Die Metaphvsik der Sitten (Koniesberg: Friedrich Nicolovius. 1797), AK 6:203-493; in
English: The Metaphysics of Morals, in Gregor.
constantly to come closer to one another, that o f the respect they owe one another,
to keep themselves at a distance from one another, and should one of these great
moral forces fail, "then nothingness (immorality) with gaping throat, would drink up
the whole kingdom of (moral) beings like a drop o f water" (if I may use Haller's
words, but in a different connection)32 . .. (AK 6:449; Gregor, 568-9; Gregor trans.;
cf. AK 6:470; Gregor, 585; emphasis in original)
Kant's parenthetical claim that the laws of love and respect bind us together "on earth" seems,
at first glance, to embroil him in a contradiction, for it would seem that the earth is part of the
phenomenal or sensible world, as opposed to the intelligible or noumenal world o f duties. As
we have noted above, however, in the Critique of Practical Reason Kant argues that the
feeling of respect for the moral law is not a sensuous feeling that originates from the body but
is rather a rational feeling that originates from the intelligible world. The feeling of respect is
our subjective apprehension of the moral law. It is a link between our spiritual and our
physical selves. It is what Swedenborg calls a "spiritual influx." Although in the Critique of
Practical Reason. Kant rejected benevolence and fellow-feeling a pathological, non-moral
incentives, here he treats love as a spiritual influx, as a subjective apprehension of the moral
law (AK 5:82; Beck, 85).
In the Metaphysics of Morals. Kant claims that there are three pneumatic laws of duty
governing the intelligible world of moral persons: the self-regarding duty of perfection and the
other-regarding duties of love and respect. Here too there are interesting parallels to
Swedenborg, who also claims that there are three pneumatic laws governing the Spirit World:
Divine Love, Divine Wisdom, and "Use."33 For Swedenborg, Divine Love is the most
primordial pneumatic law. It is the outward flow of creation, bringing the spiritual and
material worlds into existence and implanting the erotic longing of the soul to return to its
divine origin. It is a principle of integration and is therefore roughly analogous to Kant's
32. Kant here quotes from Albrect Haller, Uber die Ewigkeit (T736V
33. For a more detailed account o f Swedenborg's pneumatic laws of Divine Love, Divine
Wisdom, and Use, see my essay, "From Swedenborg's Spirit World to Kant's Kingdom of
Ends," section 2.
principle of love. Divine Wisdom is a principle o f differentiation, accounting for the
providential ordering of the Spirit World into its different levels and communities; it is
therefore roughly analogous to Kant's principle o f respect. Finally, the law of Use is set forth
as a path to spiritual perfection; it is therefore roughly analogous to Kant's principle of self-
perfection.
The seeds of Kant's quest for a Newton of the moral world are already present in the
Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens of 1755, where, in the final paragraph,
Kant first links the starry heavens and the moral law through the common feeling tney evoke:
the feeling of the sublime.34 This connection reappears in 1788 at the Conclusion of the
Critique of Practical Reason: "Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing
admiration and reverence, the more often and more steadily one reflects upon them: the starry
heavens above me and the moral law within me" (KPV, AK 5:161; Beck, 166; trans. Beck).
Kant goes on to draw parallels between the miscarriage of astronomical observation,
namely astrology, and the miscarriage of moral philosophy, namely enthusiasm (Schwarmereil
or superstition (Aberelauben). Then, with a clear allusion to Newton, he speaks of the proper
methodical and reflective approach to the observation of nature, which produced modem
mathematical physics: "The fall of a stone and the motion of a sling, resolved into their
elements and the forces manifested in them treated mathematically, finally brought that clear
and henceforth unchangeable insight into the structure of the world, which, as observations
continue, we may hope to broaden but need not fear having to retract" (KPV, AK 5:163;
Beck, 167; trans. Beck).
Newton's achievement is twofold. Not only did he discover the laws o f nature that
underlie physical phenomena, he also applied these laws to phenomena, revealing order where
before there was only chaos and unity where before there was only bewildering variety. The
34. Allgemeine Natureeschichte und Theorie des Himmels . .. (1755), AK 1:215-368; in

English: Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens, trans. Stanley L. Jaki
(Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1981); henceforth cited as Jaki. The passage on the
sublimity of the starry heavens appears at AK 1:367-8; Jaki, 196. Kant's conjunction of the
sublimity of the starry heavens and of the moral law may derive from Seneca's Consolation of
Helvia. ch. viii, in The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca, ed. and trans. Moses Hadas (New York:
Norton, 1958), 117-18.
Newton o f the moral world has a strictly analogous task. Not only must he uncover the
laws of freedom that give rise to moral actions, he must also apply these laws to the human
world to reveal moral unity and order where previously only diversity and disorder could be
seen.
Kant carries out the first task of Newtonian moral philosophy by describing the nature
of the moral law. The moral law is the law of the intelligible world, which Kant also calls the
Kingdom of God and in which all human beings participate insofar as they are free and
rational beings (KPV, AK 5:136-7; Beck, 142). The task of the moral life is to live in
accordance with this law "on earth as it is in heaven," i.e., to live by the laws of the spiritual
world in the material world. This task requires a never-ending struggle to master the often
conflicting urges and appetites of our physical nature.
The second task of Newtonian moral philosophy is to show that the diverse and
chaotic phenomena of the moral world accord with its simple underlying laws. This task is,
inescapably, a theodicy. In fact, Kant struggles with two distinct theodicy problems.
The first problem was raised by Rousseau. It is the justification of the existence of the
human world—the world of history, culture, convention, civilization. The human world is
differentiated from the natural world because man is differentiated from the natural world by
the possession of reason and freedom. Thus, ultimately, Kant must show that reason and
freedom are good. This, however, is a serious problem, for "if its preservation, its welfare, in
a word its happiness, were the real end of nature in a being having reason and will, then nature
would have hit upon a very poor arrangement in appointing the reason of the creature to be
the executor of this purpose. For all the actions which the creature has to perform with this
intention of nature, and the entire rule of his conduct, would be dictated much more exactly by
instinct, and the end would be far more certainly attained by instinct than it ever could be by
reason" (AK 4:395; Beck, 11; trans. Beck).
By misusing our freedom, man has created the "glittering misery" of the world of
culture and convention which makes us unhappy by frustrating the satisfaction o f our simplest
natural desires. Thus we must ask: What good is the human world? And this forces us to
ask: What good are reason and freedom? How do reason, freedom, and the human world
harmonize with the moral law? To offer a theodicy of the moral world, Kant turned to the
man who raised the problem to begin with: Rousseau.
The second theodicy problem is the classical problem o f evil. Why do good people
suffer while evil people rejoice? Why do those most worthy of happiness lack it while those
unworthy of happiness enjoy it? How is human unhappiness in general consistent with the
moral law? As Kant puts it in the Critique of Practical Reason, "to be in need of happiness
and also worthy of it and yet not to partake o f it could not be in accordance with the complete
volition of an omnipotent rational being" (KPV, AK 5:110; Beck, 114-15; trans. Beck). Kant
calls the object most worthy of choice by a rational being the "highest good," and he defines it
as "universal happiness combined with and in conformity with the purest morality throughout
the world."35 It is the best of all possible worlds.
But how are we to achieve the highest good? To deal with the problem of evil, Kant
has to establish the existence o f God, the existence of divine providence, and the immortality
of the soul in order to argue that the sufferings of the good and the joys o f the wicked in the
material world are compensated and corrected in the spiritual world, both in this life and in the
next.
To offer a solution to the problem o f evil, Kant could have turned to thinkers from
Augustine to Leibniz. But the theodicy that held the greatest fascination and made the most
indelible impression was Swedenborg's
10. Rousseau as Newton of the Moral World

In one o f the most famous o f the Bermerkungen of 1764-65 Kant clearly connects the
task o f Newtonian moral philosophy with the problem of theodicy.
Newton was the very first to see order and regularity bound up with the
greatest simplicity, where before him disorder and badly matched manifoldness were to
be met with, whereas since then comets run in geometric paths.
35. "On the Common Saying," AK 8.279; Gregor, 282; trans. Gregor.
Rousseau was the very first to discover under the manifoldness of the
assumed shapes of humanity its deeply hidden nature and the concealed law according
to which providence through his observation is justified. Formerly the objections o f
Alfonso and Mani were still valid. After Newton and Rousseau God is justified and
Pope's thesis is henceforth true. (AK 20:58-59; Rischmuller, 48; my trans)
Here Kant not only lauds Rousseau as the Newton o f the moral world, he also indicates a
central problem that any Newton of the moral world must overcome. The objections of
Alfonso and Mani are objections to the idea of providence. The thirteenth-century King
Alfonso X of Castille reportedly said, upon studying the Ptolemaic system of the heavens,
that, "If I had been the creator o f the world, I should have made the thing better."36 This
notorious blasphemy implies that God may rule in heaven but the created world is ruled by the
forces of unreason—of evil, which is the position o f Mani, the founder o f Manicheanism. Thus
to answer the objections of Alfonso and Mani, we must solve the problem of evil. We must
show that the evils of the world are consistent with an omnipotent, omniscient,
omnibenevolent, provident God—either by showing that the evils of the world are illusory, or
by showing that they are the unavoidable characteristics of the best of all possible worlds,
which is the thesis of Alexander Pope's Essay on Man and Leibniz's Theodicy, the thesis
known as optimism.
Now, at first glance it seems preposterous to attribute an optimistic solution to the
problem of evil to Rousseau, for the overall tenor of his Discourse on the Sciences and the
Arts and his Discourse on the Origins of Inequality seems darkly pessimistic; indeed, the
second Discourse offers a total critique of civilization that has led many to regret it as simply
an unfortunate accident, a cosmic mistake. If Rousseau thought that the natural world is
good, then he at least lodged the objections of Alfonso and Mani against the human world.
Rousseau did, however, regard himself as an optimist and explicitly defended the system of
36. Pierre Bayle, Historical and Critical Dictionary, ed. Burton Feldman (New York: Garland,
1984), "Castille." Cf. Leibniz, Theodicy. §§ 193-4 and Ernst Cassirer, Rousseau. Kant.
Goethe: Two Essavs. trans. James Gutmann, Paul Oskar Kristeller, and John Hermann
Randall, Jr. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1945), 18, n22.
Leibniz and Pope against Voltaire's attacks in a letter to Voltaire dated August 18, 1756.37
Rousseau's arguments in the letter are virtually identical to those he puts in the mouth o f the
Savoyard Vicar in Emile. Because o f the essential identity of these positions, I shall treat
them both as expressions of Rousseau's convictions.
Rousseau's theodicy has at least five components
First, Rousseau points out that both optimism and pessimism are not merely claims
about mankind's experience; they are claims about the whole of nature. Optimism claims that,
on the whole, there is more good than evil, and pessimism claims that, on the whole, there is
more evil than good. If this is so, however, then both optimism and pessimism cannot be
proved by means of theoretical reason, for to prove either of them would require knowledge
o f the whole of nature, a knowledge which is unavailable to us (Letter, 115). Theoretical
reason, therefore, leads to a skeptical impasse, but this epoche leads Rousseau not to peace of
mind but to distress: "the state of doubt is a state too violent for my soul, because my reason
wavers, my faith cannot for long remain in suspense and is determined without it, that at least
a thousand subjects o f preference entice me from the most consoling side and join the weight
of hope to the equilibrium o f reason" (Letter, 117; cf*. Emile. 267-81. Once theoretical reason
has been suspended in a skeptical epoche. we cannot simply cease thinking about optimism
and pessimism, for the position we take on this issue has pressing moral and practical
implications for how we lead our lives. Pessimism extinguishes moral hope; optimism affirms
it. Rousseau therefore defends the reasonableness o f appealing to moral and practical
concerns to decide the issue, and the importance of moral hope leads Rousseau to affirm the
optimistic system (Letter, 120).
Second, Rousseau claims that optimism presupposes a provident God whereas
pessimism presupposes an atheistic Epicurean materialism that explains the emergence of
order from random contingencies. Rousseau, however, finds both presuppositions equally
37. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Letter to Voltaire, August 18, 1756, trans. Terence E. Marshall,
in Discourse on the Origins of Inequality (Second Discourse). Polemics, and Political
Economy. The Collected Writings o f Rousseau, vol. 3, ed. Roger D. Masters and Christopher
Kelly, trans. Judith R. Bush, Roger D. Masters, Christopher Kelly, and Terence Marshall
(Hanover, New Hampshire: University Press of New England, 1992); henceforth cited as
Letter.
improvable by theoretical reason. But he soundly affirms the existence of a provident God
on practical grounds and finds Epicureanism simply unintelligible (Letter, 115, 118, 121; cf.
Emile. 273,275-6).
Third, Rousseau argues that optimism presupposes the existence of an immortal soul,
whereas pessimism either denies immortality or is at least indifferent to it: "If the soul is
immaterial, it can survive the body; and if it survives the body, providence is justified" (Emile.
283; cf. Emile. 278; Letter, 117, 121). But, again, although both positions are equally
unprovable by theoretical reason, Rousseau argues that practical reason decisively inclines him
to affirm immortality over mortalism.
Fourth, Rousseau argues that the first and second Discourses, contrary to the
pessimistic impression they create, actually vindicate God's providence by showing that God is
not the author of mankind's miseries. Man himself is their author. Because mankind is free,
we are the authors of all of our moral miseries and, because we have the freedom to avoid or
minimize most of our physical miseries, to the extent that we fail to do so, we are their
authors as well. God is blameless (Letter, 109-10. 111-12; Emile. 281-2, 293).
Fifth, in the second Discourse. Rousseau's account of man's nature and development is
essentially Epicurean, accounting for man's transition from the state of nature to history and
civilization in terms of the accretion o f irreversible Epicurean contingencies over a very long
period of time. However, in the letter to Voltaire and the Profession of the Savoyard Vicar,
Rousseau accepts Epicureanism as a possible perspective, but denies that he finds it ultimately
believable, affirming instead that all events follow from necessity and that necessity carries out
the ordinances of divine providence. Indeed, it may be the case that the pessimistic impression
of the second Discourse is generated simply by its Epicurean perspective, a perspective
Rousseau seems to find useful for constructing a standpoint from which to take civilization as
a whole in view and subject it to a total critique; but it is nonetheless a standpoint which he
regards as ultimately false.38 Rousseau's total critique o f civilization is but a prelude to a
project of reconciliation with civilization, a reconciliation which cannot, however, be effected
within the Epicurean horizon. In Rousseau's considered judgment, man's fall from the state of
38. I give a fuller discussion of Rousseau's hypothetical Epicureanism in “Rousseau, Kant,

and the Theodicy of the Human World.”
nature into history is actually a fetix culpa, for it creates the condition for a greater good—a
good which is invisible from perspective of Epicurean atheism, mortalism, and materialism but
which is visible from the theistic, providential, dualistic perspective presented in the Profession
of the Savoyard Vicar.
For Rousseau, man's fall from nature into history is justified, even if it does violence to
our natural freedom and sentiments, because it creates the conditions for the development of
our moral and spiritual natures. Throughout book four of Emile. Rousseau offers elements of
a theodicy of freedom, reason, and civilization. First, although man chooses most of his
miseries and is therefore responsible for them, the very freedom that creates most of his
miseries is also the condition for his moral dignity (Emile. 281). Second, Rousseau argues
that civilization makes possible the development o f man's rational faculties, whereas savages,
after childhood, become mentally dull and placid. Emile will be taught to think—an activity
that presupposes the development of civilization; thinking is good, and civilization, because it
cultivates thinking, is good as well (Emile. 315-16). Third, the cultivation of taste adds a
great deal to the agreeableness of life; it teaches us to find pleasures virtually anywhere and to
minimize pain and suffering (Emile. 344); it also makes us more finely attuned to and richly
aware of the objective differences in the world around us; and it encourages discussion,
reflection, and even philosophy. The ideal place to cultivate taste, however, is not Arcadia or
Sparta, but decadent Paris (Emile. 342). Even the theater, Geneva's ban on which Rousseau
defended, is lauded as a school of taste (Emile. 344). Finally, in book five, the political
institutions which so frequently do violence to our natural freedom and sentiments are
defended as necessary conditions for the development o f our moral and spiritual nature
(Emile. 473).
Kant adopted many elements o f Rousseau's theodicy into his own thought. First, as
we shall see in chapter nine below, Rousseau's combination of theoretical skepticism and
pragmatic belief appears in Dreams 1.4 and in the Critique of Practical Reason, where Kant
affirms the existence of God, providence, and the immortality of the soul on essentially the
same pragmatic grounds as Rousseau uses. Second, Kant adopts Rousseau's theodicy of
reason and civilization. Consider the following passage from the Groundwork of the
Metaphysics o f Morals. Having argued that reason and freedom are poorly suited to the goal
o f animal happiness, Kant argues that they are weD-suited to the goal o f cultivating our
moral and spiritual nature:
As nature has everywhere distributed capacities suitable to the functions they are to
perform, reason's proper function must be to produce a will good in itself and not one
good merely as a means [to happiness], since for the former, reason is not absolutely
essential. This will not be the sole or complete good, yet it must be the condition of all
others, even the desire for happiness. In this case it is entirely compatible with the
wisdom of nature that the cultivation o f reason, which is required for the former
unconditional purpose [a good will], at least in this life restricts in many ways—indeed
can reduce to nothing—the achievement of the latter unconditional purpose, happiness.
For one perceives here that nature does not proceed unsuitably to its purpose, because
reason, which recognizes its highest practical vocation in the establishment of a good
will, is capable o f a contentment of its own kind (i.e., one that springs from the
attainment o f a purpose determined by reason), even though this injures the ends of
inclination.39
Happiness is the aim of our animal nature. Judged by this standard, reason and freedom are
bad, and the human world they create is a realm of alienation and suffering. But man is not
merely an animal. He is a rational animal. The aim o f our rational nature is the cultivation of
a good will. And judged by this standard, reason, freedom, and the human world are justified.
11. Swedenborg as Newton of the Moral World

As pleased as he was with Rousseau's theodicy, Kant recognized its limits. First,
Rousseau does not offer a general theodicy, but only a theodicy of the human world. Second,
39. Grundleeung zur Metaphvsik der Sitten. AK 4:397; in English: Foundations of the
Metaphysics o f Morals, trans. Lewis White Beck (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1959), 12;
henceforth cited as Beck. See also “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan
Purpose” (1784) and “Conjectures on the Beginning of Human History” (1786) in, inter alia.
Kant, Political Writings. 2nd ed., ed. Hans Reiss, trans. H.B. Nisbett (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1991).
Rousseau Indicates that a general theodicy requires an account o f the immortality of the
soul, but he provides no account o f how, precisely, the immortality o f the soul resolves the
problem: “If the soul is immaterial, it can survive the body; and if it survives the body,
providence is justified. If I had no proof of the immateriality of the soul other than the
triumph of the wicked and the oppression of the just in this world, that alone would prevent
me from doubting it. So shocking a dissonance in the universal harmony would make me seek
to resolve it. I would say to myself, ‘Everything does not end with life for us; everything
returns to order at death’” fEmile. 283). Again, Rousseau raises a question to which
Swedenborg provides an answer.
According to Dreams, real injustices exist in the material world. There are imbalances
between moral goodness and worldly happiness. One's station in this world seldom matches
our inner moral state. "All the morality of actions, while according to the order of nature
never having its full effect in the bodily life of man, may well do so in the spirit world,
according to pneumatic laws. The true intentions, the secret motives of numerous endeavors
fruitless through impotence, the victory over oneself, or sometimes the concealed malice of
seemingly good actions are, for the most part, lost to physical consequence in the corporeal
state. . . "
How is this situation consistent with divine providence? Providence is vindicated by
the fact that man also exists in the spirit world and that the injustices of this world are
compensated there. In the spirit world the appropriate moral consequences of our earthly
actions always accrue to our spiritual selves. Therefore, even though a wicked man may
escape the consequences o f his wickedness in this world, his spiritual self cannot.
In a footnote, Kant explains that our spiritual selves naturally gravitate to different
spiritual communities in accordance with our earthly activities. The spiritual selves of the
wicked are attracted to hellish communities. The spiritual selves of the virtuous are attracted
to heavenly communities. Thus, even though a wicked man may prosper in this world, we can
console ourselves that he is not merely destined for hell in the next world, his spiritual self is
already in hell. Likewise, even though a righteous man may suffer in this world, he can be
consoled by the fact that he is not only destined for heaven, his spiritual self is already in
heaven. Upon death, the wicked man will awaken to find himself already in hell and the
righteous man will find himself already in heaven.40 AH of these points are found in the
Arcana Coelestia 41
The usefulness of the idea of the spirit world in solving the problem of evil is one
reason to believe it: "If one allows these thoughts enough plausibility to justify the trouble to
measure them by their consequences, one perhaps will be imperceptibly drawn by their charm
into a partiality towards them. For it seems in this case that the irregularities, which otherwise
in the contradiction between the moral and the physical relations o f man here on earth, strike
the eye as so strange, for the most part vanish."
12. General Versus Particular Providence

Finally, we come to one point upon which the philosophical reconstruction of
Swedenborg in Dreams 1.2 diverges from Swedenborg himself namely the rejection of special
providence: "it is a great difficulty when one has to take refuge in an extraordinary divine will
in order to remove the difficulty which springs from the imperfect harmony between morality
and its effects in this world" (AK 2:337; Walford, 324; my trans.). Here Kant, in keeping with
such works as the Universal Natural History and the Only Possible Basis for a Demonstration
of the Existence of God, comes down on the side of Malebranchian general providence,
whereas Swedenborg himself defends particular providence. This one disagreement is,
however, far less remarkable than the systematic correspondences we have seen between Kant
and Swedenborg thus far.
40. The best evidence o f the Swedenborgian provenance of this doctrine are its similarities to
Kant's explicit, and very accurate account of Swedenborg’s spirit world in the Metaphvsik LI
of the mid-1770s, AK 28:298-99; Ameriks, 105.
41. In the Arcana. Swedenborg’s fullest treatment of providence is found at nos. 6480-94; cf.
nos. 689, 1919, 2694, 3467, 3648, 4329,4524, 5850, 5894, 5993, 6058, 7256, and 10773.
Swedenborg’s fullest statement on providence is his Sapientia angelica de Divina Providentia
(Amsterdam, 1764); in English: Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence, trans. William
Frederick Wunsch (New York: Swedenborg Foundation, 1851).
Chapter Seven:
The Epistemology of Spiritual Influx:
Dreams 1.2, Paragraphs 10-15
A deep vice besets the philosophers of our day . . . It is the ancient error of the
nominalists. In different forms, and with different degrees of awareness, they all blame
knowledge-through-concepts for not being a supra-sensible intuition of the existing
singular, as is Spinoza's scientia intuitiva. Boehme's theosophic vision, or that of
Swedenborg, which Kant so regretfully denounced as illusory.
—Jacques Maritain, The Decrees of Knowledge1
1. Two Questions about Spirit-Seeing (f 10)

Paragraphs ten through fifteen o f Dreams 1.2 are devoted to two questions, which are
raised in paragraph ten. First, Kant raises the question: What makes spirit-seeing possible?
To answer it, he later offers a transcendental account of the conditions for the possibility of
knowledge of the spirit world. Second, Kant raises the question: Why is spirit-seeing rare?,
for if there is a spirit world, and if the spirit world is so intimately connected with the material
world—if, indeed, our very souls participate in it—then how is it that community with spirits is
not a commonplace matter, rather than an extraordinary curiosity?
2. Why Spirit-Seeing is Rare (f 10)

In the remainder of paragraph ten, Kant answers the second question first. Spirit-
seeing is rare because o f the heterogeneity of the modes of representation characteristic of
spirits insofar as they exist in the spirit world and spirits insofar as they are joined to bodies in
the material world. Pure spirits experience the spirit world through a pure mode of
"immaterial intuition" (immateriales Anschauen). whereas an embodied spirit's knowledge of
the material world begins with "impressions on corporeal organs."
1. Jacques Maritain, Distinguish to Unite, or The Degrees of Knowledge, trans. Gerald B.

Phelan, et. al., ed. Ralph Mclnemy, The Collected Works of Jacques Maritain. vol. 7 (Notre
Dame. University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), 1.
163
While it is true that the same subject is simultaneously a member of both the visible
and invisible worlds, nevertheless, the same subject is not one and the same person, for the
representations of the purely spiritual self are heterogeneous and incommensurable with the
representations of the embodied self. Thus, under normal circumstances, the purely spiritual
and embodied persons of the same subject live separate lives, the experiences of the embodied
self remaining unknown to the spiritual self and the experiences of the spiritual self remaining
totally unknown to the embodied self Indeed, even if the embodied self were to infer the
existence o f the spirit world and offer a sensuous representation of it, the embodied self would
still fall short o f an actual "intuitive and empirical grasp" (anschauender und
Erfahrungsbegriffl of the spirit world.
In a note, Kant likens the notion that we all have "split personalities" living separate
lives in the spiritual and material worlds to the distinction between our sleeping and waking
lives. Kant defends the idea that we have "representations" in deep sleep of which our
unconscious minds are fully aware, even though our conscious minds are unaware of them.
As evidence, he cites the behavior of sleepwalkers, "who walk in their sleep, and who, in such
a state, betray more intelligence than usual, although in waking up they do not remember
anything." He disputes the argument of "certain philosophers"2 that these representations are
"obscure," since we have no waking knowledge of them. In the Inquiry, which contains a
fuller statment o f his argument, Kant offers a defintion: "Obscure representations are
representations of which we are not conscious."3 Kant argues, however, that the fact that
these representations are obscure to us when we are awake does not prove that in themselves
they are obscure when we are actually asleep. Kant argues that "ideas in sleep may be clearer
and broader than even the clearest in the waking state," since the activity of the sleeping soul
is not impeded with awareness of the body or o f the external world. Our waking recollection
of such ideas is, however, impeded by our awareness of the body and the outside world and is
2. Walford (450, n24) cites Daries, Elements metaphvsica. Psychologia empirica §26.
3. Inquiry (AK 2:289-90; Walford, 263; trans. Walford). Kant also offers a definition of
obscure representations in the Logic, ed. Gottlob Benjamin Jasche (AK 9:33). In English:
Logic, trans. Robert Hartmann and Wolfgang Schwartz (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1974),
38 and The Jasche Lode, in Lectures on Logic, ed. and trans. J. Michael Young (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1992), 545.
not aided by them because there no associations exist between the ideas on the one hand
and our awareness of the body and the outside world on the other. Kant also distinguishes
these ideas, which we do not remember upon waking, from dreams, which we can remember
(albeit in distorted form) upon waking precisely because we are not fully asleep when we
dream Kant's entire argument is based on the idea that in each of us is another consciousness,
a kind of Doppeleanger. of which we are unaware in day-to-day life.
There are striking parallels between Kant and Swedenborg on the spiritual-corporeal
split in man's personality. Swedenborg too claims that embodied and disembodied spirits have
different corporeal and spiritual modes of cognition. Every spirit that enjoys corporeal
existence simultaneously exists in the spirit world. But embodied spirits are unaware of this
fact because their embodiment constricts their cognitive faculties to knowledge of the
corporeal world. By the same token, our spiritual "better halves,” which exist in the spirit
world alongside entirely disembodied spirits, see their place in the spirit world through
spiritual eyes, but lack the suitably corporeal mode of cognition to know anything about the
physical world: "Spirits . . . are not able, and angels are still less able, to see anything that is in
the world by their own sight, that is, by the sight of the spirit; for the light o f the world or the
sun is to them as thick darkness; just in the same way as man by his sight, that is by the sight
of the body, cannot see anything that is in the other life; for the light of heaven, or the Lord's
light, is to man as thick darkness" (AC, no. 1880).
Both Swedenborg and Kant agree that embodied knowers have a sensuous mode of
cognition. There is, however, some question as to whether they agree about the spiritual
mode o f cognition. Kant claims that the normal mode of cognition for a spirit is an
"immaterial intuition." If this is equivalent to what Kant later refers to as "intellectual
intuition," a faculty which intuits intelligible objects which lie outside of space and time, the
forms o f sensible intuition,4 then this represents a departure from Swedenborg.
Although Swedenborg claims that spirits have an immaterial mode o f cognition, it is
not clear that he would speak of it as an intellectual intuition, if one understands this as a
nonspatio-temporal mode of cognition. Although Swedenborg makes it very clear that the
4. Critique of Pure Reason. B edition Transcendental Deduction, §§ 23-24 (B 148-52),

B307-8, and A256=B311.
spirit world exists outside o f space and time, all of his descriptions of the spirit world are in
terms of spatio-temporal objects, which are only symbolically related to nonspatio-temporal
realities. Furthermore, it is not only Swedenborg who sees the spirit world in this way; spirits
and angels see things this way as well.
Thus Swedenborg does not understand the difference between spiritual and embodied
cognition in terms of the distinction between an intellectual intuition o f things lying outside of
space and time versus a sensuous intuition of things in space and time. Instead he claims that
the symbolic meaning of sensuous visions is hidden to embodied knowers and transparent to
disembodied knowers. There is, however, no reason to equate the "immaterial" intuition of
Dreams 1.2 with the intellectual intuition of the Critique of Pure Reason, thus on this point as
well, there is at least no apparent difference between the Kant of Dreams 1.2 and Swedenborg.
For Swedenborg the normal form of consciousness is a split personality , one and the
same person has a spiritual and an embodied self each of which lives a separate life in
complete ignorance of the other. This notion is, at the first few glances, exceedingly strange,
but it actually anticipates a very familiar concept of modem philosophy and psychology: the
unconscious. When Swedenborg speaks of a spiritual level of the self of which our mundane
consciousness is normally unaware, he is speaking o f a level of conscious life that does not fall
within the horizon of self-consciousness, which is precisely what psychologists call the
unconscious. Swedenborg even speaks o f the "unconscious activity" (ienota activitate) of the
interior soul (AC, no. 1504).
Because Swedenborg claims that the spiritual selves of all living men participate in a
common spiritual world, that the entities o f this spirit world exist outside o f space and time,
although they appear to be within it, and that they are instead diffentiated from one another in
terms o f intelligible relationships of representations and correspondences, the Swedenborgian
unconscious strongly resembles Jung's "collective unconscious," the realm of symbols and
archetypes. (It is perhaps no accident that in his formative years, Jung read Dreams of a
Spirit-Seer and seven volumes of Swedenborg.5)
5. C.G. Jung, Memories. Dreams. Reflections, recorded and ed. Aniela Jaffe, trans. Richard
and Clara Winston (New York: Vintage, 1965), 99. See the epigraph to the next chapter.
Swedenborg claims that disembodied spirits and angels could see the corporeal
world only through the eyes of an embodied spirit, and that embodied spirits could see the
spirit world only through the eyes of their disembodied other halves. This, however, would be
an extremely rare occurrence, for it would require the opaque "membrane," so to speak,
between the embodied and disembodied halves of a spirit to become transparent.
This does, however, happen on rare occasions, through special divine providence:
"When the Lord pleases, spirits and angels can see the things in this world through the eyes of
a man. But the Lord does not grant this except in the case of one whom He enables to speak
with spirits and angels, and to be together with them" (AC, no. 1880). Swedenborg claims
that this transparency was granted to him by God: "The Lord has opened faperuit] my
interiors finteriora] so that I may see the things in the other life" (AC, no. 5862). This
"opening up" the "interior sight" is the gift of prophecy: "the visions of the prophets were
nothing else than openings of the interior sight [visus eorum interioris]" (AC, no, 1532; cf.
nos. 1533, 1619, 1970, 3891, 4526, 4529, 6695, 9438, 9439, 9707).
3. The Ideality of Space and Time

In Dreams, we can see the outlines of two of the central tenets of the Critique of Pure
Reason: the distinction between the phenomenal and noumenai worlds and the ideality of
space and time.
In the first Critique, the phenomenal and noumenai worlds, and the phenomenal and
noumenai self, consist of different aspects of the same underlying realities, realities
differentiated into dual aspects by two different modes of intuition. The noumenai or
intelligible world is that part of reality that transcends the sensuous mode of intuition of
embodied knowers but nevertheless can be thought by them, i.e., it can be "emptily intended,"
but it cannot be made intuitively present for embodied knowers do not have "intellectual
intuition,” a mode of knowledge that somehow combines both the intellectual and the
sensuous. The phenomenal world—the world of material bodies differentiated by space and
time—is that aspect of reality which shows itself to a sensuous mode of intuition.
See also F.X. Charet, Spiritualism and the Foundations of C.G. Jung's Psychology (Albany:
SUNY Press, 1993), esp. chs. 3-4.
In Dreams, we find a remarkably similar picture.
First, we have a dual aspect account of self and world as ontologically bifurcated into
a phenomenal, sensible or material self and world on the one hand, and a noumenai,
intelligible, spiritual self and world on the other.
Second, entities in the material world are separated by the "great chasm" between
"ages" (Zeitalter) and "places" (Orter)—"conditions" (Bedjngungen) which do not exist in the
spirit world.
Third, the ontological duality of the material and spiritual worlds is correlated with
two modes of intuition: the phenomenal world with sensuous intuition and the noumenai
world with an immaterial (although not necessarily intellectual) intuition.
Fourth, immaterial intuition is denied to embodied human beings, whose only access to
the noumenai realm is, according to the Critique of Pure Reason, through a "thinking" that is
empty of intuitive content, and according to Dreams is through an imaginative representation
that does not constitute actual intuitive knowledge.
There is, however, one crucial difference between Dreams and the first Critique. In
the first Critique, space and time are treated as transcendental idealities, as forms of intuition,
not as objective realities, whereas in Dreams space and time seem to be treated as objectively
real features of the material world. However, as we shall soon see, in later paragraphs space
and time take on the role of transcendental idealities or forms o f intuition when Kant discusses
the conditions that make it possible for an embodied human being to have knowledge of the
spirit world.
4. Swedenborg on Space and Time

Kant's views of space and time, like so many of his other teachings, are prefigured in
the Arcana Coelestia:
. . . things that are divine, or that are infinite, are not apprehended except from finite
things of which man can form some idea. Without an idea derived from finite things,
and especially as idea from the things of space and time, man can comprehend nothing
of divine things and still less o f the infinite. Without an idea of space and time man
cannot have any thought at aU; for in respect to his body he is in time, and thus in
respect to his thoughts which are from the external senses; whereas the angels, not
being in space and time, have ideas of state, and therefore spaces and times in the
Word signify states . . . (AC, no. 3938)
. . . when forms are mentioned [to a human being] they carry with them an idea of
space and also of time; and yet in the interiors, where heaven is, nothing is perceived
by spaces and times, because these are peculiar to nature, but by states and their
variations and changes. But as the variations and changes cannot, as before said, be
conceived by man without the aid of such things as pertain to form, and without such
things as belong to space and time, when yet these do not exist in the heavens, it may
be seen how incomprehensible these things are, and also how unutterable. (AC, no.
4043)6
In these passages, it is clear that Swedenborg claims that only the material bodies of the
natural world are differentiated from one another by spans of space and time. In the spirit
world, entities are differentiated from one another in terms of "states" of moral and spiritual
development and perfection measured ultimately by one's proximity or remoteness from the
divine.
Swedenborg seems to hold that space and time are real features of the real world; they
are as real as the real world itself. Furthermore, as inhabitants of the real world, we perceive
it in terms o f the "ideas" of space and time. However, when one passes from one’s worldly
existence into the spirit world, where space and time are unreal, one still sees a world of
spatio-temporally differentiated objects. Why?
6. The ideality of space and time in Swedenborg's spirit visions is an endlessly repeated theme
in the Arcana Coelestia. See AC, nos. 1274-75, 1376-82, 1604, 2262, 2288, 2393, 2395,
2401, 2456, 2562, 2786, 2790, 2810, 2836, 3143, 3355, 3356, 3387, 3692, 3696, 3719,
3729, 3793, 3831, 3842, 3938, 4043, 4217, 4237, 4310, 4392, 4578, 4580, 4583, 4814,
4882, 4889, 4901, 5038, 5086, 5216, 5253, 6602, 6983, 7246, 7381, 8103, 8587, 8918,
9011, 9261, 9422, 9440, 9579-81, 9967, 10580, and 10734. Cf. Heaven and HelL nos. 162,
163, 164, 165, 168, 191, and 197, and Coniugial Love, no. 50.
Swedenborg argues that when we pass into the spirit world, we take the ideas of
space and time with us. Spiritual things, although they exist outside of space and time, still
appear in space and time, because the only way they can be given to a human knower is in the
form of spatio-temporally differentiated objects. The spiritual world appears as spatio-
temporal in order to accommodate itself to the spatio-temporal ideas of finite, created
intellects, for it only by means of such an accommodation that it can be given at all.
Fortunately, though, once a newly arrived spirit becomes acclimated to its new
surroundings, it learns the intelligible correspondences that exist between spatio-temporal
appearances and the moral and spiritual "states” in terms of which spiritual beings are actually
differentiated. Once a spirit learns these correspondences, it can read true inner moral and
spiritual states off of false external spatio-temporal appearances.
Insofar as the objects of the spirit world are differentiated in terms of states which
exist in intelligible relations of representations and correspondences, it is legitimate to
characterize Swedenborg's spirit world as an "intelligible world" or a "noumenai world,"
although he himself does not characterize it that way.
Thus far, we can characterize Swedenborg's account of space and time as both
transcendentally idealist and transcendentally realist. It is idealist, insofar as space and time
are not real features of spiritual entities as they are in themselves, but are merely the forms in
which spiritual entities make themselves known to finite created intellects, which can perceive
only in terms of the ideas of space and time. It is realist, insofar as the objects o f the material
world really are spatio-temporally differentiated, and embodied beings perceive them in terms
of the "ideas" of space and time.
It may be possible, however, to push Swedenborg's account of space and time in the
natural world in the direction of transcendental idealism as well if we take into account his
overall metaphysical framework and his account of creation. For Swedenborg, what is
ultimately real is God and God alone; God is reality "in itself^" and God is entirely outside of
space and time.
By contrast, all of creation, including both the material and the spiritual worlds, is not
being in itself, but being for us. appearance to a subject, for according to Swedenborg, "The
universal end, that is, the end of all things of creation, is that there may be an eternal
conjunction of the Creator with the created universe; and this is not possible unless there
are subjects [i.e., human subjects] wherein His Divine can be as in Itself.”7 God can be fully
himself only in conjunction with human subjects, because human beings do not simply receive
the efflux of divine love and wisdom which calls the world into being and orders it. Man can
also comprehend and reciprocate divine love and wisdom.
Man, furthermore, spreads divine love and wisdom to the lowest things of nature
through the transformation of the natural world in imitation of God's creative and ordering
power: "man has been created that the Divine things may descend through him down to the
ultimates of nature, and from the ultimates of nature may ascend to Him; so that man might be
a medium that unites the Divine with the world of nature and the world o f nature with the
Divine."8 Thus the aim of creation is God's return to himself--the reversion of divine love and
wisdom to its source—through mankind. Nature, therefore, must be seen as a spectacle (a
theophany) and man as a spectator, who comprehends the theophany and reciprocates the
divine love and wisdom that gives rise to it, thus completing the cosmic circle.
Swedenborg often asserts that divine influxes are received in different ways according
to the different cognitive faculties and moral characters of the recipients. For human beings,
the most prominent characteristics of their cognitive faculties are the "ideas" of space and
time. Thus we can argue that all of creation, comprising both the material and the spiritual
worlds, takes on spatio-temporal forms simply in order to accommodate itself to the spatio-
temporal ideas of the human mind, such that if the human mind changed the ideas in terms of
which it operates, the appearance of the world would change to accommodate the mind's new
mode of apprehension.
In themselves, neither the material nor the spiritual worlds are spatio-temporally
differentiated, for in themselves, they are God, who lies outside of space and time; they are
nothing but means by which God appears to man, God being the only "thing in itself." For us,
however, the material and spiritual worlds are spatio-temporally differentiated, for it is only by
taking on the forms of space and time that God can manifest himself to finite subjects. Space
and time, therefore, are not real features o f things as they are in themselves, neither in the
7. Divine Love and Wisdom, no. 170.

8. AC, no. 3702.
material world nor in the spiritual worfd. Space and time are ideal forms of intuition for
both the material and the spiritual worlds.
The only difference between the material and the spiritual worlds on Swedenborg's
account seems, therefore, to be the fact that we become aware of the ideality of space and
time in the spirit world and therefore are no longer so closely bound to it, whereas we are
oblivious of it in the material world.
Swedenborg, in sum, holds the Kantian doctrine of the ideality of space and time
before Kant himself held it. Since the ideality of space and time is a rather unusual idea, and
since Kant’s first sketch of it appears in a book written in response to the Arcana Coelestia.
we need to take seriously the possibility that Swedenborg inspired this central tenet of the
critical philosophy.
S. Space, Time, and Clairvoyance

Clairvoyance seems to abolish the spatio-temporal distances between subject and
object that condition ordinary awareness. If, like Kant, one accepts that Swedenborg really
did see a fire raging 300 miles away, then we must infer that he did not see it with his physical
eyes, but by means o f an extra-sensory form of perception for which distances in space and
spans of time disappear. The existence of a form of consciousness not bound by space and
time naturally makes one wonder about the relationship of space and time to ordinary
perception. Are space and time things in themselves, or features of things as they are in
themselves, or are they merely forms the forms of sensory intuition—forms that would be
abolished if one acquired a new forms of non-sensory intuition?
In the Arcana Swedenborg uses his account of the ideality of space and time to explain
what makes clairvoyance possible: .. the spaces and distances, and hence the progressions
which appear in the natural world, in their first cause and origin, are changes of the state of
the interiors and . .. their appearances with the angels and spirits is according to these
changes; and further,. . . through such changes angels and spirits can be translated from one
place to another, and from one earth to another, even to earths that are at the end of the
universe. The same also holds true with a man so far as his spirit is concerned, while his body
still remains in its own place1’ (AC, no. 9440). This passage is somewhat dense, but the gist of
it is that once one realizes that the spirit exists outside o f space and time, and that space
and time are mere forms of appearances of non-spatial, non-temporal spiritual "states," then
once one changes one's interior state, one’s spirit can move from one end of the cosmos to
another while one's body remains in the same physical place.
It is thus reasonable to conjecture that one of the central questions Kant posed in his
letter to Swedenborg concerned the nature of space and time. It is also reasonable to
conjecture that Swedenborg's promise to answer Kant's questions in his "next book," a book
he was to have published in 1763, was a promise to deal with the nature of space and time. In
chapter two, I argued that Divine Love and Wisdom is likely the work that Swedenborg
promised. Of the five books Swedenborg published in 1763, only Divine Love and Wisdom is
a purely theosophical work, as opposed to an exegetical or doctrinal work. And Divine Love
and Wisdom does restate and clarify the teachings of the Arcana on the nature of space and
time.9
6. How Spirit-Seeing is Possible (f 11)

Paragraph eleven begins by raising a problem. The radical heterogeneity of spiritual
and corporeal modes o f representation asserted in Kant’s previous paragraph seems to prove
too much, for instead of explaining why embodied knowers only rarely make contact with the
spirit world, it leads one to conclude that such cognition is impossible in principle. How,
given the radical heterogeneity of spiritual and corporeal modes of intuition, is spirit-seeing
possible at all? Kant's answer is a theory that I shall call "symbolic spiritual influx."
Because of the radical heterogeneity of modes of intuition, an embodied knower could
never perceive the spirit world as it is in itself, for embodied knowers are capable of intuiting
only material, spatio-temporally differentiated objects and are not equipped to intuit the
immaterial, nonspatio-temporally differentiated objects o f the spirit world. An embodied
knower can intuit such immaterial, nonspatio-temporal objects only if they present themselves
to him in a material, spatio-temporal form-only if they flow into his consciousness of their
own accord, and only if they appear as material, spatio-temporal realities: spatio-temporal
9. See Divine Love and Wisdom, nos. 7, 69, 70, 73, 74, 75, and 161.
realities that are related to their underlying spiritual sources only symbolically, and whose
inner spiritual meaning must somehow be recovered by an act of interpretation. In the words
of Dreams:
. .. the influxes from the side of the spirit world... . can cross over to the personal
consciousness of man, granted, not immediately [i.e., in their nonspatio-temporal
form], but yet such that, in accordance with the law of association of ideas, they excite
those images which are related to them and awaken representations analogous to our
senses, which are not, it is true, the spirit-concept itself but yet are their symbols. . ..
Thus it is not improbable that spirit-sensations may cross over to consciousness, if they
arouse visions which are related to them. In this way, ideas which are participated in
by means of spiritual influx10 would clothe themselves in the signs of that language,
which the human being normally uses, the sensed presence of a spirit in the image o f a
human figure, the order and beauty of the immaterial world in visions which normally
delight our senses in life, and so forth. (AK 2:338-9; Walford, 326-7; Goerwitz, 69-
70; my trans.11)
10. Note the Platonic language of participating in ideas.

11. In his Inaugural Dissertation, On the Form and the Principles of the Sensible and
Intelligible World (1770), Kant argues that, "whatever in cognition is sensitive is dependent
upon the special character of the subject in so far as the subject is capable of this or that
modification in the presence of objects: these modifications may differ in different cases,
according to variations in the subjects." He also claims that not only is the matter of sensation
affected by the nature of the recipient, the form of sensation is as well: "the form of the same
representation is undoubtedly evidence o f a certain reference or relation in what is sensed,
though properly speaking it is not an outline or any kind of schema do the object, but only a
certain law, which is inherent in the mind and by means of which it co-ordinates for itself that
which is sensed from the presence of the object. For objects do not strike the senses in virtue
of their form or aspect. Accordingly, if the various factors in an object which affect the sense
are to coalesce into some representational whole there is needed an internal principle o f the
mind, in virtue of which those various factors may be clothed with a certain aspect, in
accordance with stable and innate laws" (Inaugural Dissertation, § 4, AK 2:393; Walford,
384-5).
Kant offers a number of examples to make such a process more plausible.
Philosophers clarify the "higher rational-concepts" which seem rather close to spiritual
concepts, by having them assume a sensuous, "corporeal garb." For the same reasons,
theologians represent "the moral characteristics o f the divinity" as "anger, jealousy,
compassion, revenge, etc." and the poets personify the "virtues, vices, and other qualities of
that nature." Geometers spatially represent time with a line; philosophers represent divine
eternity as an infinite time; and mathematicians insist on representing Leibnizian monads as
"kleine Klumpchen." Such sensuous representations are useful so long as the symbols are not
reified and their merely symbolical nature forgotten; they are useful only so long as "the true
idea of the understanding [i.e., a nonsensuous idea] shines through."
Swedenborg, too, holds that spiritual and embodied modes of cognition are radically
different in kind, embodied cognition being suitable only for knowing sensible things, spiritual
cognition being suitable only for spiritual things. Therefore, an embodied human being cannot
know spiritual things as they are in themselves, for he lacks the proper cognitive equipment.
By the same token, spiritual beings cannot know embodied beings as they are in themselves,
for they too do not have the requisite cognitive equipment. Thus, to explain how it is possible
for an embodied knower to cognize spiritual things, Swedenborg offers a doctrine of symbolic
spiritual influx in the Arcana Coelestia:
As regards the influx of angels with a man, it is not an influx of such thoughts
as the man then has, but is according to correspondences: for the angels are thinking
spiritually, whereas the man perceives this naturally; thus with the man spiritual things
fall into their correspondents, consequently, into their representatives. For example,
when a man speaks of bread, of seedtime, o f harvest, of fatness, and similar things, the
thought of the angels is then about the goods of love and charity; and so forth. 1 once
dreamed an ordinary dream, and when I awoke, I related everything from beginning to
end. The angels said that all things agreed exactly with those which they had spoken
of among themselves; not that these were the same as I had dreamed, but things
corresponding and representative, and it is the same in every single thing. (AC, no.
6319, cf. 1981)
176
To understand this passage, we must make clear what Swedenborg means by

"correspondences" (correspondentiael and "representations" (repraesentationes).12
According to Swedenborg, everything in the natural world corresponds with something in the
spiritual world, and vice-versa. These correspondences are, however, almost totally unknown
to us because of the heterogeneity of natural and spiritual forms of cognition.
Representations refer to the manifestation of spiritual realities in the material world
through their corresponding material realities. A representation is a correspondence made
cognitively transparent, thereby allowing a spiritual reality to shine through: "there exists a
correspondence between spiritual things and natural things; and . . . there is a representation
of spiritual things in natural things" (AC, no. 2989, emph. added). Correspondences become
representative when one learns the symbolical relationship between material realities and their
corresponding spiritual realities.
In prophetic dreams and visions, influxes from the spiritual world enter the mind of an
embodied knower.13 Such influxes also take place when we read Holy Scripture and say the
Lord's Prayer.14 These influxes must, however, accommodate themselves to the nature of the
recipient. Swedenborg claims that any divine efflux "is modified as in its recipient"
(recipientibus existit et modificatur) (AC, no. 3741).15 Swedenborg thus likens spiritual influx
to, "the light of the sun, which diffuses itself into all the objects o f the earth, but is received
according to the nature of each object, being turned into a beautiful color in beautiful forms,
and into an ugly color in ugly forms" (AC, no. 2888, cf. 6467).
The modification of influxes takes place on a number of levels.
12. Swedenborg serializes a treatise "Concerning Representations and Correspondences," in

the Arcana Coelestia (AC nos. 2987-3002, 3213-26, 3337-51, 3472-85).
13. On prophetic dreams and visions, see Swedenborg's treatise "Concerning Visions and
Dreams, Including the Prophetic Ones Contained in the Word," AC, nos. 1966-83
14. On Holy Scripture and its accommodation, see AC, nos. 1776 and 10322; on the Lord's
Prayer, see AC, no. 6476.
15. To my knowledge, the earliest formulations of the idea that what is received is received
according to the ability of the receiver are found in Plotinus. See John N. Deck, Nature.
Contemplation, and the One: A Study in the Philosophy o f Plotinus (Toronto. University of
Toronto Press, 1967), 63.
First, divine influxes must accommodate themselves to the human mode of
cognition: "that which is from the Divine descends through the heavens down to man;
therefore in the heavens it is accommodated to the wisdom of the angels there, and on earth it
is accommodated to the apprehension of the men who inhabit it" (AC, no. 10322).
Second, spiritual influxes are accommodated to the past experiences and memories of
the particular recipient: "When the angels flow in, they adjoin affections also, and the very
affections contain innumerable things within them; but of these innumerable things only a few
are received by the man, in fact those only that are applicable to the things that are already in
his memory" (AC, no. 6320).16
Third, influxes are accommodated to the native tongue of the recipient: "the language
of spirits is entirely different,. . . it is the universal language of all, and . . . from it ideas
flowed into my native language, and thus they speak not from themselves, but in me" (AC, no.
6199, cf. 1637-39).
Fourth, influxes are "the Life which flows in [from the Lord] is received in every one
according to his nature: good and truth are received by the good as good and truth; whereas
good and truth are received by the evil as evil and falsity" (AC, no. 2888, cf. 1776, 3484,
6467-68).
To accommodate themselves to their recipients, the spiritual contents of influxes must
take on suitable corporeal forms. These corporeal forms are, however, symbolically related to
their corresponding spiritual realities, and if the recipient has the capacity to interpret these
symbols correctly, they become cognitively transparent, serving as representations of spiritual
realities. Swedenborg claimed that he was specially chosen by God to provide the correct
symbolical interpretation of the innumerable correspondences in Scripture, revealing its inner
spiritual meaning.
7. What Kind of Man becomes a Spirit-Seer? ( f 12)
16. This would, of course, explain the otherwise unlikely fact that Swedenborg describes
heaven to be rather like the world of an eighteenth-century Swedish nobleman. It might also
answer Herder's complaint that all the great historical personalities with whom Swedenborg
converses in the spirit world sound like Swedenborg himself. See Herder’s “Emanuel
Swedenborg, der grosseste Geisterseher des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts.”
Paragraph twelve raises and answers the question: Given that spiritual influxes are
rare, what kinds of people experience them, and why? Spiritual influxes are possible because
one and the same subject participates in both the material and the spiritual worlds. In normal
circumstances we are unaware of this fact. For some subjects, however, the boundary
between the phenomenal and noumenai aspects of the self is thin or porous, allowing the
noumenai self s consciousness of the spirit world to flow through. Kant claims that such
spiritual influxes, "occur only to persons whose organs have an unusually great sensitivity for
intensifying, through harmonious movement, the images of visions according to the internal
state of the soul, to a greater degree than usually happens, or should happen, with soundly-
constituted human beings" (AK 2:339-40; Walford, 327; Goerwitz, 70-71; my trans.). In a
footnote, Kant makes clear that the organs he refers to are not "the organs of outer sensation,
but rather what one calls the sensorium o f the soul rSensorium der Seele]. that is, that part of
the brain, the movement o f which is wont to accompany the various images and
representations o f the thinking soul, as the philosophers maintain" (ibid).
Once a spiritual influx has entered the mind of an embodied knower, it takes on the
garb of spatio-temporally differentiated material objects. These objects do not, of course,
exist in the phenomenal world; they exist only in the minds of the spirit-seers, but spirit-seers
tend to take (or mistake) these inner apparitions for external phenomena: "Such peculiar
persons would, in certain instances, be assailed by the appearance of many objects as outside
o f themselves, which they would take as a presence of spiritual natures falling before their
corporeal senses, although this is only an illusion of the imagination .. ." (AK 2:340; Walford,
327; Goerwitz, 7t; my trans.).
Kant is careful, however, not to reduce the entire phenomenon o f spirit apparitions to
illusions of the imagination, for he immediately points out, "yet [this illusion of the imagination
is] such that the cause of it is a genuine spiritual influx, which cannot be immediately sensed,
but rather only through the images of the imagination, which take on the appearance of
sensations in order to reveal themselves to consciousness" (AK 2:340; Walford, 327;
Goerwitz, 71; my trans.).
One cannot emphasize the importance of this passage enough. Here Kant makes it
clear that his task is to explain how genuine spiritual influxes are possible; he is not concerned
to explain them away as illusions. Granted, there is an dement of illusion in spirit-seeing,
but the illusions consist in misconstruing genuine spiritual influxes into the inner sensorium of
the soul as external phenomena.
As we have seen, Swedenborg too claims that there is an element of illusion in spirit-
seeing, even though its source is a genuine spiritual influx. To represent themselves to us,
inflowing spiritual realities take on sensuous garbs, representing themselves to us
symbolically, and requiring us to extract their inner spiritual meaning through an act of
interpretation. Swedenborg does, however, differ on one important point—a point we have
discussed in the previous chapter as well. Whereas Kant seeks to account for spirit-seeing
naturalistically, in accordance with general laws,17 Swedenborg claims that his powers were
given to him by a special act of divine providence.
8. Problems for Spirit-Seers (f 13)

Paragraph thirteen raises several problems for spirit-seers. The first problem follows
from the fusion of genuine spiritual influxes with illusions. Kant speaks of the fusion of
"concepts derived from education" and "surreptitious illusion," of the mingling of truth and
delusion, and of the transformation of a "genuine spiritual sensation" into "shadow-images of
sensible things." The problem is that the ability to "develop impressions of the spirit world to
clear intuition in this life" can be "hardly o f any use" as a way of cognizing the spirit world,
because in such visions it is impossible to distinguish the element of truth in genuine spirit-
impressions from the "brain phantoms of the imagination" that are woven together with them.
The second problem is that the porousness of the barrier between the phenomenal and
noumenai aspects o f the spirit-seeris self constitutes a "genuine sickness" of the nervous
system.
Third and finally, it is not uncommon for a spirit-seer to be a "visionary" (Phantast), at
least with respect to the images accompanying his apparitions. A visionary is a person who
has a propensity to take as external phenomena whole arrays of "wild chimeras” and
17. Kant does, however, appeal to particular providence earlier in Dreams 1.2 when he claims
that the connection between spirits and bodies is not necessary, but contingent, "resting upon
special divine provision" (AK 2:330; Walford, Goerwitz, 57; trans. Walford).
"wondrous caricatures."1* But, again, Kant is quick to remind us that the source of such
visions may be a "true spiritual influx."
It should be noted that the first and third of these problems are essentially the same:
Even though the basis of putative spiritual apparitions may indeed be genuine spiritual
influxes, these influxes can appear to us only by clothing themselves in sometimes familiar and
ofttimes fantastic sensuous forms. In short, they appear to us as something they are not, and
this makes spiritual visions cognitively useless—unless we have some means o f extracting their
inner spiritual meanings.
Swedenborg claims that God granted him the ability to reveal the inner spiritual
meanings of symbolic influxes, including the words of Holy Scripture, the inner meanings of
which are treated in his vast Biblical commentaries: Arcana Coelestia. The Apocalypse
Explained, and The Apocalypse Revealed.
Kant, however, thought that Swedenborg's interpretations of the inner spiritual
meaning of Scripture and of his visions were subjective and arbitrary. See, for instance,
Reflexion 1486, from the 1770s: "Schwedenborgs und aller Schwarmer (Mysriri) symbolische
auslegung der Bibel"~"Swedenborg's and all enthusiasts (mystics) symbolic interpretation of
the Bible,"19 which seems to classify Swedenborg among the enthusiasts and the mystics
precisely because of his approach to Biblical hermeneutics. Essentially the same point is made
in Kant's two 1798 books The Conflict of the Faculties and Anthropology in Pragmatic
Perspective. In the Conflict, he writes:
As for the charge that rational interpretation of the Scriptures is mystical, the sole
means o f avoiding mysticism (such as Swedenborg's) is for philosophy to be on the
lookout for a moral meaning in scriptural texts and even to impose it on them. For
unless the supersensible (the thought of which is essential to anything called religion) is
anchored to determinate concepts of reason, such as those of morality, fantasy
inevitably gets lost in the transcendent, where religious matters are concerned, and
18. A more complete account o fPhantasterei is found in Kant's "Versuch liber die
Krankheiten des Kopfes," AK 2:264-5.
19. Reflexion no. I486 (1770s), AK 15:710; my trans.
leads to an flluminism in which everyone has his private inner revelations, and there
is no longer any public touchstone of truth.20
And in the Anthropology he states:
To claim that the actual phenomena of the world, which present themselves to the
senses, are merely the symbols of an intelligible world hidden in the background (as
Swedenborg does), is enthusiasm. However, in the exhibition of concepts (called
ideas) which belong to that morality which is the essence of all religion and which
consequently comes from pure reason, we must distinguish the outer shell, useful and
necessary for a time, from the thing itself, the symbolic from the intellectual—this is
enlightenment.21
In both passages, Kant classifies Swedenborg as a mystic or enthusiast. In both passages, he

claims that Swedenborg treats nature or Scripture as symbolic manifestations of an underlying
intelligible world.
But Kant does not claim that Swedenborg is an enthusiast because he interprets nature
and Scripture symbolically, for it is clear that Kant too wishes to interpret nature and
Scripture symbolically. Swedenborg claims that his interpretations are validated by his status
as a divinely chosen revelator. Kant, however, rejects this claim because it is based upon an
individual's claim to a special authority and is not intersubjectively verifiable; it is grounded in
a sensus privatus rather than in the sensus communis: therefore It does not offer "any public
touchstone of truth."
Kant's goal, therefore, was to find a hermeneutic method for recovering the inner
meanings of nature and Scripture that produces intersubjectively verifiable interpretations, i.e.,
20. Per Streit der Fakultaten. AK 7:46; in English: Immanuel Kant, The Conflict of the
Faculties, bilingual ed., trans. Mary J. Gregor (New York: Abaris, 1979), 80-81; Gregor trans.
21. Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht. AK 7:191-2; Dowdell, 84; Gregor, 65; Dowdell
trans.
interpretations verifiable in principle by every individual, so that they need not defer to the
authority of a self-proclaimed divine revelator.
Kant's hermeneutics is based upon his moral philosophy, which he claims is in principle
verifiable by anyone who reflects upon the experience o f categorical obligation, of respect for
the moral law and for the persons who are obligated by it. We are entitled to interpret nature
and Scripture symbolically only if we anchor our interpretations to the intersubjectively
verifiable concepts of morality. In other words, the only valid symbolical interpretation of the
inner meanings of nature and Scripture is a moral interpretation. Thus we arrive at the
startling conclusion that the chief difference between Kant and Swedenborg—between
illuminism and enlightenment—is the hermeneutic method by which they propose to recover
the inner meaning of nature and Scripture.
9. Summary and Transition 14-15)

Paragraph fourteen offers a summary of Kant's epistemology of spiritual influx.
We need no longer be at a loss to give apparently rational causes for the ghost
stories which so often cross the path o f philosophers, and likewise all the sundry spirit
influxes which are discussed here and there. Departed souls and pure spirits can
indeed never be present to our outer senses, nor moreover stand in community with
matter, but they may affect the spirit o f man, who belongs with them to one great
republic, such that the representations, which they awake in him, clothe themselves, in
accordance with the laws of his fancy, in related images and arouse the appearance o f
corresponding objects outside him. This deception can affect any one of the senses,
and however much it may be mixed with nonsensical brain phantoms, one need not let
this deter one from supposing underlying spiritual influxes. (AK 2: 340-41; Walford,
328; Goerwitz, 72; my trans.)
Again, the final point is worth noting: the role o f the mechanics o f sensory "deception" in the
production of spiritual apparitions does not exclude the possibility that their underlying causes
are genuine spiritual influxes. This point should be kept in mind, for in the next chapter of
Dreams, the authorial persona whom I have dubbed the "enlightened skeptic" simply denies
this possibility and question-beggingly reduces all putative spiritual apparitions to "mere"
illusions.
Paragraph fifteen concludes with the observation that "someone who was to a certain
extent organized not only for the visible world but also for the invisible (provided that there
ever has been such a person)" is, like Tiresias, likely to gain his access to the spiritual world by
losing something of his ability to live in this world. Then, for the first time in Dreams.
metaphysicians are likened to spirit-seers: "Nor do I also know whether even certain
philosophers, who with such application and absorption train their metaphysical telescopes on
those remote regions and find themselves able to report wonders from those distant places,
ought to be wholly released from this hard condition," a condition summed up in an otherwise
unknown anecdote about the great Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), who, when
he presumed to tell us coachman the shortest route, met with the reply "Mv dear master, vou
may have a thorough knowledge of the heavens, but here on earth vou are a fool" (AK 2:341;
Walford, 328-9; Goerwitz, 73; trans. Walford).22
This paragraph is clearly transitional. First o f all, it is somewhat awkwardly placed
after the summary of the final section of Dreams 1.2. Second, both its mocking tone and the
parallel it draws between metaphysicians and spirit-seers are less characteristic of Dreams 1.2
than of the following chapter, to which we now turn.
22. Cf. the account of Thales in Plato, Theaetetus. 174a and Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the
Philosophers I xxxiv (Hicks trans., L 35). Walford (450, n28) also points out a resemblance
to La Fontaine’s fable L’Astrologue qui se laisse tomber dans un puits (Fables II, xiii), which
derives from Aesop (Fable XL) and Babrius (Fable XX).
Chapter Eight:
"Anti-Kabbalah—A Fragment of Common Philosophy to Cancel Community with the
Spirit World": Dreams 1.3
Kant's Joke. Kant wanted to prove in a way that would dumbfound the common man
that the common man was right: that was the secret joke of this soul. He wrote against
the scholars in favor of the popular prejudice, but for scholars and not popularly.
—Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gav Science. §193'
The observations of the spiritualists, weird and questionable as they seemed to me,
were the first account I had seen of objective psychic phenomena. . .. Naturally, I
also spoke o f these matters to my comrades, who to my great astonishment reacted
with derision and disbelief or with anxious defensiveness. I wondered at the sureness
with which they could assert that things like ghosts and table-turning were impossible
and therefore fraudulent, and on the other hand at the anxious nature of their
defensiveness. . . . How did they know that something was "impossible"? And, above
all, what did the anxiety signify? For myself, I found such possibilities extremely
interesting and attractive. They added another dimension to my life; the world gained
depth and background. Could, for example, dreams have anything to do with ghosts?
Kant's Dreams of a Spirit-Seer came just at the right moment, and soon I also
discovered Karl Duprel, who had investigated these ideas philosophically and
psychologically. I dug up Eschenmayer, Passavant, Justinius Kemer, and Gorres, and
read seven volumes o f Swedenborg.
—C.G. Jung, Memories. Dreams. Reflections. 1961*
1. The Portable Nietzsche, ed. and trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Penguin, 1959), 96.
2. C.G. Jung, Memories. Dreams. Reflections, recorded and ed. Aniela Jaffe, trans. Richard
and Clara Winston (New York: Vintage, 1965), 99. Jung's remarks indicate that he regarded
the teaching of Dreams 1.2 to be Kant’s authentic teaching; he would not have regarded the
book as useful if he had accepted the received view o f the book.
184
t. A Parody o f Popular Philosophy
Dreams 1.3, "Anti-Kabbalah—A Fragment of Common Philosophy to Cancel
Community with the Spirit World," marks the emergence of a distinctly new authorial persona
and a distinctly new philosophical perspective. I shall call this persona the enlightened skeptic.
I shall argue that his portrayal amounts to a parody o f the French philosophes. such as
Voltaire, Diderot, and d'Alembert, and their German equivalents, the "Popularphilosophen."
Eighteenth-century German Popularphilosophie was a loosely-organized movement
comprising three overlapping generations o f philosophers, theologians, journalists, publishers,
physicians, jurists, and thoughtful men o f affairs dedicated to the task o f improving man's
estate through popular enlightenment, which they conceived as the reform and expansion of
education, the spread of tolerance and freedom of thought, the liberation of the mind from
ignorance and prejudice, the encouragement of scientific progress and its application to human
problems, and the cultivation of manners, morals, and taste.
The movement included such philosophers as Johann Erich Biester, J.F. Feder,
Christian Garve, Johann Jacob Engel, Johann August Eberhard, Ernst Platner, as well as the
bookseller, essayist, novelist, and journal editor Friedrich Nicolai (1733-1811). Two members
of the Berlin Academy who shared the ideals and intellectual style of the popular philosophers
were Johann Georg Sulzer and the immensely prolific Pierre Samuel Formey. Mendelssohn
was associated with the Popularphilosophen and shared many of their ideas, but was a thinker
of a distinctly higher calibre.
Also associated with the circles and aims o f the Popularphilosophen were such
theologians and clergymen as Johann Joachim Spalding, Johann Samuel Dieterich, Wilhelm
Abraham Teller, Johann Friedrich Zollner, and Friedrich Gedike; jurists and statesmen like
Karl Franz von Irwing and Christian Wilhelm von Dohm; physicians such as Johann Karl
Wilhelm Mohsen, Christian Gottlieb Selle, and Kant's student and friend Marcus Herz.3
3. For useful overviews of German popular philosophy, see Lewis White Beck, Early German
Philosophy: Kant and His Predecessors (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969), 321-4
and Frederick Beiser, The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), chs. 6-7, esp. 165-69. On the institutional
settings of popular philosophy, see Gunther Birtsch, "The Berlin Wednesday Society," trans.
Arthur Hirsch, in What is Enlightenment? Eighteenth-Centurv Answers and Twentieth-
The main organs o f popular philosophy were Nicolai's Briefe die neueste Literature
betreffend and Alleemeine deutsche Bibliothek. the Bibliothek der schonen Wissenschaften
und der fireven Kiinste and the Neue Bibliothek der schonen Wissenschaften und der freven
Kunste. Biester's Berlinische Monatsschrift. the Gottingische Anzeieen von gelehrten Sachen.
and later Feder’s Philosophische Bibliothek and Eberhard's Philosophisrhes M aaarin The
popular philosophers largely abandoned rigorous and technical philosophical treatises for
vehicles more accessible to the masses, including the bellelettristic essay, the philosophical
novel (often imitating the epistolary form of Rousseau's Julie), paraphrases and textbooks, and
collections of epigrams and aphorisms.
Although the aims of the popular philosophers were essentially the same, it is hard to
characterize their ideas, for they were self-conscious philosophical eclectics who were more
concerned with the application of philosophy to the world than with issues of systematic
consistency. Indeed, although most popular philosophers were trained in Leibnizian and
Wolffian rationalism, they regarded systematic metaphysical concerns as a stuffy, Gothic
pedantry, thus they did not shrink from attempts to hybridize Leibnizian and Wolffian
rationalism with elements of Lockean and Humean empiricism and the Scottish common sense
philosophy of Reid, Oswald, and Beattie.4
Their one common philosophical concern was establishing reason as the arbiter and
touchstone of all public discourse, hence their watchwords were "universal human reason"
(alleemeine Menschenvemunft). "healthy reason" (recta ratio or gesunde Menschenvemunft).
and "common sense" (sensus communis or gemeine Menschenverstand). the last being a
particularly plastic conception which lent itself alternately to rationalistic, empiricistic, and
Century Questions, ed., James Schmidt (Berkeley : University of California Press, 1996); Henri
Brunschwig, Enlightenment and Romanticism in Eiahteenth-Centurv Prussia, trans. Frank
Jellinek (Chicago: University o f Chicago Press, 1974), esp. ch. 2, "The Machinery of the
Aufklarung"; and Richard van Dulmen, The Society of the Enlightenment: the Rise of the
Middle Class and Enlightenment Culture in Germany, trans. Anthony Williams (New York:
St. Martin's Press, 1992).
4. On Scottish common sense philosophy, see Manfred Kuehn, Scottish Common Sense in
Germany. 1768-1800: A Contribution to the History of Critical Philosophy (Kingston and
Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1987).
fideistic interpretations. The common denominator, however, was a conception of reason
that was inherently intersubjective and critical.
The popular philosophers revered modem natural science and thus in metaphysics
tended toward Newtonian or even Epicurean forms of materialism. In morals, they tended to
treat the goal of human action as earthly happiness and the criterion of the good as "moral
feeling." In religion, they tended toward deism and neologism, but (sometimes only from
reasons of prudence) avoided outright agnosticism or atheism. They also opposed all forms o f
occultism and religious enthusiasm, which they regarded as sources of fanaticism, intolerance,
and bloodshed, and which they relentlessly attacked with mockery and sarcasm. In
anthropology, they had a penchant for psychological, physiological, and even mechanical
accounts of spiritual phenomena. They held out great hopes for scientific and technological
progress and defended tolerance and freedom of thought, but their populism turned to elitism
when they raised the questions of political philosophy, for most embraced the enlightened
despotism of Frederick the Great, perhaps out of cowardice, perhaps out of the desire to
impose Enlightenment by force.5
2. Why the Enlightened Skeptic is not Kant's Spokesman

The received view of Dreams is that it is the whimsical product o f a skeptical,
"Humean" Kant offering a critique of Wolffian metaphysics by associating it with the patently
absurd enthusiasm of Swedenborg. The received view, in short, identifies Kant with the
enlightened skeptic. I shall show, however, that Kant did not identify himself with the
enlightened skeptic, but instead explicitly disavows his point o f view.
First of all, if I am correct in identifying the enlightened skeptic as a popular
philosopher, then he could not serve as Kant's spokesman, given Kant's longstanding scorn for
5. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, like Mendelssohn, was a thinker of much higher calibre than
the Popularphilosophen. and he reserved particular contempt for their cozy relationship with
despotism. In a letter to Nicolai dated August 25, 1769, he writes: "Don't talk to me of your
Berlin freedom. It reduces to nothing but the freedom to hawk as many foolish jokes against
religion as one wishes.. . . But let someone in Berlin come forward for the rights o f subjects,
let someone raise his voice against exploitation and despotism (as happens now in France and
Denmark), and you will soon see which country is today the most slavish in Europe" (Quoted
and translated in Beck, History of German Philosophy. 319).
popular philosophy. For instance, in a letter to Johann Heinrich Lambert dated December
31, 1765, when Dreams was either in press or fresh off the press, Kant expresses clear
contempt for popular philosophy:
You complain with reason, dear sir, of the eternal trifling of punsters and the
wearying chatter of today's reputed writers, with whom the only evidence of taste is
that they talk about taste. I think, though, that this is the euthanasia of false
philosophy, that it is perishing amid these foolish pranks, and that it would be far
worse to have it carried to the grave ceremoniously, with serious but dishonest hair
splitting. Before true philosophy can come to life, the old one must destroy itself; and
just as putrefaction signifies the total dissolution that always precedes the start of a
new creation, so the current crisis in learning magnifies my hopes that the great, long-
awaited revolution in the sciences is not too far off. (AK 10: 56-7; Zweig, 49; trans.
Zweig)
Kant repeats essentially the same sentiments in the Preface of the 1781 edition Critique
of Pure Reason, where he presents the metaphysical and methodological eclecticism of the
popular philosophers as a cynicism bom of frustration with philosophy's sterile oscillations
between dogmatism and skepticism:
. .. now, after all methods, so it is believed, have been tried and found wanting, the
prevailing mood is that o f weariness and compete indifferentism—the mother, in all
sciences, of chaos and night, but happily in this case the source, or at least the prelude,
o f their approaching reform and restoration... . But it is idle to feign indifference to
such enquiries, the object of which can never be indifferent to our human nature.
Indeed, these pretended indifferentists, however they may try to disguise themselves
by substituting a popular tone for the language of the schools, inevitably fall back, in
so far as they think at all, into those very metaphysical assertions which they profess so
greatly to despise. (A x.; Kemp Smith, 8-9; trans. Kemp Smith)
Later in the same Preface, Kant defends his dry and scholastic style from the standard
objections o f the popular philosophers on the grounds of the ineluctably esoteric nature of first
philosophy, defiantly asserting that, "this work can never be made suitable for popular
consumption" (A xviii.; Kemp Smith, 12-13; trans. Kemp Smith).
At the very end of the Critique. Kant returns to the topic of popular philosophy,
characterizing its emphasis on common sense as a methodological "naturalism" and its lack of
scientific rigor as "mere misology, reduced to principles; and what is most absurd o f all, the
neglect o f all artificial means is eulogized as a special method of extending our knowledge"; he
then recommends that the popular philosophers adopt the humility of common men, who
"follow common reason, without boasting of their ignorance as a method which contains the
secret o f how we are to fetch truth from the deep well of Democritus" (A 855 = B883; Kemp
Smith, 668; trans. Kemp Smith).
Kant’s 1783 book Prolegomena to Anv Future Metaphysics that Will be Able to
Present Itself as a Science is often taken as an attempt to popularize the Critique of Pure
Reason.6 Yet from the beginning to the end o f his Preface, Kant attacks popularization. The
first sentence declares, "These Prolegomena are not for the use o f pupils but of future
teachers, and even the later should not expect that they will be serviceable for the systematic
exposition of a ready-made science, but merely for the discovery of the science itself' (AK
4:255; Ellington, 1; trans. Ellington). The Prolegomena are not a popular text book, and are
no substitute for the Critique itself. Later Kant laments, "I did not expect to hear from
philosophers complaints of want of popularity, entertainment, and facility when the existence
o f a highly prized and indispensable cognition is at stake, which cannot be established
otherwise than by the strictest rules of scholarly precision. Popularity may follow, but is
inadmissable at the beginning" (AK 4.261; Ellington, 6; trans. Ellington). Kant regards the
Prolegomena not as an attempt a popularization, but as an attempt to make the overall plan of
the first Critique more perspicuous to specialists. Kant also defends "the longwindedness of
the work [the first Critique], so far as it depends on the science itself and not on the
6. Kant, Prolegomena to Anv Future Metaphysics That Will be Able to Come Forward as
Science, trans. Paul Cams, revised by James W. Ellington (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1977);
henceforth cited as Ellington.
exposition, its consequent unavoidable dryness, and its scholastic precision," for these "are
qualities which can only benefit the science, though they may discredit the book" (AK 4:262;
Ellington, 7; trans. Ellington). In the next paragraph, Kant claims that he could have made his
work as popular and perspicuous as those of Hume and Mendelssohn, but only if he had
confined himself to sketching the plan of the first Critique rather than carrying it out (AK
4:262; Ellington, 7-8). Finally, in his last paragraph Kant emphasizes the essentially esoteric
nature of metaphysics. To those who find the Prolegomena obscure as well, he suggests that,
"not everyone is bound to study metaphysics"; in closing, he states that, "this much-abused
obscurity [abused, preeminently by the Popularphilosophen]. . . has its uses." What is its use?
Kant makes this clear in his closing line from Virgil's Georgies, iv, 168, which he claims is in
accord with "sound critical principles": "Ignavum. fiicos. pecus a praesepibus arcent—They
keep out of their hives the drones, an indolent bunch" (AK 4:263-4; Ellington, 8-9; trans.
Ellington).
In 1785, in the Preface o f the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Kant attacks
the Popularphilosophen for "catering to the taste o f the public by mixing up the empirical with
the rational in all sorts of proportions which they themselves do not know—a warning to those
who call themselves independent thinkers and who give the name o f speculator rGriibler] to
those who apply themselves exclusively to the rational part o f philosophy" (AK 4:388; Beck,
4; trans. Beck). A few paragraphs later, Kant declares that, "Philosophy which mixes pure
principles with empirical ones does not deserve the name" (AK 4:390; Beck 6; trans. Beck).
Kant does grant that the foundations of moral philosophy are more susceptible of
popularization than the foundations of metaphysics, but he rejects the methodologically
undiscriminating manner of the popular philosophers (AK 4:391-2; Beck, 8).
Kant criticizes popular philosophy at even greater length in the Preface to the 1787
edition of the first Critique: "That critique [the Critique o f Pure Reason] can never become
popular" (B xxxiv; Kemp Smith, 31; trans. Kemp Smith). Kant also praises the Wolffian
"Geistes der Grundlichkeit" which shows us how "the secure progress of science is to be
attained only through orderly establishment o f principles, clear determination of concepts,
insistence upon strictness o f proof and avoidance o f venturesome, non-consecutive steps in
our inferences" in contrast to the 'loquacious shallowness which assumes for itself the
name of popularity" (B xxxv -xxxvi.; Kemp Smith, 32-33; trans. Kemp Smith).
Kant further argues that it is only the critique of speculative reason that can prevent a
scandal that will inevitably result if popular philosophy succeeds in popularizing metaphysical
dogmatism among the masses The project of dogmatic metaphysics is to reconstruct the
common man's pre-rational, practical convictions regarding God, freedom, and immortality on
theoretical grounds. The first Critique, however, shows that this project is doomed to failure,
and its failure will drag down belief in God, freedom, and immortality with it, opening the
door for "materialism, fatalism, atheism, freethinking, enthusiasm, and superstition, which can
be injurious universally" (B xxxv.; Kemp Smith, 32; trans. Kemp Smith).7
The scandal unleashed by the indiscriminate popularization of school-metaphysics will
likely lead the guardians of public order to curtail freedom of thought and expression. This
outcome can be avoided only if reason itself performs its own pre-emptive self-censorship,
thereby bringing its interests back into harmony with the interests of public order, and this
self-censorship involves preserving the essentially esoteric nature of first philosophy; some
types of divine fire cannot and should not be brought down from Olympus. The Critique of
Pure Reason is precisely this pre-emptive self-censorship of reason *
In 1788, in the Critique of Practical Reason. Kant claims that, "Consistency is the
highest obligation of a philosopher," and then observes that, "The ancient Greek schools
afford more examples of it than we find in our syncretistic age, when a certain shallow and
dishonest system of coalition between contradictory principles is devised because it is more
acceptable to a public which is satisfied to know a little about everything and at bottom
nothing..." (AK 5:24; Beck, 23; trans. Beck). As we shall see, a lack of logical rigor and
consistency is a prominent feature o f the enlightened skeptic.
In March of 1790, in a letter to Borowski, Kant blames the spread of Schwarmerei on
"the universal mania for reading" which is stoked by popularizers who produce "indices and
7. This line of argument is clearly influenced by Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi's thesis that
philosophy, by seeking to place foundations under common sense beliefs, leads only to
nihilism. On the relationship of Kant to Jacobi, see Beiser, The Fate o f Reason, chs. 2 and 4.
8. My understanding o f this dialectic and Kant’s response to it owes much to Velkley’s
Freedom and the End o f Reason, esp. the Introduction and ch. 1.
summaries, skimming the cream offthe sciences" (AK 11:138-9; Zweig, 160; trans. Zweig)
and prescribes the spirit o f Griindlichkeit as a cure for the spirit of dilettantism.
For their part, the popular philosophers almost to a man were hostile to the critical
philosophy: "the Popularphilosophen were normally among Kant's most bitter opponents. For
more than two decades they attacked his philosophy in countless tracts, reviews, and articles
There were even journals devoted to the criticism of Kant, such as Federis Philosophische
Bibliothek and Eberhard's Philosophisches Maeazin. . . . In the 1780s and 1790s the
Popularphilosophen and Glaubensphilosophen composed a single chorus united in accusing
Kant o f a single charge: Humean solipsism or nihilism. . . . Indeed, no history of Kant's
philosophy after the first Kritik can afford to ignore the Popularphilosophen. They made up
the vast majority of Kant's early opponents, and most o f his early polemics were directed
against them."9
In short, if the enlightened skeptic is a popular philosopher, there is good reason to
doubt that he is a spokesman for Kant's own views, and there is good reason to examine his
portrait carefully for elements of parody.
Second, although all o f Dreams was published anonymously, I have shown that there
is good cause to identify the ironic metaphysician of Dreams 1.1 and 1.2 with Kant himself in
the earlier stages of his career. The ironic metaphysician is the persona through which the
earlier Kant speaks. As we shall see, however, the persona of the enlightened skeptic is
revealed, implicitly in Dreams 1.3 and explicitly in 1.4, to be a mask adopted by the ironic
metaphysician himself to offer a self-critique of his position—a self-critique that is not,
however, designed to destroy the hypothesis of the spirit world, but to push it onto new
foundations. In short, the enlightened skeptic is not Kant's mask, but a mask donned by
Kant’s mask.
Third, while the irony of the ironic metaphysician is flattering, self-conscious, and
serves to buttress his positions by muting their pretentiousness, the irony displayed by the
enlightened skeptic is unflattering, unselfconscious, and serves to subvert both his positions
and his pretensions. Furthermore, the arguments of the enlightened skeptic are consistently
9. Beiser, The Fate of Reason. 167-8.
and patently question-begging. If the received view were correct, however, we would
expect precisely the opposite: Kant would not have endowed his opponent with a flattering
and salutary irony and undermined his own position with an unflattering, self-subverting irony.
And he would not have offered obviously question-begging arguments for his own position.
What, then, is the function of Dreams 1.3? I contend that its purpose is to subject the
hypothesis of the spirit world to a standard enlightenment rationalist critique, as a prelude to
reconstructing it in a maimer immune to such criticism. But why then compromise this
critique with question-begging arguments and self-subverting irony? After all, if Kant thought
that the enlightened skeptic's position were entirely self-subverting, then he would not have
thought it necessary to reconstruct the hypothesis of the spirit world on new foundations in
the first place. Clearly, Kant had to regard the enlightened skeptic's position, with all its
faults, as sufficiently powerful if not to topple the hypothesis of the spirit world, then at least
to nudge it off o f its foundations. But what aspect of the enlightened skeptic's position did
Kant take seriously?
Both the ironic metaphysician and the enlightened skeptic share two concepts: the
sensus communis and experience. The ironic metaphysician appeals to the sensus communis
to support the hypothesis of the spirit world and the enlightened skeptic appeals to it to attack
both metaphysicians and spirit-seers as enthusiasts who construct a sensus privatus out of
their own idiosyncratic intuitions. Both also appeal to experience, the metaphysician to
ground the hypothesis of the spirit world, the skeptic to topple it.
I wish to suggest that Kant shared the enlightenment skeptic's concern to avoid
enthusiasm and ilhiminism by tying all concepts to experience and to the sensus communis.
For instance, in the very same 1765 letter to Lambert in which Kant pours scorn on popular
philosophy, he piously refers to "the touchstone of universal human reason fProbiersteine der
allgemeinen menschlichen Vemunft]" (AK 10:55; Zweig, 48). Because of this, Kant saw the
necessity of reconstructing the hypothesis o f the spirit world on the grounds of
intersubjectively available and verifiable experience: the experience of moral obligation, of
practical reason. Hence the pragmatic turn of Dreams 1.4, where it is suggested that practical,
not theoretical reason offers us grounds for believing that something like the Swedenborgian
spirit world is real.
194
3. "Gemeinen" versus "Geheimen" Philosophy (Title and f 1)

Dreams 1.3 consists of nine paragraphs. The title, "Anti-Kabbalah—A Fragment of
Common [gemeinenl Philosophy to Cancel faufeuheben] Community fGemeinschaft] with the
Spirit World" nicely mirrors the title o f 1.2, "A Fragment o f Occult fgeheimen] Philosophy to
Reveal Our Community with the Spirit World."
The reference to the Kabbalah is somewhat ambiguous, for then as now, the term does
not simply refer to the esoteric tradition in Judaism, but to the hermetic, mystical, and
paranormal in general. If the term is used in its specific sense, however, then it is a sign of
both the breadth of Kant's knowledge and his philosophical astuteness, for Swedenborg's
thought is deeply marked by Kabbalism, particularly the strand of Christianized Lurianic
Kabbalism that arose primarily in England and Germany in the seventeenth-century, the
central documents o f which were published in 1677 by Christian Knorr von Rosenroth as the
Kabbala denudata.10
By announcing a fragment of "gemeinen" philosophy, the title straightforwardly
anticipates both the chapter's tone of popular philosophy and its underlying concern with the
sensus communis. The title is also, however, rich with ironies. First, its empiricistic self
characterization as "gemeinen philosophic" is at odds with its elitist rejection o f spirit-seeing
as merely a superstition o f the common people. Second, the purpose of "gemeinen
philosophic" is precisely to cancel a wider "Gemeinschaft" between the natural world and the
Spirit World, whereas the purpose of "geheimen philosophic" is not to conceal, but to reveal
(erQffhen) such community.
The construction o f the new authorial persona begins with the very first words of the
chapter. The first paragraph begins with a quotation: "Aristotle says somewhere: When we
are awake, we have a common world, but when we dream, each has his own It seems to me
10. Christian Knorr von Rosenroth, ed., Kabbala denudata. seu doctrine Hebraeorum
transcendentalis et metaphysics atque theologica. Opus antiquissimae philosophiae barbaricae
variis speciminibus refertissimum .. ., 2 vols. (Sulzback and Frankfiirt, 1677). On
Swedenborg's debts to Kabbalism, see Reuben Bell, "Swedenborg and the Kabbalah,” Arcana:
Inner Dimensions of Spirituality 1, no. 4 (l995):21-32; see also Schuchard's Emanuel: Desire
of Nations, passim.
that one should perhaps reverse the last proposition and could say: when different people
each have their own world, then it is to be supposed that they are dreaming" (AK 2:342;
Walford, 329; Goerwitz, 74)." This passage clearly establishes the enlightened skeptic's
concern with the sensus communis.
Two things are, however, puzzling about this quote. First, the citation is obtrusively
loose, vague, and unscholarly: "Aristotle says somewhere fireendwo]..." Second, Aristotle
makes this claim nowhere. Instead, the quote is a paraphrase of Heracleitus, (Diels-Kranz)
Fragment 89: "[Heracleitus says that] for those who are awake there is a single, common
universe fkoinon kosmon], whereas in sleep each person turns away into [his] own private
[idion] [universe]."12
Also noteworthy is the rather blase and facile manner in which, once the authority of
Aristotle is invoked, the last clause is simply inverted to make a different point. The manner
and use of this quotation are, according to Eva Brann, typical of the philosophes of the French
Enlightenment, whose use of classical authors to support very modem causes was facilitated
by "a convenient looseness in studying and construing them: they were defused by being used.
taken out of context and turned into tags."13
The paragraph then goes on to argue that the scholastic metaphysicians of the day,
typified by Wolff and Crusius, consistently thwart the sensus communis: they are
"Luftbaumeister"--master air builders-of "various imaginary worlds [Gedankenwelten] which
they tranquilly inhabit to the exclusion of others," Wolff employing a little experience and a lot
of "surreptitious concepts" (erschlichenen Beeriffenl and Crusius the "magic power"
(magische Kraft) o f statements about what can and cannot be thought (AK 2:342; Walford,
329; Goerwitz, 74; my trans.). The skeptic counsels patience with the "contradictions of their
visions" until "these gentlemen have dreamed themselves out":
11. Kant also uses this quote in the Anthropology of 1798, but does not attribute it to an
author (AK 7:190; Gregor, 63; Dowdell, 82).
12. Heracleitus, Fragments, trans. T.M. Robinson (Toronto: University o f Toronto Press,
1987), 55.
13. Eva T. H. Brann, "The Roots of the Enlightenment," in The Ambiguous Legacy of the
Enlightenment ed. William Rusher with Ken Masugi (Lanham, Maryland: University Press of
America, 1995), 13.
196
For if they eventually, as God wills, awake completely, i.e., if they should eventually
open their eyes to a vision which does not exclude agreements with other human
understandings, then none o f them would see anything which did not, in light of their
proofs, appear obvious and certain to everybody else as well, and the philosophers will
all inhabit a communal world together at the same time, such as the quantitative
scientists have long possessed, which important event must now be imminent, if we are
able to believe certain signs and portents which made their appearance some time ago
above the horizon of the sciences. (AK 2:342; Walford, 329; Goerwitz, 74-5; trans.
Walford)
If scholastic metaphysicians are dreamers in their own worlds, it is the quantitative scientists,
epitomized by mathematicians and mathematical physicists, who are wide awake and inhabit a
common world. The enlightened skeptic regards the quantitative sciences as models of
intersubjectively verifiable knowledge which philosophers should emulate. He is, in short, an
advocate o f "scientism." It is, therefore, self-subvertingly ironic that he begins this passage
with an appeal to that bugaboo of modem science, particular providence ("so Gott will"), and
ends by predicting a transformation o f philosophy on the basis of astrological "signs and
portents" which have appeared "above the horizon of the sciences." Thus the science the
skeptic opposes to superstition turns out to be no less superstitious.
4. Dreamers of Reason versus Dreamers o f Sense (f 2)

Paragraph two asserts an affinity between metaphysical "dreamers of reason" and "the
dreamers of sense"—who include those who, "from time to time have dealings with spirits."
The affinity is based on the fact that both sets of dreamers claim to see things that "no other
healthy human being sees and have their own community with beings which reveal themselves
to no one else, no matter how good his senses may be" (AK 2:342; Walford, 329-30;
Goerwitz, 75; trans. Walford).
The skeptic then begins his critical analysis o f dreamers: "The designation reveries is
appropriate, if one assumes that the aforementioned apparitions flow out o f mere brain
phantoms, insofar as the one as well as the other are self-hatched images, which
nevertheless delude the senses as true objects" (AK 2:342-3; Walford, 330; Goerwitz, 75; my
trans.).
It is important to note that the skeptic's analysis begins by explicitly presupposing that
dreamers of reason and sense are merely dreaming, that their visions and apparitions are
merely delusions to be explained away by appealing to phantoms of the brain. But, as we
have seen, the ironic metaphysician o f Dreams 1.2 explicitly challenges the presumption that
the "dreams" o f spirit-seers are mere dreams. Instead, he suggests that their visions could be
genuine symbolic influxes from a supersensible world. Thus the skeptic begins his treatment
of spirit-seers by assuming the very thing that he needs to prove: namely, that spiritual visions
are nothing but psychological events. In short, the enlightened skeptic's entire critique begs
the question against his opponent.
This fact presents interpreters with a choice. If they wish to retain the received view’s
identification of Kant with the enlightened skeptic, then they have to conclude that Kant was a
remarkably poor reasoner, so poor in fact that he could not even manage to mount a valid
critique of a position he himself had authored in the previous chapter. If however, we are not
too quick to assume that we are better reasoners than Kant, then we ought to consider the
possibility that he is offering a patently question-begging argument on purpose, perhaps as a
parody, perhaps as an object lesson in the characteristic limitations of enlightened popular
philosophy.
The skeptic then goes on to caution us against assuming that the two forms of
dreaming are so similar in origin that we can use one to explain the other: "however, if one
imagines that both deceptions in addition were sufficiently similar in the manner of their
origin, in order to find the source of the one also sufficient to explain the other, then one quite
deceives oneself' (AK 2:343; Walford, 330; Goerwitz, 75; my trans.). This sentence does not
make clear which form o f dreaming is which, leading one to conclude that the origins of
neither can throw light on the other. This in turn raises questions about the meaning of the
book's title, which seems to promise that one can explain one kind of dream by reference to
the other.
5. The Psychology and Physiology of Spirit-Seeing 2-8)
The skeptic then devotes the rest of paragraph two and all of paragraphs three through
eight to offering an account of spirit-seeing that reduces it entirely to psychological and
physiological abnormalities.
First, the skeptic draws a distinction between a dreamer proper and a daydreamer.
Both dreamers and daydreamers are absorbed by the "fictions and chimeras" which are
"hatched out" by their "fertile imagination." The difference is that the waking dreamer is also
at least peripherally aware of sense impressions from the external world. Therefore, he can
appreciate his daydreams as daydreams because of the constant availability of the real world as
a contrast term. No matter how vivid his imagination may be, the "genuine sensation of his
body" allows him to distinguish between inner and outer spaces. Thus he locates his
daydreams inside himself, not outside in the objective world. He counts them as his own
creations, not as objective realities and never confuses fantasy and reality.
The dreamer proper, however, is cut off from external sensuous impressions by sleep.
Furthermore, he ceases to be aware of his own body and thus o f the boundaries between inner
and outer spaces. He therefore lacks the contrast term and the peripheral awareness of the
body necessary to locate the chimeras of his imagination inside himself, among his own
creations. Instead, as long as he sleeps, he mistakes his dreams for realities.
In paragraph three, the skeptic argues that spirit-seers differ from daydreamers not just
by degree, but in kind. Daydreamers, after all, are aware that their fantasies are not external
realities. Spirit-seers, however, experience the products of their imaginations as external
realities. But how? The skeptic rejects the suggestion that the spirit-seer simply has an
abnormally vivid imagination, for this alone does not explain the remarkable process by which
internal, subjective images of the imagination are experienced as real objects in the external,
objective world. The skeptic also rejects pseudo-explanations that merely liken spirit
apparitions to fever dreams, for such an explanation does not tell us how, precisely, the
deception takes place.
In paragraph four, the skeptic asserts that the mind presents to us not just objects, but
also their location in space. He then offers a physical account o f how the soul transposes the
internal images occasioned by sense perception into external space. Paragraph five offers an
analogous account of sound location and claims that similar accounts can be offered of the
other three senses. Then, in paragraph six, the skeptic applies his analysis to explain our
awareness of the fact that some representations are mere figments of the imagination, existing
only inside of us. To do this, he posits as his starting point the Cartesian principle, "that all
representations of the faculty of imagination are simultaneously accompanied by certain
movements in the nerve tissues or nerve spirit o f the brain. These movements are called ideas
materiales" (AK 2:345; Walford, 332; Goerwitz, 79; trans. Walford).
Representations of external objects are accompanied by vibrations which are imparted
by the objects themselves. The external source of these vibrations allows the soul to
transpose the representations into the external world. Thus, my representation of the tree
outside my window is accompanied by its corresponding material idea, which consists of
physical vibrations in my nerve tissues and fluids. The soul has the power to determine which
vibrations derive from external objects and then to locate the corresponding representations in
the external world.
However, in the case of my representation of a purely imaginative entity, like a
unicorn, the accompanying material idea bears no relation to any external object but instead
can be traced back to the power of the imagination; therefore, the soul locates such
representations in the internal space of the imagination. By means of this mechanism, a
daydreamer can simultaneously be aware of both internal and external representations and yet
never confuse the two.
In paragraph seven, the skeptic applies his framework to the explanation of "that type
o f mental disturbance, which one calls delusion [Wahnsinn] and in higher degree derangement
rVerruckung]. . . . [T]he characteristic o f this sickness consists in that the confused man
transposes mere objects of his imagination outside o f him and takes them for things that are
really present before him" (AK 2:346; Walford, 33; Goerwitz, 80; my trans.). The skeptic
suggests that, if, "as the result of some accident or sickness certain organs of the brain are so
distorted and their natural balance is so disturbed . . . the focus imaginarius [where the soul
locates an image] is located outside the thinking subject, and the image which is the product
of the mere imagination, is represented as an object present to the outer senses" (AK 2:346;
Walford, 333-34; Goerwitz, 80-81; trans. Walford). The skeptic then suggests that the initial
shock o f apprehending a figment of the imagination as an external object will imbue the
delusion with all the vividness of real experience. This sort o f delusion can affect any of the
outer senses, for they all give rise to images in the imagination.
In paragraph eight, the skeptic explains why similar features recur throughout these
delusive visions: "the concepts of spirit forms, inculcated into us by education, provide the
sick mind with materials for its delusive imaginings, and . . . a brain which was free from all
such prejudices, even if it were affected by some disturbance, would not so easily hatch out
such images" (AK 2:347; Walford, 335; Goerwitz, 82; trans. Walford). This explanation does
not, of course, explain how these popular "prejudices" about spirit forms arise, but it seems
unlikely that he would grant that they arise from seeing spirits. Also in paragraph eight, the
skeptic argues that, because the visionary's senses are deluded, but not his understanding, he
cannot banish his delusions by means of reasoning, for only the delusions o f reason can be
cured by reason.
The skeptic offers the general conclusion o f his account at the end of paragraph seven:
It is thus no wonder if the visionary believes that he quite distinctly sees or hears what
nobody else but him perceives; likewise if these brain phantoms appear to him and
suddenly disappear, or they perhaps beguile one sense, e.g., sight, can be sensed
through no others, e.g., touch, and thus appear penetrable. The common ghost-stories
boil down to characteristics like that so much that they extraordinarily justify the
suspicion they could well issue from such a source. And so too is the prevalent
concept of spiritual beings, which we extracted above from ordinary linguistic usage,
quite in accordance with this deception and does not belie its origin, since the quality
of a penetrable presence in space supposedly constitutes the essential mark of this
concept. (AK 2: 347; Walford, 334; Goerwitz, 81-82; my trans.)
This passage is carefully constructed and quite rich. Three points are noteworthy.
First, having set forth his account o f the machinery of the souL, the skeptic draws his
conclusion. He asserts that the "common ghost-stories" reduce or "boil down" to "brain
phantoms": delusions or derangements of the imagination caused by injuries or sicknesses of
the brain. This reductionistic explanation is, however, not surprising, given that the skeptic
began from the "presupposition" fVoraussetzung) that all such "apparitions flow out of mere
brain phantoms” (AK 2:342-3; Walford, 330; Goerwitz, 75; my trans.). As I have pointed out
above, however, this presupposition begs the question against the ironic metaphysician, who is
willing to grant that spirit-seers may be mentally abnormal, but is not willing to grant that such
abnormalities necessarily mean that spirits are merely phantoms of the brain.
Second, the usage of "gemeine" and its cognates and equivalents seems systematic and
imparts an ironically self-subverting quality to the skeptic's rhetoric. The skeptic, as a
Popularphilosophe. claims to offer a fragment o f "gemeine" philosophy, yet his conclusion is
that "gemeine Geistererzahlungen" offer us "ungemein"-extraordinarv—justification for
reducing them to delusions of the imagination. The same fate awaits the "prevalent"
(eangbar) conception of spiritual beings, "which we extracted above from ordinary linguistic
usage \gemeine Redegebrauche]." The Popularphilosoph is thus revealed as an elitist who
uses philosophy to diagnose and explain away the common man's belief in spirits, dismissing it
as irrational, whereas the ironic metaphysician, the alleged Luftbaumeister. uses philosophy to
explicate and explain the inner rationality o f the belief in spirits. The pretensions of the
skeptic are thus subverted, to the benefit of the metaphysician.
Third, the skeptic refers to the "prevalent concept o f spiritual beings, which we [wir]
extracted above foben] from ordinary linguistic usage." The extraction o f the concept of
spiritual beings "above" refers to the efforts of the ironic metaphysician in Dreams 1.1, and the
"we" who attempted this extraction asserts a unity between the ironic metaphysician and the
enlightened skeptic—yet this unity stops somewhere short o f an identity, for the skeptic speaks
o f "we," not of "I."
But if both their rhetoric and their philosophical positions differ, what sort of unity
exists between them? I wish to suggest that at the end of paragraph seven (and later in
paragraph nine), the mask of the enlightened skeptic slips to reveal the face of the ironic
metaphysician. The enlightened skeptic is merely a mask donned by the ironic metaphysician.
This is explicitly stated in Dreams 1.4, where the ironic metaphysician returns to state
that he has used the mask of the skeptic as a tool: "now I put myself in the position of
someone else's reason, which is independent o f myself and external to me, and regard my
judgments, along with their most secret causes, from the point of view of other people"
(AK 2:349; Walford, 336; Goerwitz, 85-86; trans. Walford).
But why would the ironic metaphysician adopt the mask o f the enlightened skeptic?
Perhaps because he wishes to follow what Kant was later to call, in the Critique o f Judgment
thinking in accordance with the sensus communis or gemeine Menschenverstand. a process
which follows from three maxims:" 1. to think for oneself; 2. to think in the place o f everyone
else; 3. always to think self-consistently" (KU, § 40; AK 5:295; Pluhar, 160; my trans.). The
metaphysician's adoption of the foreign and external perspective o f the enlightened skeptic is
an attempt to follow the second of these maxims, the purpose of which is self-criticism. In
short, I wish to suggest that Dreams 1.3 is the ironic metaphysician's attempt to subject his
hypothesis of the spirit world to self-criticism.
6. Dreams 1.3 and the "Essay on the Sicknesses of the Head”

Before we examine paragraph nine, it is worth noting that the enlightened skeptic's
account o f the psychological and physiological causes of Phantasterei in paragraphs four
through eight is essentially identical to the account Kant offers in his whimsical, anonymous
essay of 1764, the "Essay on the Sicknesses of the Head,"14the only differences being minor
terminological variations and the fact that the account in Dreams is a bit more elaborate and
detailed. Does this fact undermine my assertion that the enlightened skeptic does not
represent Kant's own perspective, given that Kant defends the skeptic's account in his earlier
essay? I believe that the "Essay on the Sicknesses o f the Head" is consistent with my thesis
for the following reason.
The issue between the ironic metaphysician o f Dreams LI. and 1.2 and the enlightened
skeptic of Dreams 1.3 is not about the mechanism by which Phantasterei arises. Indeed, the
metaphysician can and should appropriate the skeptic's entire account, for the metaphysician
too needs to explain how supersensible influxes into the sensorium of the soul are experienced
as external realities.
14. Kant, "Versuch tiber die Krankheiten des Kopfes," AK 2:257-71, esp. 264-7.
The difference between the metaphysician and the skeptic hinges on their
interpretation of the epistemoiogical status of Phantasterei. The metaphysician holds that its
root may well be genuine symbolic influxes from the supersensible realm, influxes to which
abnormal brains are particularly sensitive, influxes which are mistakenly experienced as
apparitions o f external realities The skeptic, however, is unwilling to consider the possibility
that sick minds may be ideal vessels for genuine influxes, instead treating all paranormal
experiences as mere symptoms of mental illness.
The "Essay on the Sicknesses o f the Head" does not, however, offer evidence that
Kant agreed with this reductionistic interpretation of Phantasterei. It is, in short, quite
possible that Kant himself held the skeptic’s account of the psychological and physiological
underpinnings of spiritual visions, but disagreed with the skeptic's interpretation of their
epistemoiogical status. The parallels between the "Essay on the Sicknesses of the Head" and
Dreams 1.3 do not, therefore, constitute evidence that the enlightened skeptic is Kant's
spokesman.
Since both its content and its style clearly place it in the movement of thought that led
to the composition of Dreams, how then does the "Essay on the Sicknesses of the Head"
relate to Dreams? The Rousseauian revolution in Kant's thinking, which received its decisive
impetus from the publication of Emile and O f the Social Contract in 1762, was well underway
when Kant received his volumes of the Arcana Coelestia in the late Summer or early Fall of
1763. Under Rousseau's influence, Kant embarked upon a Socratic "second sailing," turning
from a philosophy which gave priority to the theoretical contemplation of the cosmos to a
philosophy which gave priority to practical reason and self-knowledge, i.e., to reflection on
the human condition.
The first fruit of this anthropological turn in Kant's thought is the Observations on the
Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, which was completed by October of 1763 and in print
by January o f 1764. In section two of this little book we find Kant's first reflections on the
nature of the philosophical character. Following Aristotle, Kant claims that the melancholic
temperament is the anthropological substrate of philosophy.15 This is also the first text where
15. Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics, vii. 15, 1154b, 10-18. See also the pseudo-Aristotelian
work, Problems, xxx, and Cicero, Tusculum Disputations. I xxxiii 80.
Kant reflects upon mental illnesses and philosophy's somewhat disreputable cousins,
enthusiasm ( Schwarmerei) and visionary transports (Phantasterei). which—along with
fanaticism, crankiness, and hypochondria—are treated as degenerations of the melancholic
temperament as well as propensities o f certain national characters (see Observations, sections
two and four).
Why did Kant take such an interest in Schwarmerei and Phantasterei and their
relationship to philosophy? Although Kant's turn toward the anthropological would have been
sufficient incentive to raise such questions, we should not overlook the possibility that there
were other factors. For instance, the peculiarities of Rousseau's character would have given
Kant food for thought. So too would have Kant's difficult relationship with the enthusiast
Hamann, who had won Kant's promising student Herder over to the cause of the counter-
enlightenment.16 Finally, it is more than likely that Swedenborg's Arcana Coelestia. which
Kant was probably beginning to read at the time, would have been occasion for reflections on
Schwarmerei. Phantasterei. and madness—and their kinship with philosophy.17
Kant's next publication also reflects an interest in enthusiasm. It is a brief account of
the so-called "goat prophet," the Galician enthusiast Jan Pawlikowicz Komamicki, who
appeared in the neighborhood of Konigsberg in January o f 1764 in the company of a young
boy and a motley flock of livestock. Kant's publisher Johann Jakob Kanter organized an
outing to observe the spectacle, and Kant was in attendance. Kant's brief note appeared in the
next issue of Hamann's Koniesbereische eelehrte und politische Zeitune (AK 2:489), along
with a note promising other works from the same author.
In the next issue the “Essay on the Sicknesses o f the Head" appeared. In spite of its
witty and literary style, this essay is an earnest attempt to classify and explain the various
maladies of the mind. Kant devotes particular attention to explaining Schwarmerei and
Phantasterei. and although he does not mention Swedenborg by name, the fact that the very
same analysis appears in Dreams makes it reasonable to conclude that Swedenborg was
16. On Hamann's relationship to Herder and Kant's reaction, see Zammito, The Genesis of
Kant's Critique of Judgment. Introduction and ch. 1.
17. See Gregory R. Johnson, "The Kinship of Kant and Swedenborg," The New Philosophy
99 (July-December 1996): 407-23, and "The Tree o f Melancholy: Kant on Philosophy and
Enthusiasm," unpublished ms.
prominent among Kanfs concerns. It is true that Kant does not mention the possibility of
"divine" madness in his essay, but neither does he dismiss it; instead, he refrains from all
speculations on the epistemoiogical status of such visions—perhaps because he judged such
speculations out of place, perhaps because he had not given the matter sufficient thought at
the time. In any case, it bears repeating that there is nothing in the "Essay" that conflicts with
my interpretation of Dreams.
7. Summary and Transition (f 9)

Paragraph nine, which concludes the chapter and provides a transition to the next, is
devoted to taking stock of the chapter’s arguments and drawing out their implications. It is
particularly dense and rich in irony.
The conclusion which results from these observations has this inconvenience as
such, that the deep speculations o f the preceding chapter {Dreams 1.2] are made
wholly superfluous, and that the reader, as receptive as he may be to give some
approval to ideal plans of the same, will nevertheless prefer the concept which allows
greater comfort and dispatch in decision and can promise more universal approval.
(AK 2:347; Walford, 335; Goerwitz, 82; my trans.)
The skeptic's argument is lauded as rendering the metaphysician's arguments superfluous, for
even the most careful, sympathetic, and open-minded reader will prefer the skeptic's ideas.
Why? Is it because they are true? We do not know. Truth is never mentioned. Instead, the
skeptic's ideas are praised because they offer greater comfort and dispatch in decision-making
and because they promise more general approval. But quick and comfortable decisions are
not necessarily true decisions, so to laud these features and remain silent about truth seems
like faint praise. It is, however, somewhat suspicious that the skeptic would laud his own
project with faint praise, so this should put us on guard that perhaps a shift of personae has
taken place. The promise o f more universal approval is, however, a genuine advantage that
the skeptic has over the metaphysician—and the metaphysician himself would have to admit
this, for he too grants authority to the sensus communis.
206
Our author then continues to enumerate the benefits of the skeptic's approach:
For besides [the fact] that it seems more consonant with a rational mode of thought to
draw the grounds of explanation from the material which experience furnishes us, than
to lose oneself in the dizzy concepts of a half-creative, half-inferential reason, this
approach also furnishes18 some occasion for scoffing, which, whether justified or not,
is a more powerful means than any other for holding back vain enquiries. (AK 2:347-8;
Walford, 335; Goerwitz, 83; my trans.)
Here too the skeptic's approach is given ambiguous praise. On the one hand, his concern with
tying concepts to experience is sincerely lauded. But in fairness to the metaphysician, this
concern is conspicuous throughout Dreams 1.1 and 1.2 as well. Then the skeptic's approach is
praised for the occasions it furnishes for scoffing, which is lauded as a method for
discouraging enquiries, whether the mockery is justified or not. This praise is, however,
rather strange, for if one's aim is the truth, then one should not be willing to mock promising
and unpromising enquiries alike. We should, therefore, be suspicious o f this praise, for it
makes the skeptic seem more like a narrow-minded partisan of enlightenment dogmas than an
open-minded pursuer of truth.
Paragraph nine continues: "For to wish to offer in a serious fashion, interpretations of
the brain-phantoms of visionaries instantly arouses grave doubts, and the philosophy which
allows itself to be caught in such bad company, places itself under suspicion" (AK 2:348;
Walford, 335; Goerwitz, 83; my trans.). Here the skeptical approach is recommended as a
way of avoiding the "suspicions" and "grave doubts" that face any philosophy that attempts to
take paranormal phenomena seriously. These suspicions and doubts would, of course, issue
from the Prussian church and the circles of the Berlin enlightenment, both of which were
intolerant of interest in the paranormal. But these suspicions and doubts need not be well-
founded; the truth, after all, may be on the side o f the paranormal researcher; therefore, to
accommodate these suspicions and doubts may be motivated more by fear o f persecution than
18. Following Walford's rendition of "so aussert sich noch dayii auf dieser Seite."
by the tove o f truth. Thus this reason itself raises grave doubts. It is not exactly a ringing
endorsement to say, in effect, that the skeptic's approach may not lead to truth, but it will
certainly not offend any of the intolerant folks back in Berlin. It would obviously be
preferable to adopt an approach that both gets to the truth and avoids persecution.
The next sentence confirms my suspicion that there is a shift of personae in paragraph
nine: "Granted, I have not above disputed the delusion of such apparitions, but rather
connected it, indeed not as the cause o f an imagined spirit-community, but as a natural effect
of the same, yet what kind of foolishness is there, after all, which could not be made to
harmonize with an utterly groundless philosophy?" (AK 2:348; Walford, 335; Goerwitz, 83;
my trans.). The "above" refers, of course, to the end of Dreams 1.2, where connection with
the spirit world is likened to Juno's gift to Tiresias: it is not caused by madness, but definitely
is the cause o f a form of madness. The "I" who takes credit for this argument is, of course,
the ironic metaphysician. If in paragraph seven the skeptic mask slips, here it falls away
completely, revealing the ironic metaphysician who has adopted the mask of the skeptic to
subject his system to criticism, but can't resist getting in a few swipes at his critic along the
way.
Once the metaphysician removes the mask, he also removes his gloves, concluding the
chapter with brutal sarcasm: "I do not, therefore, blame the reader at all if, instead of
regarding the spirit-seers as semi-citizens o f the other world, he simply dismisses them without
further ado as candidates for the asylum, thus saving himself the trouble o f any further
enquiry." Here the metaphysician makes clear what he had hinted at above: the empiricism of
the skeptic is merely a means by which narrow-minded partisans summarily dismiss
phenomena which challenge their settled way o f thinking. The metaphysician continues: "But
if this is the footing on which everything is to be taken, then the method o f treating such
adepts o f the spirit-realm will also have to be very different from that suggested by the ideas
elaborated above. And whereas it was once found necessary in the past on occasion to bum
some of them, it will now suffice simply to puree them." Through an all too familiar dialectic
of enlightenment, the enlightened skeptic finds himself in the company of the burners of
heretics and witches. This is clearly not the self-characterization of a partisan of enlightened
skepticism, for although enlightened skeptics were frequently as intolerant as inquisitors
and witch hunters, they never would have pointed this fact out. The paragraph then
concludes:
Nor would it be necessary, if this was how things stood, to range so far afield, and,
with the help of metaphysics, to seek out mysteries in the fevered brains of deluded
enthusiasts. The sharp-sighted Hudibras would have been able to solve the riddle on
his own, for his opinion was: if a hypochondriacal wind should rage in the guts, what
matters is the direction it takes: if downwards, then the result is a f— ffartl: if
upwards, an apparition or a heavenly inspiration. (AK 2:348; Walford, 335-6;
Goerwitz, 83-4; trans. Walford)
The message is clear: Enlightened skepticism makes serious intellectual enquiry into the
paranormal unnecessary. How? By replacing it with a facile reductionist materialism which
mocks its opponents in scatological verse-a method which is so intellectually preposterous
that only its enemies, not its partisans, would advocate it in such brazen terms.
Let us now take stock of the skeptic's arguments. His auempt to explain the
mechanism of spirit-seeing is ingenious and can be appropriated entirely by the ironic
metaphysician without surrendering his claim that spirit-seers may receive genuine influxes
from the supersensible. The skeptic's attempt to reduce spirit apparitions to mere phantoms of
a deranged imagination, however, simply begs the question against the metaphysician, who
points out that even if one grants that spirit-seers are mentally ill, it does not follow that their
visions may not be rooted in genuine influxes.
Nevertheless, in spite of the question-begging nature of the skeptic's argument, the
metaphysician reappears in the last paragraph with a litany of ambiguous praises. The
skeptic's approach is lauded for the following reasons: (1) it offers greater ease and dispatch in
decision-making; (2) it promises results that are more acceptable to the sensus communis: (3)
its conclusions are closely tied to experience; (4) it offers occasions for mocking one's
opponents, whether this mockery is justified or not; (5) it is in no danger of attracting the
suspicions and censure of the church and the enlightenment; (6) it allows us to dismiss all
paranormal claims without the trouble o f further enquiry, consigning spirit-seers, not to the
stake, but to the lunatic asylum.
Of all of these reasons, only the second and third have anything to do with the pursuit
o f truth. Furthermore, they are the only ones not undermined by sarcasm or irony. Thus it
seems reasonable to conclude that these are the two points on which the skeptic and the
metaphysician agree. Furthermore, since in Dreams 1.4 we find the metaphysician offering
new, intersubjectively verifiable experiential grounds for belief in the spirit world, it is
reasonable to conclude that he thought his original hypothesis deficient in this regard, and, to
that extent, he took the skeptic's critique seriously.
Finally, it is worth noting that the vulgar quote which concludes the chapter—from the
German translation of Hudibras. a satire on puritan enthusiasm penned by Samuel Butler
(1612-80)—both encapsulates the glib reductionism of the skeptical metaphysician but also
points beyond it to the position adopted in Dreams 1.4. In the original English, the quoted
passage reads:
As wind in th'Hvpocondries pent

is but a blast if downward sent;
But if it upwards chance to fly
Becoms new Light and Prophecy:
The sense, of course, is clear: spirit-seers are merely those unfortunate men who cannot purge
hypochondriac vapors by breaking wind; the vapors, therefore, remain in their bodies, and
when they reach the brain, they give rise to visions and prophecies.
The poem then continues as follows:
So when your Speculations tend

Above their just and useful end,
Although they promise strange and great
Discoveries of things far fet,
They are but idle Dreams and Fancies
21 a
And savour strongly o f the G anzas
—Samuel Butler, Hudibras. n, iii, 773-8319
Here a new problem is raised. The source of "idle Dreams and Fancies" lies in philosophical
speculations that tend "Above their just and useful end." If the proper aims of speculation are
the "just and useful," then practical reason has priority over speculative reason. When
speculative reason seeks to throw off its subordination to practical reason and assert its
autonomy, the results are idle dreams and fancies—presumably including the dreams and
fancies of spirit-seers. The cure to such enthusiasm is to reassert the primacy of practical
reason, and it is precisely this perspective that the chastened metaphysician adopts in Dreams
1.4. But as it turns out, the adoption of the primacy o f practical reason does not force the
metaphysician to abandon the hypothesis of the spirit world. Indeed, it offers him precisely
the resources he needs to re-launch the hypothesis of the spirit world on intersubjective,
experiential grounds. Let us turn, then, to Dreams 1.4.
19. Samuel Butler, Hudibras. (1663-78), ed. John Wilders (Oxford: Clarendon, 1967), 174.
According to Wilders, "Ganzas" is an allusion to Bishop Godwin’s romance The Man in the
Moon, or a Discourse of a Voyage thither bv Domingo Gonzales (1638), in which the narrator
is carried up to the moon by birds called ganzas (Hudibras. 399).
Chapter Nine:
"Theoretical Conclusion Established
on the Basis of All the Observations Contained in
the First Part": Dreams L4
Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct, but to find
these reasons is no less an instinct.
—Francis Herbert Bradley, Appearance and Reality1
1. Beyond Dogmatism and Skepticism

Thus far I have argued that Dreams 1.1 and 1.2 are the work of a single authorial
persona, whom I have dubbed the ironic metaphysician. Dreams 1.1 is dedicated to raising the
question to which Swedenborg is the answer: How do we account for the existence of living
beings, particularly free and rational beings, in the mechanistic and materialistic cosmos of
Newtonian science? I have offered ample evidence that the ironic metaphysician's philosophy
of nature is that of Kant himself, Kant before his encounter with Rousseau.
After his encounter with Rousseau, it was incumbent upon Kant to reconcile his
mechanistic philosophy of nature with Rousseau's commitment to human freedom. Thus the
question of Dreams 1.1: How can one be a Newtonian and a Rousseauian at the same time?
Dreams 1.2 answers this question by setting forth a philosophical reconstruction of
Swedenborg's dualistic vision o f the cosmos, a vision expansive enough to find room for both
Newtonian mechanism and Rousseauian freedom.
Dreams 1.3 marks the emergence of a new, skeptical authorial persona who offers a
loosely Epicurean critique of the spirit world of D ream s 1.2. Taken together, Dreams 1.1 and
1.2 offer a dualistic ontology and anthropology, whereas Dreams 1.3 offers a materialistic and
reductionistic ontology and anthropology.
Because these two teachings are mutually contradictory, they cannot both represent
Kant's considered judgment. One might argue that the first teaching represents Kant's
1. Francis Herbert Bradley, Appearance and Reality: A Metaphysical Essav. 2nd ed. (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1897), x.
211
considered position and that the second is merely exoteric window-dressing. However,
while I certainly think that Kant's sympathies are with the ironic metaphysician, I do not think
that his final considered judgment is with him, for the simple reason that in Dreams 1.4, Kant
introduces a new authorial persona and a new position that move beyond both the ironic
metaphysician and the enlightened skeptic. This, however, would be unnecessary if Kant's
intention was simply to return to the position of the ironic metaphysician. If that had been his
aim, it would have been quite sufficient to follow the ironic metaphysician's chapters with the
self-subverting rhetoric and question-begging arguments of the enlightened skeptic and leave
it at that.
Thus the most plausible explanation for why Kant says something new in Dreams 1.4 is
that he wanted to say something new, that he wanted to set forth a new perspective on the
spirit world. This is the third perspective we found mentioned in the Preface, a perspective
that is neither dogmatic nor skeptical, but is rather what I have dubbed "pragmatic." In
Richard Velkley’s words, “Kant now introduces a mode of argument characteristic of his
‘critical’ thought: moral experience points to a realm of hypotheses that elude theoretical
validation, but that also transcend theoretical confutation, as theory itself stringently can
show. Thus morality opens up the possibility of a metaphysics of a new sort, concerned with
objects produced by or implied by the activity of a free will (‘noumenal’ objects) and
transcending the whole realm of sense (‘phenomena’) to which theoretical science is limited.”2
Thus I agree completely with Susan Shell's judgment that, "Kant's Dreams is not the skeptical
diatribe against dogmatism it is often taken to be, but a first blossoming of the position he will
come to describe as an alternative to dogmatism and skepticism alike."3
As we shall see in the following chapter on Dreams II, the pragmatic perspective on
the spirit world is the final perspective in the book; it continues throughout the entirety of
Dreams II, to II.3, the "Practical Conclusion Drawn from the Whole Work." I wish,
furthermore, to argue that not only is the pragmatic perspective the final perspective presented
2. Velkley, Freedom and the End of Reason. 108. Velkley is referring specifically to the moral
arguments of the second part o f Dreams 1.2, but his remarks apply to the whole sweep of
Dreams I, and particularly to its final conclusion in Dreams 1.4.
3. Shell, The Embodiment of Reason. 120.
in the book, it is Kant's final, considered judgment on the spirit world—and it is the first
sketch o f his mature critical philosophy. To establish this thesis, I must show how the
pragmatic perspective emerges as the total effect of the movements and counter-movements
o f the text. I must show that it is the conclusion of the highly complex and unorthodox
"argument” of Dreams.
2. The Rousseauian Origins of Kant's Dialectic

The argument structure of Dreams is dialectical. Its form of dialectic is both a
descendant of Pyrrhonian skepticism and the grandfather of Hegelian dialectic. Its most
immediate offspring, however, is the argument structure o f the Transcendental Dialectic of the
Critique o f Pure Reason. And its most immediate ancestor is Rousseau's Profession of Faith
of a Savoyard Vicar.
The classical Pyrrhonian pattern of argument is to match every positive argument for a
given philosophical position with a negative counter-argument, every thesis with an
antithesis.4 The purpose of this activity is not, however, to lay the groundwork for a
speculative philosophical synthesis, but rather to induce a skeptical suspension of judgment,
the epoche. which is supposed to be followed by ataraxia—peace of mind. In Rousseau's
Profession, the Savoyard Vicar describes how fate gave him a Pyrrhonian education: "such
experiences lead a reflective mind a long way. Seeing the ideas that I had of the just, the
decent, and all the duties of man overturned by gloomy observations, I lost each day one of
the opinions I had received. Since those opinions that remained were no longer sufficient to
constitute together a self-sustaining body, I felt the obviousness o f the principles gradually
becoming dimmer in my mind. And finally [I was] reduced to no longer knowing what to
think" fEmile. 267).5 When he turned to the works of the philosophers for enlightenment, all
he found were arguments and counter-arguments set forth by ignorant dogmatists and know-
4. For a useful discussion of Pyrrhonism and its influence on modem philosophy, see Richard
H. Popkin, The History of Skepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1979).
5. On Emile. 311 the Vicar explicitly refers to his crisis as a state of Pyrrhonism.
it-all skeptics, all o f them displaying more vanity than wisdom, leading him to the
Pyrrhonian conclusion that, "Insoluble objections are common to all systems . . ." (Emile.
269).
Unlike the Pyrrhonians, however, the Vicar did not find the skeptical epoche a source
o f inner peace, but instead found himself plunged into despair Unlike Pyrrho, but like
Descartes, he came to regard skepticism not as the cessation of philosophical enquiry, but as a
motivation to begin it: "I was in that frame of mind of uncertainty and doubt that Descartes
demands for the quest for truth. This state is hardly made to last. It is disturbing and painful.
It is only the self-interest of vice or the laziness of soul which leaves us in it" (Emile. 267).
And further:
Although I have often experienced greater evils, I have never led a life so
constantly disagreeable as during those times of perplexity and anxiety, when I
ceaselessly wandered from doubt to doubt and brought back from my long meditations
only uncertainty, obscurity, and contradiction about the cause of my being and the
principle of my duties.
How can one systematically and in good faith be a skeptic? I cannot
understand it. These skeptic philosophers either do not exist or are the unhappiest of
men. Doubt about the things it is important for us to know is too violent a state for
the human mind, which does not hold out in this state for long. It decides in spite of
itself one way or the other and prefers to be deceived rather than to believe nothing.
(Emile. 268.)
The Vicar resolves, therefore, to seek a philosophical position beyond the clash
between both dogmatism and skepticism. The first conclusion he draws from the strife of
systems is that the "prodigious diversity” of philosophical sentiments has two causes: "the
insufficiency of the human mind" and "pride" (orgueil) (Emile. 268). Of the insufficiency of
the mind, he writes: "We do not have the measurements of this immense machine [the
cosmos]; we cannot calculate its relations; we know neither its first laws not its final cause.
We do not know ourselves; we know neither our nature nor our active principle. We hardly
know if man is a simple or a compound being. Impenetrable mysteries surround us on all
sides" (Emile. 268). Our pride is evidenced by the fact that, "we want to penetrate everything,
to know everything.. . . The only thing we do not know is how to be ignorant of what we
cannot know. We are a small part of a great whole whose limits escape us and whose Author
delivers us to our mad disputes; but we are vain [vains] enough to want to decide what this
whole is in itself and what we are in relation to it" (Emile. 268).
The first thing a philosophy must do to escape the oscillation between dogmatism and
skepticism is set aside our proud attempt to know the secrets of heaven and have the humility
to confess what we do not and cannot know. Genuine philosophy begins with a Socratic
knowledge of our own ignorance.6 Philosophy must, in short, begin with self-knowledge,
with a reflective turn to the subject to determine both its powers and the limits beyond which
its powers cannot extend; "Who am I? What right do I have to judge things, and what
determines my judgments? . .. Thus my glance must first be turned toward myself in order to
know the instrument I wish to use and how far I can trust its use" (Emile. 270).
Second, the Vicar claims that the "first fruit" of self-knowledge is, "to learn to limit my
researches to what was immediately related to my interest, to leave myself in profound
ignorance of the rest, and to worry myself to the point o f doubt only about things it was
important for me to know" (Emile. 269). Now, at first glance, this seems a counsel of vulgar
pragmatism, o f non-intellectual self-gratification. The Vicar is not, however, advocating a
non-philosophical practical life. Instead, he is advocating a new type of philosophical enquiry
that takes its bearings from the practical realm. Philosophical dogmatism seeks to unveil what
truly is by means of theoretical reason. Once we recognize that this task is futile and that the
attempt only leaves reason vulnerable to skepticism, the primacy of theoretical reason must
give way to the primacy of practical reason. Theoretical apprehension of the True must be
subordinated to the practical apprehension o f the Good. The highest wisdom philosophy
seeks is phronesis. not sophia. The realm in which phronesis reveals the good is the realm of
practice.
6. I refer, specifically, to a genuine, not a feigned or dissimulated or “ironic” knowledge of

one’s own ignorance. Kant explicitly mentions Socrates in Dreams II.3. See ch. 12 below.
Third, the faculty by which the Vicar proposes to know the Good is not theoretical
or technical-instrumental reason, but is instead variously described as “good sense” (bon sens)
and “the simplicity of my heart” (la simplicite de mon coeur) (Emile. 266), “the inner light” (la
lumiere interieurel (Emile. 269), and "conscience" (conscience!, which is “the voice of the
soul” (la voix de 1'amel (Emile. 286). "Too often reason deceives us. We have acquired only
too much right to challenge it. But conscience never deceives; it is man's true guide. It is to
the soul what instinct is to the body; he who follows conscience obeys nature and does not
fear being led astray" (Emile. 286-7).
Rousseau distinguishes conscience not only from reason, but also from passions and
instincts, just as Kant distinguishes practical reason from both pure reason and from the
incentives of the body. Rousseau's conscience and Kant's practical reason are equivalent to
Plato's "thvmos." the middle part of the soul in the Republic, the part of the soul which
responds to values and is therefore the locus of self-love (Rousseau's amour de soi-meme): it
is also the locus of honor and the partial and parochial attachments we form toward what is
our own (Rousseau's amour propre): finally, if properly cultivated (or sufficiently
uncorrupted) it is the locus o f our attachments to cosmopolitan, universal, and objective
goods—and even to the Good itself.
Having established conscience as the oracle of the good, the Vicar then adopts the
following philosophical method: "I am resolved to accept as evident all knowledge to which in
the sincerity o f my heart I cannot refuse my consent; to accept as true all that which appears
to me to have a necessary connection with this first knowledge; and to leave all the rest in
uncertainty without rejecting it or accepting it and without tormenting myselfto clarify it if it
leads to nothing useful for practice" (Emile. 269-70).
According to the Vicar, self-knowledge shows us that we can have no certain,
theoretical knowledge o f the existence o f a benevolent God who providentially orders the
world; of man's exalted place in the cosmos between beast and God and the appropriateness
of religious veneration; or o f the freedom of the will and the immateriality and immortality of
the soul. (Note the overlap with Kant's three objects of ultimate concern: God, freedom, and
immortality.) Self-knowledge also reveals, however, that we can have no certain, theoretical
knowledge o f the non-existence o f God, freedom, immortality, etc. We are free, therefore,
to determine our beliefs on these matters by means other than theoretical reason.
Furthermore, a survey of what is important to us, a catalog of the needful things,
shows us that we must come to a decision on these matters, because whatever decision we
adopt will have dramatic implications for how we lead our lives. We are, therefore, licensed
to risk believing in God, freedom, immortality, etc.—not on the grounds of apodictic
theoretical reason, but on the grounds of practical reason, of fallible, imperfect, but humanly
indispensable moral faith.
It is by means of this essentially pragmatic reconfiguration of philosophy that the Vicar
wards off the atheistic, Epicurean materialism of his day. The Vicar's dualistic and theistic
worldview, which had fallen into ruin when its foundations in faith had been sapped by world-
weary cynicism and its foundations in theoretical reason had been destroyed philosophical
skepticism, rises again on the foundation of practical reason.
We find essentially the same pattern of argument in Dreams. The ironic metaphysician
of Dreams 1.1 and 1.2 sets forth the thesis: a dualistic, theistic worldview derived from
Swedenborg. The enlightened skeptic of Dreams 1.3 sets forth the antithesis: a skeptical,
deflationary Epicurean materialism, which, in spite of its self-subverting rhetoric and question-
begging arguments, somehow saps the foundations of Kant's Swedenborgian metaphysical
system. The pragmatic metaphysician of Dreams 1.4, who expresses Kant's most considered
judgments, then sets forth the synthesis: presupposing the essential validity of the content of
the ironic metaphysician's Swedenborgian vision, he grants the force of the skeptical critique
of the allegedly dogmatic form o f the metaphysician's arguments, then he proposes to
reconstruct the metaphysician's Swedenborgian vision on the grounds of practical rather than
theoretical reason.
The Pyrrhonian pattern of opposing arguments and counter-arguments is found in the
Transcendental Dialectic of the Critique of Pure Reason in the chapter on "The Antinomy of
Pure Reason." In the "The Antinomy o f Pure Reason" Kant does not, however, propose a
synthesis on the grounds o f practical reason, but instead employs the distinction between the
phenomenal and noumenal realms first sketched in Dreams to explain the insolubility of the
antinomies. Elsewhere in the Critique o f Pure Reason, as well as in the Critique of Practical
Reason. Kant does, however, argue that although theoretical reason provides no grounds
for knowledge of God, freedom, and immortality, practical reason provides grounds for a
moral faith in them.
What is most revealing about the argument structure of Dreams is the fact that Kant's
Swedenborgian metaphysical vision does not collapse when its dogmatic foundations are
removed. It remains suspended in mid-air, so to speak, while he inserts new foundations
beneath it. This levitation act clearly indicates that Kant's Swedenborgian vision was not
merely the conclusion of a philosophical argument, but a “core conviction,” a tenet of what
Lewis White Beck called Kant’s “personal philosophy ” To support his personal philosophy,
Kant adopted and discarded numerous arguments, but he never discarded the core convictions
that guided him.7 Kant did not measure his core convictions by his arguments, but his
arguments by his core convictions.
3. Theoretical Agnosticism flf 1)

Dreams 1.4 consists of only five relatively short paragraphs. Paragraph one begins by
justifying the very peculiar strategy of countering the first two chapters with the third. We
first encounter the image of the "scales of understanding" (Verstandeswaagel. This image
immediately brings to mind the Pyrrhonian attempt to offset arguments with equal yet
opposite counter-arguments in order to induce the epoche. the state of balance, equanimity,
and indifference.8 To reach this state o f balance, however, we must be assured that the scales
7. For Beck's views of Kant’s personal philosophy, see the epigraph to the Preface of this
work.
8. Kant uses the image of scales twice in the Critique of Pure Reason. It first appears in the
third section o f "The Ideal of Pure Reason" chapter, where Kant argues that reason cannot
prove the existence of God conceived as a necessarily existing being, but that the argument
"continues to have a certain importance and to be endowed with an authority of which we
cannot, simply on the ground of this objective insufficiency, at once proceed to divest it." The
reason for this enduring value is practical. The human soul experiences moral obligations
which cannot be derived from the realm and interests of nature, and which could not motivate
us unless there were a supreme being "to give effect and consummation" to them. In this
situation, "We should be under an obligation to follow those concepts which, though they may
not be objectively sufficient, are yet, according to the standard of our reason, preponderant,
and in comparison with which we know of nothing that is better and more convincing. The
duty of deciding would thus, by a practical addition, incline the balance faus dem
are honest. To determine the honesty o f the scales used in trade, all we need do is make
the wares and weights change pans. If the results are the same, then we know that the scales
are honest. If the results are different, then we know that one arm of the scale has an unfair
mechanical advantage over the other.
To determine the honesty of the scales of the understanding is a more complex matter,
and the presentation is somewhat jumbled. First, Kant claims: "I have purified my soul of
prejudices; I have eradicated every blind attachment which may have insinuated itself into my
soul in a surreptitious manner . . . " (AK 2:349; Walford, 336; Goerwitz, 85; trans. Walford).
Second, he resolves, come what may, that, "nothing is important or venerable for me except
that which, having followed the path of honesty, occupies its place in a tranquil mind open to
any argument" (AK 2:349; Walford, 336; Goerwitz, 85; trans. Walford). These two claims
presumably state the purpose of countering chapters one and two with chapter three: to purify
the soul of prejudice, to produce a tranquil and balanced mind. The goal of this Pyrrhonian
epoche is not, however, the peace of mind and the cessation of philosophical enquiry, but the
creation of a new starting point for enquiry: a mind purified of prejudice, a judgment
determined solely by reason and reality. But if the skeptic is correct to deny that theoretical
reason has the power to answer the question of the spirit world, then the only reason we can
count on is practical reason.
Third, Kant resolves to adopt as his own any position that refutes one of his own
convictions: “The judgment of him who refutes my reasons, is my judgment, after I first have
weighed it against the scale of self-love, and, afterwards, in that scale against my presumed
reason, and have found it to have a greater substance fGehaltj” (AK 2:349; Walford, 336;
Gleicheewichte bringeri) so delicately preserved by the indecisiveness of speculation

(Unschliessigkeit der Spekulationl. Reason would indeed stand condemned by its own
judgment—and there is none more circumspect—if, when impelled by such urgent motives, it
should fail, however, incomplete its insight, to conform its judgment to those pleas which are
at least of greater weight than any others known to us" (A 589 = B 617, trans. Kemp Smith).
The second instance appears in the second section of "The Discipline of Pure Reason"
chapter, where Kant is criticizing Hume: "he merely restricts the understanding, without
defining its limits, and while creating a general mistrust fails to supply any determinate
knowledge o f the ignorance which for us is unavoidable. For while subjecting to censorship
certain principles of the understanding, he makes no attempt to assess the understanding itself
in the assay-balance fProbierwaee] of criticism" (A 767 = B795, trans. Kemp Smith).
Goerwitz, 85; trans. Walford). Kant’s attitude toward self-love is ambiguous. On the one
hand, the fact that substantive reasons outweigh self-love clearly indicates the primacy of
objective cognition over subjective motives and is consistent with the Rousseauian concern
with the power of vanity to distort philosophical judgment. On the other hand, the fact that
Kant is willing to weigh other people’s opinions against his self-love in the first place, and to
weigh them against his self-love before he weighs them against this own opinions, prefigures
the primacy o f practical reason which he develops later in the chapter. Practical reason does
not, of course, appeal to base vanity and self-love, but as we shall see, it does appeal to the
noble soul’s esteem for itself as a basis for affirming belief in an afterlife.
Fourth, Kant appeals to the idea of sensus communis, describing it in much the same
terms as the Critique of Judgment: "Formerly, I regarded the universal human understanding
fallgemeinen menschlichen Verstand] merely from my own standpoint: now I place myself in
the position o f a foreign and external reason and observe my judgments, along with their most
secret causes, from the points of view of others. The combination of both observations yields,
it is true, strong parallaxes IParallaxen]. but it is the only means of preventing optical
deception and to place the concepts in the true position in which they stand with respect to the
cognitive faculty of human nature" (AK 2:349; Walford, 336; Goerwitz, 85-6; Walford,
trans.). (A parallax is a merely apparent displacement of an object due to the change of the
observer's position; it is an optical illusion, but it is apparently less serious than the illusions to
which one is prone when confined to only one viewpoint.) This is how to avoid the danger of
vanity and open the mind to reason.9
The opening sentences of the first paragraph clearly refer to the skeptical interlude of
Dreams 1.3, in which the ironic metaphysician himself dons the persona and assumes the
perspective o f "a foreign and external reason," namely the enlightened skeptic, in order to
view his theory o f the spirit world from an external point of view. And, although the
9. Kant uses similar language in his letter to Marcus Herz o f June 7, 1771: “You know very
well that I am inclined not only to try to refute intelligent criticisms but that 1 always weave
them together with my judgments and give them the right to overthrow all my previously
cherished opinions. I hope that in that way I can achieve an unpartisan perspective, seeing my
judgments from the standpoint of others, so that a third opinion may emerge, superior to my
previous ones” (AK 10:122; Zweig II, 126; trans. Zweig).
arguments o f the enlightened skeptic seem question-begging and rhetorically self-
subverting, the ironic metaphysician seems prepared to abandon the dogmatic groundwork of
his vision of the spirit world—but not his vision itself—emerging instead as a pragmatic
metaphysician. This is the clearest evidence that the skeptical arguments o f Dreams 1.3 are
not Kant's own arguments; they are the arguments of an assumed persona.
4. Practical Faith ( f f 1-3)

After a brief apology for treating the matter of spirits in a serious and solemn fashion,
paragraph one continues with a startling admission. The attempt to balance the scales of the
understanding by countering dogmatic arguments with equally weighty skeptical arguments
has failed. It has failed because the scales o f the understanding are not, from the point of view
of strict rational probity, entirely honest:
With one exception, I do not find that there are any attachments in my mind, nor do I
find that any unexamined inclination has insinuated itself into my mind, which had
deprived it of its readiness to be guided by any kind of reason, whether for or against.
But the scales of the understanding are not, after all, wholly impartial. One of the
arms, which bears the inscription: Hope for the future, has a mechanical advantage;
and that advantage has the effect that even weak reasons, when placed on the
appropriate side of the scales, cause speculations, which are in themselves of greater
weight, to rise on the other side. This is the only defect, and it is one which I cannot
easily eliminate. Indeed, it is a defect which I cannot even wish to eliminate. (AK
2:349-50; Walford, 337; Goerwitz, 86-7; trans. Walford)
"Hope for the future" refers, of course, to hope for a future life, hope that the soul is
immortal. The scale of judgment is biased in favor of this hope, so that any arguments that
support it are weightier and command more credence than even more logically rigorous
arguments against the immortality of the soul. The paragraph then continues with the
observation that, "all the stories concerning the apparition of departed souls or about the
influxes of spirits, and all theories relating to the supposed nature of spirit-beings and of their
connection with us, only have significant weight when placed in that scale-pan of hope; on
the other hand, when placed in the scale pan of speculation, such things seem to weigh no
more than empty air" (AK 2:349-50; Walford, 337; Goerwitz, 86-7; trans. Walford).
Paragraph one ends and paragraph two begins with the observation that hope for a
future life is the chief cause of belief in ghost stories, and when the light is poor, hope often
causes us to mistake ambiguous phenomena for ghosts. Hope for the future is also the basis
for the philosophers' rational conceptions o f spirits, which they incorporate into their systems.
The author then admits that, "On examination, my own pretentious theory of the community
o f spirits will be found to follow exactly the same direction as that adopted by popular
inclination" (AK 2:350; Walford, 337; Goerwitz, 87; trans. Walford). Here Kant admits that
he is (or was) the ironic metaphysician of Dreams 1.1-2, that the ironic metaphysician's theory
of the spirit world is his own theory. (Contrast this with his claim in the previous paragraph
that the skeptical arguments of Dreams 1.3 are merely a "foreign and external" point of view
which he has adopted in order to test his own arguments.)
Kant then goes on to show how systematically his theory is biased in favor o f hope for
the future. He notes that his theory explains only "how the human spirit leaves this world; in
other words, our state after death." But he offers no treatment of how spirits come into the
world, i.e., how they are generated. Nor does he discuss how spirits are present in the world
through their connection to the body. The "very good reason" for this is simply the fact that,
"I am completely ignorant about all these matters. And as a consequence, I might, I suppose,
have been content to remain just as ignorant about the future state, as well, but for the fact
that the bias of a pet opinion fLieblingsmeinung] served to recommend the reason which
presented themselves, feeble as they are" (AK 2:250-51; Walford, 338; Goerwitz, 88; trans.
Walford). This Lieblingsmeinung is, of course, our hope for a future life. The pressing moral
importance of this belief encourages Kant to engage his poetic faculties, to venture risky and
speculative arguments for the immortality o f the soul, the kinds of arguments that he would
not venture on topics of lesser moral significance.
Such a method does, however, seem to invite the charge of self-deception or wishful
thinking, especially from the point of view o f a rigorously rational conception o f intellectual
probity. In the footnote to the paragraph, Kant counters this charge with a strikingly
Rousseauian argument: "Among the ancient Egyptians the symbol o f the soul was the
butterfly; the Greek word for the soul had exactly the same meaning.10 It is easy to see that
the hope which makes of death nothing but a transformation, has generated this ideas and its
symbols. But this does nothing to destroy our confidence that the concepts which have
sprung from this source are correct." Even if hope for the future does urge the idea of
immortality upon us, this tells us only of the origin of the concept. It says nothing about the
concept's truth, which is determined not by its origins, but by its relationship to reality. To
deny the truth of a concept because its conception is not logically immaculate is simply a case
o f what was later to be dubbed "the genetic fallacy."
Then comes the Rousseauian assertion that, "Our inner feeling finnere Empfindune]
and the judgments of what is analogous to reason [Vemunftahnlichen] grounded thereupon
lead, provided they are uncorrupted, precisely where reason would lead, if it were more
enlightened and more extensive" (AK 2:351, n; Walford, 338, n; Goerwitz, 87, n; trans.
Walford; emphasis in original). Following Rousseau, Kant posits a third cognitive faculty that
is as distinct from pure reason as it is from merely corporeal feeling. This faculty is described
as "inner" feeling to distinguish it from gross bodily feeling. The judgments grounded upon
inner feeling are characterized as "analogous to reason" to distinguish them from the
judgments of reason proper, i.e., pure reason, theoretical reason. This new faculty is also
distinguished from theoretical reason by being more enlightened and expansive, meaning that
it can know truths that lie beyond the boundaries of pure theoretical reason.
Since this faculty takes its bearings by such morally and practically-oriented "inner
feelings" as hope for the future, it is not unreasonable to call it practical reason. Whereas
theoretical reason reaches an antinomic and agnostic deadlock on the question of the
immortality of this soul, revealing its inherent incapacity to reach beyond the bounds of
10. In Metaphvsik K2 (early 1790s), Kant states, "Psvche means papillon. In this naming of
the soul there lies an analogy with a butterfly, which is hidden pre-formed in the caterpillar,
which is nothing more than its husk. This teaches that in this world dying is nothing more
than regeneration" (AK 28:753; Ameriks, 753; trans. Ameriks and Naragon). Kant's claim
about the Greek etymology of psvche is correct. Walford (451, n39) cites the following
sources: Aristotle, Historia animalium (55 la, 14); Theophrastos, Historia plantarum (II, iv, 4);
and Plutarch. Moralia (2.636c) (Walford, 451, n39). Swedenborg also speaks o f the soul as a
butterfly which, upon death, emerges from the cocoon of the body. (AC, no. 8848).
empirical experience, practical reason, motivated by the moral hope in a future life, can
give us new grounds for believing in the immortality of the soul. Here we see sketched such
important teachings of the Critique of Practical Reason as the feeling of respect for the moral
law, which is characterized as a non-corporeal feeling that reveals our obligation to live by the
noumenal moral laws in our phenomenal life, and the moral argument for belief in the
immortality of the soul.
In paragraph three, Kant claims that his ignorance of the soul's entrance into and
presence in the world prevents him from wholly dismissing ghost stories. He then adds that,
while he is skeptical of each ghost story individually, he ascribes credence to all of them taken
together. Then he refers to Dreams 1.2, saying that, "the arguments adduced in the second
chapter are sufficiently powerful to inspire me with seriousness and indecision when I listen to
the many strange stories of this type" (AK 2:352; Walford, 338; Goerwitz, 88; trans.
Walford). The tone of this suggests a change of attitude toward the arguments of Dreams 1.2.
At first their plausibility rested upon the strength of their admittedly suppositious arguments.
Mow they seem plausible because theoretical reason, having reached an agnostic deadlock has
nothing to say against them, whereas moral hope for the future finds them quite satisfying.
The paragraph then concludes tartly with the promise not to defend this line of thought further
for fear of incommoding those whose minds are closed in advance to the possibility of spirit
apparitions.
5. Conclusion ( f f 4-5)
Paragraphs four and five state the overall conclusions o f the first part of Dreams. First
is the claim that, "this reflection, if properly used by the reader, completes all philosophical
insight into such beings [i.e., spirits]..." The claim to have completed any line of enquiry
invites the charge of hubris. Kant explains, however, that while it is impossible to complete
any empirical enquiry, because it is impossible to anticipate what will emerge as experience
unfolds, it is nevertheless possible to complete a rational or philosophical line of enquiry:
Only with the philosophical doctrine of spiritual beings is the situation completely
different. It can be completed, but in the negative sense, namely in which it securely
establishes the limits of our insight and convinces us that the various appearances
of life in nature and their laws are what we are granted to know, but that the principle
of this life, i.e., the spiritual nature, which one cannot know, but only suppose, can
never be positively thought, because no data for this are found in the whole of our
feelings, and that one must resort to negations in order to think of something so very
distinct from everything sensuous, but that even the possibility of such negations rests
upon neither experience nor upon inferences, but rather upon fiction, in which a reason
stripped of all assistance takes refuge. On this basis the pneumatology of man can be
called a doctrine of his necessary ignorance with respect to a supposed kind of being,
and as such is easily adequate to its task. (AK 2:351-52; Walford, 338-39; Goerwitz,
89; trans. Walford)
Here we have, in outline, the critical pneumatology of the Critique of Pure Reason's chapter
on "The Paralogisms of Pure Reason." Rational pneumatology has been brought to
completion not by an exhaustive investigation of its subject matter, but by a propaedeutic
reflection on the power of reason to carry out the task. Such reflection reveals that reason is
capable of empirically investigating the appearances of life and soul in nature, but it is
incapable of passing beyond empirical phenomena to investigate the spiritual beings that may
lie behind such appearances, because such beings are "so very distinct from everything
sensuous."
Because o f our lack of empirical data, we can speak of spiritual beings only
suppositiously, and the only predicates we can apply to them are negative ones, i.e., not
determined, not material, etc. Furthermore, these negative predicates are based neither upon
experience nor upon inferences, but upon our poetic-fictive faculty. Rational pneumatology
is, therefore, not a positive body of doctrine, but rather a negative doctrine of the limits of
reason and the necessity o f ignorance when dealing with spiritual beings that supposedly
transcend experience.
There is, however, a positive side to this doctrine: "that henceforth one can have all
kinds of opinions [meinen], but no more knowledge [wissen] of [spirits]" (AK 2:351; Walford,
338; Goerwitz, 89). Stripped of the aids o f experience and inference and denied all
knowledge of spirits, but impelled by practical necessities, we are entitled to take refuge in the
realm of opinion and to make use of our poetic-fictive faculty to affirm the immortality o f the
soul. Thus Kant's resolution, in paragraph five, to set aside the whole of rational psychology
and turn his attention to practical matters does not imply a lack of interest in psychology as
such; instead, it implies the search for practical grounds for the investigation o f the soul. Thus
Kant, having abandoned the dogmatic perimeter, falls back, retrenches, and offers a renewed
defense of his Swedenborgian vision o f the spirit world on moral-practical grounds.
Chapter Ten:
"A Story, the Truth of Which is Recommended to the Reader's own Free
Examination": Dreams II.1
But there are things about which one is led to certainty only through special persons.
They require a degree of personal credibility which only a person of special character
maintains. For example, if we are informed about dowsing rods or ghosts by persons
of credible character then we begin to believe it.
—Kant, Logik Philippi. 17721
I. Overview of Dreams n , "The Second Part, which is Historical"

The first part of Dreams seems to constitute a well-formed philosophical and literary
whole. Thus it is surprising that the book has a "Second Part, which is Historical." The
Second Part consists of three chapters, two short chapters framing a longer one. Throughout
all three chapters, Kant assumes the persona of the pragmatic metaphysician, pretending to be
much humbled and chastened by the enlightened skeptic.
The "First Chapter: A Story, the Truth of which is Recommended to the Reader's own
Free Examination," is devoted to a brief report of Swedenborg's three famous clairvoyant
feats, which were addressed at much greater length in the Letter to Charlotte von Knobloch.
As we have seen, there are many glaring and provocative contradictions between the two
versions of these events.
The "Second Chapter: Ecstatic Journey o f an Enthusiast through the Spirit World,"
consists of a lengthy and extremely sarcastic and abusive report of the main philosophical and
theological teachings of Swedenborg's Arcana Coelestia. followed by a series of pregnant
reflections on the motivations for researching and writing Dreams—comments which we have
examined in chapter four above.
The "Third Chapter: Practical Conclusion Drawn from the Treatise as a Whole,"
purports to state the conclusion of Dreams as a whole. It consists of two lengthy paragraphs,
1. Kant, Lotrik Philippi (1772) AK 24:448; cf. Lotdk Blomberg (early 1770s), AK 24:248.
227
the first of which argues that philosophical insight into the nature of spirits is impossible,
and the second argues that such insight is useless and unnecessary, concluding with the
injunction to leave off speculation entirely and busy ourselves with the practical task of the
mastery and possession of nature.
What is the purpose of the Second Part of Dreams? Why does it appear to be a
parergon, somewhat clumsily tacked onto an apparently already whole and finished work?
The Second Part of Dreams treats three main topics: (1) it summarizes Swedenborg’s
clairvoyant feats in EL1 and his writings in 11.2; (2) it offers a series of reflections on the
reasons for researching and publishing Dreams at the end of II. 2; and (3) it supposedly brings
the whole book to a "practical" conclusion in II.3. I believe that the juxtaposition of these
three elements provides us with a clue to the purpose o f the Second Part.
First, recall Kant's claims, in the Preface of Dreams and in II.2, as well as in his letters
to Mendelssohn of February 7 and April 8, 1766 that Dreams was "extorted" from him
because rumors of his researches into Swedenborg had made him the object of prying
questions, which placed him in an awkward position, given that Swedenborg was a heretic and
an enthusiast, and a reputation for taking Swedenborg seriously would have been enough to
have quashed Kant's academic aspirations, or worse. The need to clear himself of such
suspicions, therefore, would have been motive enough to publish Dreams.
But, as we have seen, Kant had a second motive for publishing Dreams. He had a
positive metaphysical teaching to communicate, and at its core is a version the Swedenborgian
spirit world, the evidence of which is based neither upon dogmatic speculation nor upon
mystical revelation, but upon practical reason.
Kant could not, however, publish and defend such a doctrine in a straightforward
fashion, even if he made no reference to Swedenborg, for any suspicious and hostile reader
who was privy to the rumors of Kant's Swedenborgian researches could have easily discerned
the Swedenborgian elements o f his account o f the spirit world. The First Part of Dreams.
therefore, could not have stood on its own, for the rumors o f Kant's interest in Swedenborg
would have led to the discovery of its Swedenborgian teaching, even if Kant had tried to
conceal it.
Furthermore, although Kant did not want certain hostile readers to see his debt to
Swedenborg, I also contend that he did want a few sympathetic and like-minded readers to see
it. But if Kant had published only the First Part of Dreams, with no mention of Swedenborg
at all, then the only people who would have any clue about its Swedenborgian contents would
be those privy to the rumors o f Kant's interests. But rumors die away, while books live on.
Therefore, Kant would have needed to supply Dreams with certain internal clues to his
positive Swedenborgian debts.
In light of these motives, I believe that the purpose of the Second part of Dreams
becomes clearer.
First, the harsh and explicit disavowals of Swedenborg in II. 1 and II.2 are sufficient to
clear Kant of any suspicion of Swedenborgian sympathies in the minds of most readers, the
best evidence of this being the durability of the received view of Dreams.
Second, by explicitly mentioning Swedenborg, Kant provides careful readers with
internal clues to his positive debts to Swedenborg in the First Part of Dreams, allowing them
to evaluate Dreams in light of an independent reading o f the Arcana Coelestia.
Third, the discussion o f the motives for publishing Dreams at the end of II.2
simultaneously advances the received view to careless readers while giving careful readers
reason to question it.
Finally, as I shall argue, what purports to be the conclusion of the whole book (II.3) is
conclusive only for careless readers, who are confirmed in the received view, whereas careful
readers find the conclusion downright inconclusive and treat it as an occasion for turning back
to the beginning and re-reading the book more carefully.
2. Dreams IL1: Introduction 1-2)

Dreams II. 1 recounts the stories of Swedenborg's clairvoyant powers discussed in the
letter to Charlotte von Knobloch. The chapter's title, "A Story, the Truth of which is
Recommended to the Reader's own Free Examination," immediately establishes a distant and
impartial authorial attitude toward the reports of Swedenborg's clairvoyant powers—in marked
contrast to the letter, where Kant both shows keen interest in Swedenborg and accepts the
veracity of the reports.
The chapter begins with an epigraph from Virgil's Aeneid: "Sit mihi fas audita
loqui"—"Allow me to tell what I have heard."2 This quotation is drawn from the very same
passage as the epigraph of Dreams 1.2: Aeneas's katabasis into the underworld guided by the
Sibyl. Read in the context of Dreams II. 1, the epigraph seems to beg the reader's indulgence
for a report of mere hearsay, reinforcing the chapter's tone o f high-handed dismissiveness
toward the stories of Swedenborg's clairvoyant feats. In the context o f the Aeneid. however,
Aeneas begs the indulgence of the gods of the underworld to allow him to recount, not
hearsay, but his own experiences of the underworld—experiences that have far greater veracity
than mere hearsay. Aeneas's words are, therefore, falsified when removed from their context,
transforming them from a request to report firsthand experience to a request to report mere
hearsay. This falsification precisely parallels the transformation o f Kant's own enquiries,
which are reported as thoroughly researched and highly believable in the letter to Charlotte
von Knobloch, into the dubious hearsay of Dreams II. 1. From the very beginning, then, we
encounter intimations o f concealment.
The theme of concealment continues in the first paragraph, which explores the reasons
why it is easier for philosophers to secretly believe ghost stories than to publicly profess belief
in them. Philosophy is conceited. Philosophers pride themselves upon being the enlightened
few, as opposed to the unenlightened many; they pride themselves on being the wise, as
opposed to the vulgar. This conceit makes philosophers particularly leery of paranormal
phenomena, for they fear falling into vulgar, unenlightened, superstitious errors, which would
subject them to the mockery of their enlightened colleagues. Therefore, philosophers "who
know how to appear clever at no great expense" scorn and mock all paranormal phenomena,
because the unintelligibility o f such phenomena reduces the wise to the same state of
confusion and ignorance as the vulgar (AK 2:353; Walford, 340: Goerwitz, 91; trans.
Walford).
But although philosophers cannot profess belief in the paranormal without risking
mockery, neither can they completely ignore such phenomena with impunity: "It is, therefore,
not surprising that phenomena o f this kind, which are so frequently alleged to occur, should
2. Virgil, The Aeneid. vi, 266, trans. Robert Fitzgerald (New York: Random House, 1981),
169; trans. modified.
find wide acceptance, though publicly they are either denied or, indeed, hushed up" (AK
2:353; Walford, 340; Goerwitz, 91; trans. Walford, modified). These comments can only
force us to wonder whether our author’s vociferous public denial of the veracity of paranormal
experience also masks secret acceptance.
The chapter continues: "One can be sure, therefore, that no academy of sciences will
ever make this material the subject of a prize question, not because the members of such
academies are wholly free from the tendency to subscribe to the opinion in question, but
because the rule of prudence IKlugheit] rightly excludes the questions which are
indiscriminately thrown up both by nosy inquisitiveness and by idle curiosity" (AK 2:353;
Walford, 340; Goerwitz, 92; trans. Walford, modified). This sentence seems addressed to the
six gentlemen to whom Kant asked Mendelssohn to distribute copies of Dreams: Sussmilch,
Lambert, Sulzer, and Formey of the Berlin Academy (men of idle curiosity), and Sack and
Spalding of the ecclesiastical establishment (nosy men, particularly Spalding, who was
Councillor of the Consistory).
Our author suggests that both groups of men may harbor individuals with a genuine
interest in paranormal matters, who are forced by considerations o f prudence to conceal this
fact. It is to men such as these that the true message o f Dreams is directed. By explicitly
mentioning the possibility of such men, our author encourages any of them among his readers
to delve more deeply into the text, for, as the paragraph concludes, "stories of this kind are
probably only ever believed secretly, whereas publicly they are dismissed with contempt by the
reigning fashion of incredulity" (AK 2:354; Walford, 340; Goerwitz, 92; trans. Walford,
modified).
The last sentence of the first paragraph and the first part of the second paragraph make
clear just who is the authorial persona of Dreams II. 1. In the last sentence of paragraph one,
the "reigning fashion of incredulity" clearly refers to the attitudes displayed by the
Popularphilosophen. exemplified by the enlightened skeptic of Dreams 1.3. By unflatteringly
styling incredulity as the reigning fashion, our author clearly distances himself from it, treating
it as merely an ephemeral product o f philosophical conceit. The authorial persona of Dreams
II. 1 is not, therefore, the enlightened skeptic.
In the second paragraph, we are informed that the author himself does not believe
that there is sufficient evidence to conclude whether or not paranormal phenomena are real,
and that the report that follows is offered in the spirit of complete indifference
(GleichgultigkeitV This is, of course, the skeptical epoche displayed by the pragmatic
metaphysician of Dreams 1.4. The authorial persona seems, therefore, to be the pragmatic
metaphysician, i.e., Kant himself.
This suggestion is borne out by a passages at the beginning of paragraph seven: "the
philosophy, with which we have prefaced the work, was . . . a fairy-tale from the fool's
paradise [Schlaraffenlande] of metaphysics" (AK 2:356; Walford 343; Goerwitz, 95; trans.
Walford, modified; emphasis in original). Here our author identifies himself as the author of
Dreams 1.1 and 1.2—the ironic metaphysician. But, as I have argued, the ironic metaphysician
of Dreams 1.1 and 1.2 emerges chastised from his encounter with the enlightened skeptic of 1.3
as the pragmatic metaphysician of 1.4.
The argument of the second paragraph is simple. Because of the insufficiency of
current evidence, it is not possible either to affirm or to deny the reality of paranormal
phenomena. There is, therefore, no reason not to supply more evidence, "with complete
indifference fvolliger Gleichgultiekeitl." leaving the reader to judge its veracity as he sees fit.
This evidence is then supplied in the following four paragraphs.
What is puzzling about paragraph two is its insistence that the report that follows is
offered in a spirit of complete indifference, i.e., impartiality, whereas in fact Swedenborg is
heaped with ridicule and scorn without countervailing considerations offered to balance the
account. If the treatment o f Swedenborg truly is impartial, then perhaps the negative
comments are not actually intended to be part o f the argument; perhaps they are mere
rhetorical window-dressing that needs to be stripped away before we can evaluate the true
argument of Dreams. Or perhaps the high-handed treatment js balanced out by countervailing
positive considerations, considerations that are not easily apparent—but which may become
apparent to those who read between the lines. In either case, the claim that the account of
Swedenborg is balanced leads the careful reader to look beyond the rhetorical surface of
Dreams.
3. Ghost Stories flff 3-6)
Kant's ghost stories do not begin with "Once upon a time," but as Susan Shell
suggests, they do employ "the well-worn formulas of fiction."3
In Stockholm a certain Herr Schwedenbere. without official position or

employment, lives on his fairly considerable wealth. His entire occupation for more
than twenty years is, as he himself says, to be in closest connection with spirits and
departed souls, to receive news of them from the other world and in exchange to give
them news of the present, to compose big volumes about his discoveries, and
occasionally to travel to London to take care of their publication. He is not exactly
reticent with his secrets fGeheimnissen = Arcana], speaks freely of them with
everyone, appears to be perfectly persuaded that they are what they pretend, without
any appearance of deliberate fraud or charlatanry. (AK 2:354; Walford, 341;
Goerwitz, 92; trans. Walford, modified)
Thus far this is an entirely accurate, fair, and not especially pejorative description of
Swedenborg. As Shell points out, the fact that Swedenborg is a man of independent means
redounds to his credibility, for it removes any financial incentive for fraud.4 Kant's tone
changes subtly, however, as he continues. He gingerly holds Swedenborg at arm's length:
Just as he [Swedenborg] is, if one may believe him, the arch-spirit-seer o f all spirit-
seers, so he is also certainly the arch-visionary of all visionaries, whether one judges
him now from the descriptions o f those acquainted with him or from his writings. But
this condition cannot hinder those who are favorable to spiritual influxes from
supposing that behind such visionary flights there is still something true. Since,
however, the credentials o f all plenipotentiaries from the other world consist in the
proofs of their extraordinary vocation which they provide through certain tests in the
present world, I must accordingly adduce, from what is circulated to verify the

extraordinary quality of the aforementioned man, at least that which still finds some
credence with the majority. (AK 2:354; Walford, 341; Goerwitz, 92-93; trans.
Walford, modified)
The following three paragraphs are then devoted to recounting the affairs of the
Queen's Secret, the Lost Receipt, and the Stockholm Fire respectively. As I detail in section
seven o f Chapter Two above, a careful comparison o f the treatment of these stories in Dreams
and in the letter to Charlotte von Knobloch reveals striking omissions and distortions which
call into question the honesty of Kant's account in Dreams.
4. Conclusion ( f f 7-9)
The last three paragraphs are quite defensive in tone. Paragraph seven is in part
responsible for the received view of the purpose o f Dreams. It begins with a question: "The
reader will probably ask what on earth could have induced me to engage in such a despicable
business as that of spreading fairy-tales abroad, which every rational being would hesitate to
listen to with patience—and, indeed, not merely disseminating them but actually making them
the subject of philosophical investigations." Kant's justification is simple: "since the
philosophy, with which we have prefaced the work, was no less a fairy-tale from the fool's
paradise of metaphysics, I can see nothing improper about having them make their appearance
on the stage together." He asks, furthermore, "why should it be more respectable to allow
oneself to be misled by credulous trust in the sophistries of reason than to allow oneself to be
deceived by an incautious belief in delusory stories?" (AK 2:356; Walford, 342-43; Goerwitz,
95; trans. Walford modified).
On the received view, Kant reduces the school-metaphysics of his time to absurdity by
linking it with the visions o f Swedenborg. If however, one actually follows the unfolding of
the argument of Dreams, the metaphysics of 1.1 and 1.2 has already been subjected to criticism
(in 1.3) and reconstructed on pragmatic grounds (in 1.4), before the first mention of
Swedenborg in Dreams n. Why, then, is a connection drawn between Swedenborg and the
metaphysics o f Dreams 1.1 and 1.2? I contend that it is not to overthrow a metaphysical
system that has already been superseded, but to answer the question with which the
paragraph opens, namely: What is the justification for discussing Swedenborg?
To understand the answer, we must keep clearly in mind the audience to whom it is
directed: those conceited philosophers who dismiss paranormal phenomena out of snobbery
and fear—snobbery, because they do not wish to deal with topics whose unintelligibility puts
them on the same footing as the vulgar, fear, because they wish to avoid the mockery of their
colleagues for taking vulgar superstitions seriously.
The answer itself is simple: If we take the enlightened skeptic's criticisms seriously,
then metaphysics is no more respectable than spirit-seeing, and spirit-seeing is no less
respectable than metaphysics: "credulous trust in the sophistries of reason" is no better, and no
worse, than "an incautious belief in delusory stories." There are, therefore, no grounds for
snobbery. The enlightened skeptic has established parity between metaphysics and spirit-
seeing, but the apologetic context suggests that the purpose of deploying the enlightened
skeptic's arguments is less to lower the status of metaphysics than to raise the status of spirit-
seeing. (Mendelssohn considers this possibility in his review of Dreams: "The joking
pensiveness with which this little work is written leaves the reader sometimes in doubt as to
whether Herr Kant intends to make metaphysics laughable or spirit-seeing credible."5) In
Shell's words, Kant's "equation of the few and the many (united by their common ignorance)
makes it clear that his own thesis applies to skepticism itself. Academic skepticism is itself a
kind o f dogma, whose ground is to be located . . . in false pride."6
The ultimate goal of our author is not, however, simply to deploy skeptical arguments
to establish a parity between Swedenborgfs visions and the metaphysics o fDreams 1.1 and 1.2.
The pragmatic metaphysician, after all, occupies a position beyond that of the enlightened
skeptic. The parity is, therefore, merely apologetic and provisional. As I shall argue, Dreams
II.2 establishes not a parity, but an identity between the two positions, i.e., it hints strongly
that the ironic metaphysician’s system is merely a philosophical reconstruction of
Swedenborg's visions of the spirit-world. Furthermore, as I argue at the end of this chapter,
Dreams 11.3 strongly hints that we turn back to the pragmatic metaphysics of 1.4 in order to
5. Mendelssohn, Review of Traume. Maiter, 118; my trans.

reconstruct the Swedenborgian metaphysics of Dreams 1.2 on the grounds of practical
reason, as opposed to mystical iiluminism or metaphysical dogmatism.
Paragraph eight continues in the same skeptical and apologetic vein: "Folly and
understanding have such indistinctly marked boundaries [Grenzen] that one can hardly
proceed for long in one region without making a little sally into the other" (AK 2:356;
Walford, 343; Goerwitz, 95-6; trans. Walford, modified). The idea of the boundaries of folly
and understanding reappears in paragraph thirteen of Dreams II.2, where metaphysics is
described as "a science of the limits of human reason1*(eine Wissenschaft von den Grenzen der
menschlichen Vemunft) (AK 2:367; Walford, 354; Goerwitz, 113; my trans ).
One propensity to stray into folly is "the naivete [Treuherzigkeit] which sometimes
allows itself, notwithstanding the opposition of the understanding, to be persuaded into
making some concessions to many assertions [e.g., regarding paranormal phenomena] which
are solemnly made with self-assurance." This naivete, "appears to be a remnant of the ancient
ancestral loyalty, which is, it must be conceded, no longer really appropriate to our present
state, and which therefore often turns into folly, but is not, for that very reason, to be regarded
as a natural heirloom of stupidity" (AK 2: 356; Walford, 243; Goerwitz, 96; trans. Walford,
modified).
This is an exceedingly difficult sentence to interpret. There is surely some truth to
Susan Shell's suggestion that "ancient ancestral loyalty" refers to Kant's loyalties to both his
family and to the humble class to which they belonged: "Kant's attraction to ghost stories is ..
. part a sign of his democratic (hence familial) loyalties against the aristocratic pretensions of
fashionably enlightened society. To believe in ghosts is to side with the common man-
including Kant's own parents—whose credulity need not be linked with lack o f innate
intelligence."7 A more nationalistic sense of "ancient ancestral loyalty" is suggested by the
ghost-stories themselves. The affair of the Queen's secret involved both the sister and the
brother Prussia's Frederick the Great, and it was probably this connection that stirred interest
in Swedenborg in Prussia, leading to Kant's initial investigations.
Whether these ancient ancestral loyalties are personal or national or both, it is clear
that our author is on their side. Although he concedes that these loyalties often lead to folly,
his reasons are quite peculiar. He claims that they often lead to folly because they are "no
longer really appropriate to our present state fietzigen Zustandj." by which I take him to mean
the state of enlightened opinion, the sort of opinion that would regard ancestral loyalties as
merely "the natural heirloom o f stupidity."
To say that these loyalties lead to folly because they have no place in enlightened
opinion is not the same as simply stating that they have the power to lead to folly. This latter
claim is about matters of fact, whereas the former is about how things seem to a certain class
of people. This locution is equivalent to putting the former claim in "scare" quotes; it
indicates that it is not Kant's own opinion.
This impression is confirmed by the last clause of the sentence, which claims that
ancient ancestral loyalty is not to be regarded as an heirloom of stupidity, precisely because it
is not part of enlightened opinion. These are not the words of a partisan of enlightenment,
who would regard ancestral loyalties as heirlooms of stupidity, but of a partisan of ancestral
loyalties~one who perhaps regards enlightened opinion as the stupider of the two, but who
can plausibly deny this accusation by appealing to the parity between the wise and the vulgar
established by skepticism.
The paragraph continues by commending to the reader the task of analyzing the ghost
stories, which Kant characterizes as an "ambiguous mixture of reason and gullibility," into
their constituent elements. He also leaves it to the reader to judge to what extent his own
thoughts are rational or gullible.
But this submission to the judgment o f his readers is highly ambiguous: "For as the
only point of such a critique is to preserve propriety, I am sufficiently secure against mockery
because with this folly, if one wishes to call it that, I find myself in quite good and numerous
company, which is already sufficient, as Fontenelle believed, for at least not being taken as
unclever" (AK 2:356; Walford, 343; Goerwitz, 96; my trans.).
To say that the purpose of criticizing alleged paranormal phenomena is to "preserve
propriety" is conspicuously not to say that its purpose is to discover the truth. To put
propriety above truth, however, is shameful, particularly to those enlightened readers who
pride themselves on their intellectual probity. To concern oneself more with propriety than
with truth is a powerful motive for concealing improper and unwelcome truths, and Kant
accuses his readers of doing precisely that.
But Kant then places himself in this "quite good and numerous company" of proper
men who have been secretly beguiled by paranormal folly—a move that insulates him from
mockery and the suspicion of not being clever, but also implicates him in the clever
concealment of improper truths.
These paranormal follies include thesis of an occult "sympathy" (Svmpathie) that binds
all things together (such as Swedenborg's doctrine of correspondences),8 as well as "dowsing
rods, premonitions, the influence of the imaginative faculty on pregnant women, the influence
of the phases of the moon on animals and plants, and the like" (AK 2:357; Walford, 343;
Goerwitz, 96; my trans.). The most egregious example mentioned is the so-called "Beast of
Gevaudan." In France in 1765 the "common peasantry" avenged themselves on the learned
men who mocked their gullibility by convincing them, through mere hearsay, to mistake a
common wolf for an African hyaena.
These "absurd things" insinuate themselves into the minds of rational people simply
because they are topics of general (alleemein) discussion, which serves as evidence for the
skeptical thesis that the barriers between reason and common superstition—between the wise
and the vulgar—are more porous than the self-conceit of philosophy would have it.
The gullibility of both wise and vulgar is grounded in "the weakness of the human
understanding" and in the "desire for knowledge," which together lead us to "snatch up" both
"truth and deception without distinction." The paragraph does, however, end on a hopeful
note: "But little by little the concepts are purified, a smaller portion remain, the rest are
thrown away as rubbish" (AK 2:344; Walford, 343-44; Goerwitz, 97; my trans ).
This hope does not, however, appear inconsistent with the overall skeptical stance
adopted in Dreams II. 1, which seems to amount to the denial o f any apriori criterion for
distinguishing between truth and opinion. The lack of such a criterion does not, however,
prevent one from holding that one's opinions can progressively approximate the truth by
8. Walford translates "die Svmpathie" as "faith-healing" (Walford, 343) and Goerwitz

translates it as "sympathetic cures" (Goerwitz, 96).
constant aposteriori testing; a skeptic can recognize the "tried and true," what has "stood
the test of time." What is not indicated here is the possibility of fixing the boundaries between
reason and gullibility, wisdom and folly, once and for all, as claimed for the negative
pneumatology o f Dreams 1.4.
The concluding paragraph is highly ambiguous. Kant first invites any reader with
sufficient time, money and interest to undertake a journey to investigate Swedenborg first
hand—a journey which he likens to the travels of Artemidorus of Daldis, a professional dream-
interpreter of the second century, who travelled throughout Asia Minor "to the benefit of
dream-interpretation" (AK 2:357; Walford, 344, Goerwitz, 97; my trans.).9 On the surface,
the analogy suggests that Swedenborg's visions are merely dreams. But it equally suggests
that just as Artemidorus's journeys were to the benefit of dream interpretation, a journey to
Sweden would redound to the benefit of an analogous science—the study of paranormal
phenomena, a science that would not necessarily cast Swedenborg in a negative light.
The last sentence suggests that such a journey would incur the gratitude of posterity
by producing an account of Swedenborg based upon eyewitness testimony before a lapse of
time sufficient for "hearsay" to ripen into "formal proof," allowing "another Philostratus" to
transform Swedenborg into a "new Apollonius of Tyana." Apollonius of Tyana was a first
century neo-Pythagorean sage who, long after his death, became the subject of Flavius
Philostratus' (ca. 170-250) Life o f Apollonius ofTvana. a hagiographical work which ascribes
miracles to its subject and which was widely regarded as a fraudulent attempt to create a
pagan holy man who could serve as an alternative to Jesus, thereby impeding the spread of
Christianity.10
At first glance, relating Swedenborg to Apollonius and Philostratus casts him in a
negative light. But a second glance reveals that Swedenborg is being likened specifically to
9. See Artemidorus Daldianus. The Interpretation of Dreams: Oneirocritica bv Artemidorus.

trans. Robert J. White (Park Ridge, New Jersey: Noyes Press, 1975).
10. Flavius Philostratus, The Life of Apollonius of Tyana. 2 vols., trans. F.C. Conybeare,
Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann, 1921). The anti-Christian Hierodes of
Nicodemia compared Jesus and Apollonius, occasioning a reply by Eusebius. See the The
Treatise o f Eusebius.. . against the Life of Apollonius ofTvana Written bv Philostratus . . . in
vol. 2 of the Loeb edition of Philostratus.
Apollonius, who may have been entirely honest, not to his biographer Philostratus, who
was reputed to have been a fraud. It is not Swedenborg, therefore, who is being cast in a
negative light, but a possible future biographer who would falsify his life for his own ends.
Finally, as I have noted in chapter two, there is no indication whatsoever in this
paragraph that Kant himself sent a friend on just such a voyage of enquiry, and that he
interviewed not only eye-witnesses to Swedenborg's clairvoyant feats, but also Swedenborg
himself.
Chapter Eleven:
"Ecstatic Journey of an Enthusiast
Through the Spirit-World": Dreams IL2
A little enthusiasm and superstition here would not only deserve indulgence, but
something of this leaven is necessary in order to put the soul in the ferment required
for a philosophical heroism. A thirsty ambition for truth and virtue, and a frenzy to
conquer all lies and vices .. . herein consists the heroic spirit of the philosopher.
—Johann Georg Hamann, Socratic Memorabilia1
1. Overview of Dreams n.2

Dreams U.2 consists of fourteen paragraphs and falls into four parts. Paragraph one is
introductory. Paragraphs four through nine are devoted to a summary of Swedenborg's
thought. Robert H. Kirven justly gives Kant's summary high praise:
The nature of [Kant's] description requires some attention. In contrast to

another hostile description o f Swedenborg's teachings b y . . . Emesti, Kant's is not
quoted or paraphrased. It is a complete reconstruction that could have been achieved
only by careful analysis and a serious effort at coherent synthesis. The sequence of
presentation is original, and the interdependence and consistency is so cogent, that it
suggests itself as the result o f a whole-hearted attempt to comprehend what
Swedenborg had written.2
Paragraphs ten through thirteen are given to a series of concluding reflections. These
reflections have already been discussed in Chapter Three above. Paragraph fourteen provides
a transition to the next chapter.
1. Johann Georg Hamann, Socratic Memorabilia, in James C. OTlaherty, H am ann's Socratic

Memorabilia: A Translation and Commentary (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1967),
147.
2. Robert H. Kirven, "Swedenborg and Kant Revisited," 114.
241
The overall effect ofDreams H.2 is twofold. First, the similarities between the
chapter's systematic summary of Swedenborg's visions of the spirit world and the metaphysics
o f Dreams 1.2 are so striking that, despite the abuse of Swedenborg, the reader is led to
wonder whether or not Swedenborg was indeed an influence on Kant. Second, Kant explicitly
treats the question of Swedenborg's influence in a systematically ambiguous way, which to the
desultory reader appears as a strenuous denial of influence and to the careful reader simply
heightens the suspicion that Kant is trying to conceal a debt to Swedenborg.
2. The Epigraph
The epigraph ofDreams II.2 is from Horace's Epistles. II, ii, "To Florus,"3 lines 208-9:
Somnia. tenures magicos. miracula. sagas.

Noctumos lemures. portentaque Thessala .. .
Dreams, magical terrors, wonders, witches,

Nocturnal ghosts, Thessalonian portents. . .
Kant's ellipsis invites those who know their Horace to recall the last word o f this sentence,
which is a rhetorical question addressed to Florus, namely: "rides?'’—"Do you laugh?" Horace
is listing things that his addressee holds in bemused contempt. This association would both
set the stage for, and be reinforced by, the contemptuous treatment of Swedenborg that
follows, thus serving to support the received view.
However, as is the pattern with Dreams, the meaning of this epigraph is transformed
when it is restored to its original context.4 In Horace’s eyes, Florus is apparently rather vain
about his level of enlightenment and moral attainment. For argument's sake, Horace grants
Florus's claim to be free of avarice, but asks if he is free from other vices and follies, knowing
3. Julius Florus, companion of Tiberius Claudius Nero, later the Emperor Tiberius.
4. For commentary on this passage, see C O. Brink, Horace on Poetry, vol. 2: Epistles Book
II: The Letters to Augustus and Florus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 399-
408.
full well that he is given to vain ambition Cinani ambitione). fear and anger (formidine et
ira) at death, and the grudging refusal to forgive friends. In this light, Florus's sense of
superiority to those who believe in ghosts and witches looks like mere vanity, not
enlightenment. As Horace asks, "What good is it to pluck out only one o f many thorns?"
Florus has removed the mote of superstition and left the beam of vice in place.
Thus the epigraph does not merely list vulgar superstitions which are the objects of
enlightened disdain, it also points out that this enlightened disdain can be the companion o f a
host o f vices. He invites us to wonder if enlightenment itself might not be a symptom o f a
particular vice, such as vanity. (This view is, of course, a mirror image of the claims, in
Dreams 1.4 and 0.3, that belief in the "superstition" of an afterlife is the effect of the moral
idealism of a virtuous character.)
This fuller reading of the epigraph casts a different light on the chapter. No author can
be entirely committed to a rhetoric of enlightened skepticism if at the same time he intimates
that it may be merely a product o f vanity. Thus the epigraph functions like a pair of "scare
quotes," creating an ironic distance between Kant and his disdainful rhetoric. The careful
reader is, therefore, entitled to bracket the rhetoric, a move which again opens up the
possibility that Kant took Swedenborg seriously.
3. IntroductoryRemarks ( f t )
The lengthy first paragraph o f Dreams II. 2 prefaces the presentation of Swedenborg
with the denial that Swedenborg had any influence on the metaphysics o fDreams 1.2.
Although the popularity o f the received view seems a testament to the persuasiveness of
Kant's denials, a careful reading reveals that the disclaimer does more to heighten than to allay
suspicions of a Swedenborgian influence.
Kant begins by addressing the "cautious reader" (beheutsamen Leserl. who may have
begun to feel "reservations" (Bedenken) about his method of proceeding. Kant suggests that
his placement o f the dogmatic part o fDreams before the historical part—o f reasons before
experience—may have given "cause for suspicion" fUrsache zu dem Arewohnl. as if he were
proceeding in a "cunning" fHinterlist) fashion. Kant grants that he may indeed have had
Swedenborg's stories already in mind, but that he wrote "as if' (als) the metaphysics of 1.2
were entirely the product of philosophical reflections, untainted by any knowledge of
Swedenborg's claims o f first-hand experience. The purpose of this ruse was to surprise the
unsuspecting reader with a "welcome confirmation from experience."
Kant then grants that this "device" (Kunst griff) is quite popular among philosophers.
Likening the highest form of knowledge to an eel, Kant explains that it has two "ends." The
head, appropriately, is the apriori end, where knowledge is generated by means of pure
reason. The tail is the aposteriori end, where knowledge is generated from experience
through observation and inductive generalization.
Kant notes that "various modem students of nature" begin with the aposteriori end,
hoping to ascend inductively from "experiential cognitions" to "universal and higher
concepts." Kant pretends to be ignorant of whether or not this empirical method is
sufficiently clever. He does, however, claim—with more than a little irony—that empiricism is
definitely "not learned and philosophical enough, for one is in this manner soon lead to a
Why? for which no answer can be given, which for a philosopher is just as creditable as for a
merchant to kindly ask a creditor to call another time" (AK 2:358; Walford, 344; Goerwitz,
99; my trans.).
Kant's point is not entirely clear, but he seems to think that empirical science is
condemned either to an infinite causal-explanatory regress, which leaves nothing explained, or
to halting the causal-explanatory regress at an arbitrary point and refusing to enquire further.
However useful the results of empirical science may be, as a method it is unacceptable to the
philosopher who wishes a complete explanation o f everything.
Because o f the philosophical inadequacy of empiricism, "shrewd men" have gone to
the "farthest opposing limit," resolving to begin their investigations from the "highest points of
metaphysics" (by implication unflatteringly equated with the head of the eel of science), giving
rise to the rationalism of "dogmatic” metaphysics. Rationalism, however, is fraught with
difficulties: "one begins I know not where and arrives I know not whither, and . . . the
progress of reasons will not meet up with experience, indeed,. . . it appears that the atoms of
Epicurus, after having always fallen from eternity, may be more likely to form a world through
their accidental collision than the most general and abstract concepts are to explain it” (AK
2:358; Walford, 345; Goerwitz, 99; my trans.).
Because o f this, philosophers came to realize that "rational arguments" on the one
hand and "actual experience or reports" on the other will never come together. Thus Kant
does not liken the apriori and the aposteriori to the head and tail of an eel, which are
apparently joined together by the rest of the eel, but to parallel lines of enquiry which will
never meet.
To ensure that their apriori speculations will eventually cohere with experience,
rationalistic philosophers have made a deal with one another:
Each would adopt his own starting point in his own fashion; after that, rather than
follow the straight line of reasoning, they would rather impart to their arguments an
imperceptible climamen by stealthily squinting at the target of certain experiences or
testimonies... . Our philosophers then proceeded to call this path the apriori path,
even though that path had already been covertly laid down by means of markers
planted in the direction of the aposteriori point.. .. Adopting this ingenious method,
various men of merit have even suddenly come upon the mysteries of religion on the
bare path of reason." (AK 2:358-9; Walford, 345; Goerwitz, 99; trans. Walford)
Just as the clinamen, the famous "Epicurean swerve," allows atoms falling in parallel lines to
collide and congeal into a world, so the rationalist philosopher's stealthy glances at experience
allow him to steer his reasonings toward empirical confirmations. Kant seems, however, to
regard the cost of attaining this empirical confirmation as rather high, for it requires that
honest reasoning be replaced by dishonest rationalization.
Kant likens this procedure to a conceit of Romantic literature: the author "makes his
heroine flee to distant countries so that, by means of a happy adventure, she may accidentally
meet her admirer" (AK 2:359; Walford, 345-6; Goerwitz, 100; trans. Walford). He illustrates
this point with a line from Virgil’s Bucolica. Eclogue HI, 63: "et fugit ad salices et se cupit
ante videri"--"... and flees towards the willows, and hopes to be seen first," a line which
seems to hide no deeper meaning.3
5. For useful commentary on this text, see Edward Coleiro, An Introduction to Virgil's
Bucolics with a Critical Edition of the Text (Amsterdam: Gruner, 1979), 123-34.
Kant also remarks that, in the commission o f such philosophical frauds, "the adept
who knew what was going on, would naturally be obliged not to betray his master" (AK
2:359; Walford, 345; Goerwitz, 100; trans. Walford). This echoes the rhetoric of the first
paragraph o f Dreams 1.2, which alludes to the rites and initiations of the mystery religions.
Philosophers, it seems, are not only frauds, but pious frauds. This gesture is significant.
Recall that Kant is in the process of denying that Swedenborg provided a blueprint for his own
philosophical speculations in 1.2. However, in the very midst of denying that he is like other
fraudulent philosophers, he describes them in language that calls to mind the introductory
paragraph o f 1.2, covertly affirming a resemblance that he is overtly denying.
Kant continues the paragraph with what at first glance appears to be a denial that he
has employed the fraudulent method just outlined:
With such illustrious predecessors, therefore, I should not have had any reason to be
ashamed if I had also employed the same cunning device (Kunststuck] to help my
enquiry on its way to the desired conclusion. But I would earnestly implore the reader
not to believe any such thing o f me. And, anyway, of what use would this method be
to me now, since it is impossible for me to deceive anyone now that I have given away
the secret? (AK 2:359; Walford, 346; Goerwitz, 100; trans. Walford, modified)
Upon closer inspection, however, Kant's denial turns out to be merely apparent, a non-denial
carefully constructed to seem like a denial. Kant says that he would not be ashamed to utilize
the method he has just outlined. I would tike to take this sentence at face value. It is hard to
do so, however, for in light of the next sentence, the disavowal of shame takes on an ironic
tone. Kant earnestly implores us not to believe that he would employ the device that he has
just said he would not be ashamed to use. So he is ashamed after all.
But notice that Kant's plea that his reader not think him capable of using cunning
devices is not actually a denial that he has used them. Kant requests only that we think him
innocent. He does not actually claim that he is innocent. And although innocent people wish
to be thought innocent, so do guilty people. Once one recognizes that Kant's plea is
consistent with being guilty, it cancels out the ironic tone that it casts upon the claim that Kant
would not be ashamed of using such devices. Kant could be both guilty and unashamed of ~
subterfuge and still wish to be thought innocent and abashed.
Kant then asks a rhetorical question: "of what use would this method be to me now,
since it is impossible for me to deceive anyone now that I have given away the secret?" This
is another example of Kant's use of a rhetoric of disarming frankness in the very act of
weaving a deception. By frankly discussing the subterfuge, Kant claims that he makes it
possible to see through it, thus rendering it useless. But by the very act of discussing his
discussion of subterfuge, thereby establishing his frankness and allaying his reader's suspicion
that he might be deceptive, Kant lulls the reader's suspicions back to sleep, giving him free
reign to practice deception openly, under the mask of frankly disavowing subterfuge.
At this point, the reader who wishes to accept Kant's account a face value might be
tempted to ask: If Kant was not influenced by Swedenborg, then how are we to explain the
similarities between the metaphysics of 1.2 and the summary of Swedenborg’s ideas that is to
follow? Kant's answer concludes the paragraph:
I have the misfortune, that the testimony upon which I stumbled [Swedenborg’s
Arcana) and which is so extraordinarily like my philosophical brainchild [i.e., Dreams
1.2], looks desperately misshapen and silly, so that I must much sooner suppose that
the reader will regard my arguments as absurd because of their kinship with such
confirmations than regard these as reasonable. I accordingly say without further ado,
that, as far as such offensive comparisons are concerned, I do not appreciate the joke,
and declare, in short, that either one must suppose that there is more cleverness and
truth in Schwedenberg's writings than the first appearance shows, or that it is only by
chance if he coincides with my system, as poets sometimes when they rave are
believed to prophesy, or at least they say so, if now and then they coincide with
events. (AK 2:359; Walford, 346; Goerwitz, 100-1; my trans.)
Note the dense use o f concepts o f the accidental and unusual: "misfortune" (Ungluck).
"stumbling" (stossen), the "misshapen and silly" (misgeschaffen und albem). the "absurd"
(ungereunt), happening by chance (von ohneefahr komme). and "coincidence"
fzusammentreffenY But also note that Kant does not flatly assert that the resemblance
between his system and Swedenborg's is coincidental. He does not explicitly deny the
possibility of influence. Instead, Kant offers us a choice: "either one must suppose that there
is more cleverness and truth in Schwedenberg's writings than the first appearance shows, or
that it is only by chance if he coincides with my system."
Close readers will immediately note that the two options are neither mutually exclusive
nor do they exhaust the possibilities. For instance, it might be the case that Swedenborg's
writings do contain more cleverness and truth than they first let on and that the similarities
between Kant and Swedenborg are not coincidental.
But let us consider this sentence's effect on less careful readers, who feel that they
must accept one option or the other. Those readers who are likely to disapprove of
Swedenborg, and of Kant's interest in Swedenborg, are unlikely to think that there is any
cleverness or truth in Swedenborg's thought. Therefore, they will choose the latter option,
concluding that all similarities are merely coincidental, thereby exculpating Kant from
suspicions of heterodoxy and enthusiasm. By posing the option in this manner, Kant cleverly
leads those readers who are likely to disapprove of any debt to Swedenborg to the conclusion
that all similarities are merely coincidental. Yet Kant does not actually say that the similarities
are coincidental. Again, we find Kant constructing the appearance of a denial, without
actually denying anything.
Since Kant carefully leaves the question of influence unanswered, but employs the
language of coincidence to plant this suggestion in the reader's mind, we should consider just
how plausible the claim o f coincidence is. There are two reasons for finding it implausible.
The first is internal to the text. Kant protests too much for the careful reader to take
the suggestion of coincidence at face value.
The second reason is external to the text. Although Kant gives the impression that he
had worked out the metaphysics o f Dreams 1.2 before his encounter with Swedenborg, and
only then stumbled upon Swedenborg, we know this to be historically false. Kant's thought
did not resemble Swedenborg’s before Kant read Swedenborg. After reading Swedenborg,
however, Kant wrote the remarkably Swedenborgian metaphysics o fDreams 1.2. To explain
the similarities in terms of coincidence would be plausible only if we knew that Kant had
developed the metaphysics of Dreams 1.2 before he had read Swedenborg. But since this is
not the case, the simplest and most plausible explanation for the resemblances between the
ideas of Kant and Swedenborg is that Kant was influenced by Swedenborg.
A bit earlier in the passage quoted just above, Kant also uses the tactic of posing
options without stating which side he falls on to mislead readers into accepting the received
view o f Dreams. which I treat as the exoteric teaching: "I must much sooner suppose that the
reader will regard my arguments as absurd because of their kinship with such confirmations
than regard these as reasonable." Here Kant poses us with a choice: Given the resemblance
between Swedenborg's teaching and his own, Kant claims that the reader will either regard his
metaphysics as absurd or Swedenborg as reasonable.
Those readers who disapprove of Swedenborg, will choose the former option, and
hastily conclude that Kant's intention is to reduce dogmatic metaphysics to absurdity by
likening it to Swedenborg. But note that Kant does not actually say this. Instead, he offers a
set of options and allows those readers with a prejudice against Swedenborg to arrive on then-
own at what became the received view. The other option, that Swedenborg's ideas will seem
more reasonable, is, however, still left open to be explored by readers who do not have a
prejudice against Swedenborg. It is along this path that one discovers Kant's hidden debts to
Swedenborg. The studied ambiguity o f this passage in particular is likely to have occasioned
Mendelssohn's doubts as to whether Kant intended to make metaphysics laughable or spirit-
seeing credible.6
4. Excursus on Method
Is the philosophical method of proceeding from first principles while aiming for certain
experiential confirmations really as dishonest as Kant makes it out to be?
First o f all, Kant's argument presupposes a rather "un-Kantian" conception of
philosophical method. On the one hand, we are offered a rationalism that proceeds within the
realm of concepts without experience. On the other hand, we are offered an empiricism that
seeks to arrive at first principles through observation and inductive generalization. The
6. See ch. 2 above.
mature Kantian position, however, is that in cognition concepts and experience must work
together—that concepts without experience are empty, and experience without concepts is
blind. Furthermore, the rudiments of this position are already present in Dreams 1.1, where
the spontaneity o f reason sets up the problems which are resolved by the hypothesis of the
spirit world and in Dreams 1.2, where appeals to moral experience are used to ground it. (The
spontaneity o f reason also appears under the guise of the doctrine of spiritual influx.)
But it is only on the very un-Kantian assumption that the sole justification for
philosophical principles is their logical derivation from more fundamental principles, that one
could conclude that steering one's reflections toward experiential confirmations is dishonest.
Thus on Kant's own terms, the method which he so ambiguously denies using is not
objectionable in the first place.
Second, from Plato's Meno to Gadamer’s Truth and Method, it has been persuasively
argued that it is not possible to begin a line of enquiry unless one already has some idea of the
outcome. If one does not know where one is going, then one path is as good as any other,
and enquiry will dissipate itself among an infinity o f Holzwege. And if one should chance
across one's goal, one could never recognize it as one's goal unless one already had some idea
of it to begin with. Of course enquiry would be unnecessary if one had an entirely adequate
idea of its goal in advance. Thus one has to have an idea of one's goal that is somewhat less
than adequate, but which will become adequate when it finds experiential confirmation. There
are many ways of articulating this state of knowing-yet-not-knowing and its transformation
into a higher form of knowledge: the recollection of the forgotten glimpse of a Platonic Form,
the articulation of tacit knowledge, or the intuitive fulfillment of an empty intention.
In Dreams 1.2, Kant introduces the hypothesis of the spirit-world with the language of
knowing-yet-not-knowing: "If one turns one's attention to this type o f being [i.e., living
things], one will find oneself persuaded, if not with the distinctness of a demonstration, then at
least with the anticipation o f a not untutored understanding, of the existence of immaterial
beings" (AK 2:329; Walford, 316-17; Goerwitz, 56; trans. Walford). To have the
"anticipation o f a not-untutored understanding” is something more than being entirely ignorant
of the object o f one's hypothesis, but it is something less than having a distinct demonstration.
I wish to suggest that Swedenborg Is the "tutor" of Kant's understanding, that
Swedenborg's visions guided Kant's metaphysical enquiries by providing Kant with an image,
a blueprint, a preliminary sketch of their goal. Indeed, Kant's use of Swedenborg's visions as
the pattern for his philosophical reflections confirms Hegel's objection to Kant: that Kant
could not have established the limits of reason without having a peek at what lies on the other
side.7 Swedenborg's visions o f the spirit world gave Kant his peek.8
S. Swedenborg Introduced 2-3)

Paragraphs two and three introduce Swedenborg and his works.
The first line of paragraph two, "I come to my point, namely the writings of my hero,"
declares forthrightly that the purpose of Dreams is to discuss Swedenborg, which accords
perfectly with the title o f the book: Dreams o f a Spirit-Seer. Elucidated by Dreams of
Metaphysics. Swedenborg receives top billing. The tone of the paragraphs then turns quite
ugly-
First, Kant places Swedenborg first and foremost among the writers of excessively
long books who are destined for oblivion. Here Kant proves himself Swedenborg’s inferior in
prophecy.
Second, Kant asserts that Swedenborg has entirely lost his reason and that his "great
work" (the Arcana Coelestia) is "completely empty of any drop of reason." Kant here refers
to Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso ( 1532). Book XXXIV, cantos 67-86: "certainly his
[Swedenborg's] flask in the lunar world is full to the brim; it is surpassed by none of the
moon-flasks which Ariosto saw there and which were filled with the reason which was lacking
down here, and which their possessors would one day have to seek out again" (AK 2:359-60;
Walford, 346; Goerwitz, 101; trans. Walford; emphasis in original). According to Ariosto,
when one loses one's reason in this world, it simply migrates to the moon, where it is stored in
a flask. The less reason one has in this world, the more one has in one's lunar flask.
7. "Something is only known, or even felt, to be a restriction, or a defect, if one is at the same
time bevond it. "—Hegel, The Encyclopedia Logic: Part I of the Encyclopedia of Philosophical
Sciences, with the Zusatze. trans. T.F. Geraets, W.A. Suchting, and H.S. Harris (Indianapolis:
Hackett, 1991), 105.
8. Susan Shell makes this exact point in The Embodiment of Reason. 127.
Kant's reference to Orlando Furioso is rather apt, for like the Arcana, it relates
journeys to heaven and hell and to other worlds. Furthermore, Ariosto's amusing tale of the
lunar flasks actually coincides figuratively with Swedenborg's claim that all of our higher
mental faculties actually exist in the spirit world and are present to earthly knowers only by
means o f influx. Thus to say that Swedenborg had more reason in the other world than
anyone else would on his terms be a compliment, not an insult.
Third, Kant returns to the claim that the harmony between his ideas and Swedenborg's
are merely coincidental: "there prevails in that work [the Arcana] such a wondrous harmony
with what the most subtle ruminations of reason can produce on a like topic, that the reader
will pardon me if I should find here the same curious phenomenon in the play of the
imagination which so many other collectors have found in the play of nature . . . for example .
.. the Holy Family in irregular patterns of marble. . . baptismal fonts and organs in stalactites
and stalagmites . . . or . . . on a frozen window-pane of the triple-crown and the number of the
beast—none of them things which anyone else would see unless their heads were already filled
with them beforehand" (AK 2:360; Walford, 346; Goerwitz, 101; trans. Walford)9 But we
have already seen that there are good reasons for rejecting Kant's suggestion of coincidence.
Furthermore, Kant asserts that seeing a resemblance between his ideas and
Swedenborg's is like seeing the holy family in spotted marble, for one can see the resemblance
only if one already has the picture in mind. This remark may give the hasty reader the
impression that there is another similarity as well. Namely, the image of the holy family really
isn't present in spotted marble, and Kant's metaphysics really isn't present in Swedenborg's.
But this does not follow at all. After all, one cannot recognize anything at all, mistakenly or
correctly, if one does not already have an idea o f what one is looking for. So Kant's remarks
leave open the possibility that one might be correct to recognize his metaphysics in
Swedenborg's
Paragraph three describes the Arcana Coelestia and sets out Kant's method of
approaching it. The Arcana is characterized as "eight quarto volumes full of nonsense
(TJnsinnl." This is no ringing endorsement, but Kirven does point out that, "in the context, it
9. Kant uses similar examples in the "Essay on Sicknesses of the Head," AK 2:310 and in the
Anthropology § 32 (AK 2:179; Dowdle 69; Gregor, 54).
makes equally good sense if the German word, TJnsinn,' is taken literally as describing data
drawn from other sources than the senses."10 The Arcana consists of an exposition of the
inner sense of the first two books o f Moses. Each chapter is bracketed with accounts of
"things seen and heard" (audivi et vidi. AC no. 67; cf. 68 and 70) in the spirit world. Kant
prefers not to discuss Swedenborg's controversial scriptural exegesis. Instead, he refers
interested readers to Emesti's very negative and very orthodox review in the first volume of
the New Theological Library (see chapter one). Kant proposes to focus only on
Swedenborg's accounts of the spirit world, which he says have genuine value and deserve to
be presented in a "small anthology."
Kant characterizes Swedenborg's style as "platt"—flat. dull, uninspired. He suggests
that Swedenborg's stories and their presentation are the result o f "fanatical intuition"
(fanatischem Anschauenl. These sound like unambiguous insults, but Kant argues that these
characteristics actually speak in favor of Swedenborg's veracity. If Swedenborg's prose were
polished and rhetorical, then we would suspect him o f deceit. If Swedenborg's stories seemed
driven by speculation rather than by intuition, then we would suspect him of inventing them as
confirmations of his theories. Thus Swedenborg's fanatical intuitions have more value than
the theories of "empty-headed sophists" which fill the philosophical journals.
Swedenborg's writings are superior, because "a systematic delusion of the senses is a
much more remarkable phenomenon than the deception of reason." We know the causes of
errors o f reasoning and can avoid them simply by disciplining the mind. Delusions of the
senses, however, cannot be corrected by the rules of logic, for logic deals only with the
relationships among propositions, not with sense experience. Kant proposes, therefore, to
deal only with Swedenborg's visions and to pass over any inferences he draws from them. He
hastens to add, however, that the same method is applicable to studying philosophers. Note
too that none of these remarks are inconsistent with Swedenborg's visions being true, for, as I
argued in my discussion o fDreams 1.3, even genuine cognition of the spiritual world could
involve the mechanisms of sensory delusion.
10. Kirven, "Swedenborg and Kant Revisited," 110.
Kant concludes with another ambiguous insuit. He describes his task as the
distillation of the quintessence of the Arcana into a few drops. For his efforts, Kant expects,
"as much gratitude from the reader as a certain patient thought he owed his physician for only
having made him eat the bark of the quinquina, when they could have easily made him eat the
whole tree" (AK 2:361; Walford, 348; Goerwitz, 103; Walford trans ). As Kirven notes,
however, "the implication that Swedenborg was a bitter draught was the clear intent; but it is
hard to believe Kant was unaware of the alternative interpretation that the draught was
salutary as well."11
6. Three Kinds of Spirit Apparitions (f 4)

Kant devotes paragraph four to Swedenborg's distinctions between three different
types o f spiritual apparitions (Erechemungen).12 In the first, the soul is separated from the
body and enters a state between sleeping and waking. In this state, Swedenborg saw, heard,
and even touched spirits and angels. Swedenborg had such visions on three or four occasions.
Swedenborg describes these visions in Arcana Coelestia. no. 1883, where he adds that when
the spirit is separated from the body, it attains true wakefulness and enjoys a spiritual forms of
sight, hearing, and touch that is far more exquisite because it is freed from the interference of
the body. Swedenborg also adds that he was given these visions to experience the mode of
cognition enjoyed by pure, disembodied spirits.
In the second type of apparition, which occurred only two or three times, Swedenborg
was fully engaged in some worldly activity, such as walking through a city and the adjacent
countryside. At the same time, he experienced visions of "dwelling places, people, forests,
and so forth." This continued for a period c f several hours, until he became conscious of
himself in his actual place. Swedenborg discusses these visions in Arcana Coelestia. no. 1884,
11. Kirven, "Swedenborg and Kant Revisited," 110. In his letter to Marcus Herz of June 7,
1771, Kant reports that, “Even my acquaintances agree that this regimen [of avoiding
exertions when indisposed], and the daily use of quinine since October of last year, have
already visibly improved my condition” (AK 10:123; Zweig II, 127; trans. Zweig).
12. Walford (348) translates “Erechemungen” as visions. This is misleading, for Swedenborg
himself refers only to the first two as “visionum.” and o f the third type of apparition, explicitly
states that, “These are not visions, but things seen in the highest wakefulness of the body fsed
haec non visiones sunt sed visa in summa vigilia corporis]. . (AC, no. 1885).
where he aTso adds that during this state there was no sense of his actual place in the
physical world or of the passage of time or of physical fatigue. He also adds that he found
himself led to places of which he had no knowledge. Swedenborg claims that he was given
these visions so that he could appreciate "that a man can be led by the Lord without his
knowing whence and whither."
These first two types of spirit apparitions play only a minor role in Swedenborg’s
thought and there is no equivalent to them in Dreams 1.2.
The third type of apparition was experienced by Swedenborg virtually every day for
many years. Swedenborg experienced these apparitions in a state o f complete wakefulness.
They were the primary sources of his accounts of the spirit world.'3 Kant devotes paragraph
five and part of paragraph six to describing the third type of apparition.
7. The Epistemology of Spirit-Seeing (f f 5-6)

According to Kant, Swedenborg claims that all other human beings have as intimate a
relationship to the spirit world as he does. The only difference is that he is aware of this fact,
whereas we are not. As a rule, the soul of an embodied human being looks only upon the
material world with his sense organs. So long as he is embodied, he is incapable of seeing the
spirit world through a specifically spiritual mode of cognition. This doctrine is found in
Arcana Coelestia no. 1880 and in Dreams 1.2, particularly paragraphs 10-11.
Kant reports that Swedenborg claims that his "innmost soul was opened up” (AC nos.
1532, 1533, 1619, 1970, 3891, 5862, inter alia) to the spirit world by "the Lord's divine
mercy," allowing him to perceive the spirit world as well as the material world while in his
embodied state. Swedenborg uses the phrase "ex divinia Domini miseriocordia" and its
equivalents throughout the Arcana Coelestia (nos. 5, 67, 71, 322, 1114, 1116, 1119, etc.). By
contrast, Dreams 1.2 mentions particular providence, but also seeks to replace it with a
naturalistic explanation that appeals to universal laws flf 9).
Also in paragraph five, Kant claims that this inner vision consists in an awareness of
“obscure representations” (dunkelen Vorstellungen) of the spirit world, which are present in
13. Swedenborg identifies these apparitions with the Biblical gift of prophecy. See AC nos.
1532, 1619, 4529, 4652, 6212, inter alia.
what Swedenborg calls our “inner memory .” Swedenborg distinguishes between inner and
outer memory. Inner memory is formed through cognition o f the spirit world, outer memory
through cognition of the material world. Inner memory is also the repository of all the
information deposited in the outer memory that recedes from our grasp and can no longer be
recollected. Inner memory is thus the complete “book of one's life” that can be presented for
judgment after one’s death. Swedenborg presents the distinction between inner and outer
memory in Arcana Coelestia. nos. 2469-94; the image of the “book of life” appears in 2474).
In Dreams 1.2, Kant uses the phenomenon of somnambulism to argue tor the existence of
obscure representations, and then uses the concept o f obscure representations to illustrate
how the inner self could be aware o f the spiritual world while the outer self knows nothing of
it (U 10 and note).
At the beginning of paragraph six, Kant further discusses Swedenborg’s account of
spirit communications. The presence of spirits only affects one's "inner sense," but they
appear as if they are outside of oneself. In themselves, spirits may not look like men, but
when they appear they take on human form. Spirits communicate ideas immediately from one
soul to another, but one hears them as speaking one's own language. On the language o f
communication of spirits, see Arcana Coelestia nos. 1634-50 and 1757-64).
Each spirit has direct access to the inner memory of every other spirit. Since
Swedenborg's soul was opened up to the spirit world, it became possible for spirits to access
his memories of his worldly experiences, which were available with such clarity that they
actually believed that they were perceiving the material world. Actually seeing the material
world is, however, impossible for them, for the heterogeneity o f spiritual and corporeal
cognition means that spirits cannot have sensations o f the corporeal world. They cannot,
furthermore, gain knowledge of the corporeal world by reading the inner memories o f living
men, for the interiors of such men have not been opened to the spirit world. Swedenborg,
therefore, is "the very oracle of the spirits, who are just as curious to view in him the present
state o f the world, as he is curious to observe in their memory the wonders o f the spirit world"
(AK 2:362; Walford, 349; Goerwitz, 104; my trans.; cf. AC no. 1880). These doctrines are
also found in Swedenborg's treatise on memory, Arcana Coelestia nos. 2469-94, esp. 2472
and 2476 (cf. AC nos. 1391, 1635, 4562 and 6199), and in Dreams 1.2 flffl 10-11).
Kant does not mention two problems with this account. First, Swedenborg does
not seem to allow for the possibility o f guiding spirits or guardian angels, for such beings
could do very little for us if they are entirely ignorant o f our place in the corporeal world.
Since Swedenborg rejects pre-established harmony, it literally would be miraculous if the
spiritual influxes we experience actually relate to our context in the real world.
Second, Swedenborg's account o f spirit communications does account for the affairs
of the queen's secret and the lost receipt, for the information Swedenborg retrieved was from
departed spirits. But it does not explain the Stockholm fire, for in that case Swedenborg
apparently did not retrieve information about the fire from the memories of the departed, but
reported it while it actually took place as if he was seeing through the eyes of those present.
This, however, would not have been possible unless the inner souls o f those present were also
opened up to the spirit world.14
The continuation of Kant's account may, however, offer a solution to the latter
problem. According to Kant, although Swedenborg emphasizes the cognitive heterogeneity
and mutual opacity of spiritual and corporeal modes of cognition, he also claims that "spirits
are . . . in the closest conjunction with the souls of all other men, operating upon them and
being operated upon by t!icm.~ Yet, both spirits and men are unaware of this mutual
interaction. Therefore, spirits, "suppose that the effects produced in them, as a result of the
influence of human souls, is something which is thought by them alone, just as human beings,
in this life, also suppose that all their thoughts and all the operations o f their willing arise only
from within themselves, even though, as a matter of fact, they are often transmitted to them
from the invisible world11(AK 2:362-3; Walford, 349; Goerwitz, 105-6; Walford trans.).
These doctrines are found in Arcana Coelestia nos. 697, 2796, 2886, 2887, 4047, 4048, 5846-
66, 5976-93, but there is no corresponding teaching in Dreams 1.2.
Kant makes it clear that Swedenborg thinks that spirits and humans affect one
another’s thoughts, yet they remain unaware o f it. Furthermore, even if they were aware of it,
the heterogeneity of their modes of cognition would not allow a spirit to understand the
worldly meaning of an idea it acquires from a human, or a human to understand the meaning
14. I wish to thank Richard Rau for pointing this out to me.
o f the ideas it acquires from a spirit. Swedenborg, however, claimed to have the ability to
read the spiritual meanings of corporeal things and the corporeal meanings o f spiritual things.
Thus if the experiences of the Stockholm fire were symbolically registered in the spirit world,
the spirits would not know the worldly significance of the signs, but Swedenborg would.
8. The Structure of the Spirit World (f 6)

Kant devotes the balance of paragraph six to Swedenborg's account of the structure of
the spirit world. Everything, including every human soul, exists both in the spiritual and
material worlds. Thus each of us in this life is already in the spirit world. Our place in the
spirit world is determined by our soul's "inner state of truth and goodness, i.e., of
understanding and will" (AK 2:363; Walford, 349; Goerwitz, 106; my trans ). Spirits
gravitate, of their own accord, toward similar spirits and form communities. Swedenborg
claims that good people are already in heaven, wicked people arc already in hell, and those of
mixed character occupy the intermediate world of spirits. Although Kant does not mention
these details in his summary, he does mention them in Dreams 1.2 (see 5 and 9 and their
notes).
Although there are systematic correspondences between the spiritual and material
worlds, the location of a person in the material world seldom corresponds to his location in
the spiritual world, "Thus the soul of a man in India can be next to the soul of another man in
Europe, as far as their spiritual places are concerned, while those which, according to the
body, live in one house, may be spiritually very far from one another" (AK 2:363; Walford,
349; Goerwitz, 106; my trans.). This is because the material world is ordered in terms of
spatio-temporal differences and relationships, whereas the spiritual world is ordered in terms
of moral differences and relationships. Hence the spiritual world's role in the theodicy
problem. The spatio-temporal order of the material world may not accord with moral
realities, but the moral order of the spiritual world always does. Because we are already in the
spirit world, death is not the transfer of the spirit from one place to another, but merely the
discovery of where we have been all along. These doctrines are found in Arcana Coelestia
nos. 1274-78 (Swedenborg specifically mentions India and Europe in no. 1277) and in Dreams
1.2 (1f 9).
According to Kant, Swedenborg holds that, although there is no real space in the
spiritual world, it nevertheless "appears" as spatial to spirits. They perceive moral similarity as
spatial proximity and moral difference as spatial distance. Furthermore, although spirits are
not spatially extended (which is the defining characteristic of matter), they nonetheless
perceive one another as having human figures, figures which occupy space. Kant even refers
to this space as "imaginary" (eingebildetem). See Arcana Coelestia no. 6054 and Dreams 1.2
( 15).
Kant devotes the balance of paragraph six to how Swedenborg could report on the
inhabitants of other worlds. Since the enormous distances which separate us from rational
beings on other planets do not exist in the spiritual world, "it is just as easy for one to talk
with an inhabitant of Saturn, as with a deceased human soul." Such communication depends
only upon "the condition of the inner state and on the connection they have with each other,
according to their agreement in the true and the good" (AK 2:363; Walford, 350; Goerwitz,
106; Walford trans.). Furthermore, even morally distant spirits can communicate with one
another through intermediate spirits. Thus Swedenborg could explore the cosmos without
ever leaving earth, simply by entering into the memories of the deceased citizens of other
worlds and seeing their worlds through their eyes. See Arcana Coelestia nos. 9440 and 9579).
Although these points do not appear in Dreams 1.2, Kant does mention the inhabitants of
other worlds 5).
9. Representations and Correspondences 7)

Kant devotes paragraph seven to Swedenborg's account of the intelligible relationships
between the material and spiritual worlds, his doctrine of representations and
correspondences.
The metaphysical foundation of this doctrine is Swedenborg's teaching that all material
beings exist only through their relationship with the spirit world. Moreover, each material
being is dependent not merely on part of the spirit world, but on the whole of it. Because of
this, Kant suggests that a "future interpreter” (but not apparently himself), will conclude that
Swedenborg is an idealist, for he denies that the material world exists in its own right and
holds that it is merely a "coherent appearance arising from relationship with the spirit world."
260
These doctrines are found in Arcana Coelestia nos. 2991, 3485, 3627-8, inter alia. While
Kant does not claim in Dreams 1.2 that the material world depends for its existence on the
spiritual world, he does claim that the spiritual world is the material world's source of life,
morality, and providential order (fflf 2-5, 8-9).
Because all material beings depend for their existence upon the spiritual world,
"cognition o f material things has a double significance, an external sense in relationship to the
interrelationships of matter, an inner, in so far as effects indicate the powers of the spirit world
which cause them. So the body of man has a relationship o f parts to one another according to
material laws; but, in so far as it is preserved through the spirit which lives in it, its various
members and their functions have a value indicative of those powers o f the soul through the
operations of which it has its form, activity, and permanency" (AK 2:364, Walford, 350;
Goerwitz, 107-8; my trans.).
This is true as well o f all other beings in the material world. As things, their
significance is small, as symbols it is great. It is true too of the words o f the Bible. Their
outer sense is merely a shell, their inner sense as symbols of heavenly secrets is the kernel.
Unfortunately, these inner senses are unknown to us. Swedenborg, however, has been
granted access into the spirit world so that he can decode these inner senses and make them
known to mankind. These teachings are found in Arcana Coelestia no. 4526 and in Dreams
1.2 m 11-14).
The rest of paragraph seven repeats and amplifies points already made in paragraph
sue. The spirit world appears to be a material, spatial world. Spirits appear to one another as
extended beings. Spiritual realities appear as material beings. Hence Swedenborg's detailed
descriptions o f the "gardens, vast countries, the dwelling-places, galleries, and arcades of the
spirits" (AK 2:364; Walford, 351; Goerwitz, 108-9; mv trans.: see Arcana Coelestia nos.
1619-33). Indeed, the spirit world so closely resembles the material world that Swedenborg
claimed that recently deceased friends could not be convinced that they were dead (Arcana
Coelestia nos. 320, 447 and 6954). In the end, however, the vistas of the spirit world are
merely symbols of inner spiritual states, and when these states change, the vistas change as
well. Kant concludes paragraph seven with an explanation o f the "mass of wild and
unspeakably absurd forms" which Swedenborg reports from his daily dealings with spirits.
None o f these can be taken literally, but are instead symbolic expressions of hidden
spiritual realities.
10. Soul-Body Correspondences and the Maximus Homo ( f f 8-9)

Paragraph eight deals with Swedenborg's account o f soul-body correspondences.
Kant repeats Swedenborg's claim that there are systematic correspondences between the soul
and the body, the inner man and the outer man. Therefore, influxes from the spirit world into
the soul elicit corresponding feelings in the body. Kant mentions that Swedenborg catalogs
the spiritual significance of a "great variety" of bodily sensations, but "their foolishness is too
great for me to dare to quote even one of them" (AK 2:364; Walford, 351; Goerwitz, 109-10;
Goerwitz trans.)
Paragraph nine treats Swedenborg's Maximus Homo, the "Grand Man," which Kant
characterizes as the "most extravagant and queerest of fancies," and which I have already
discussed above in chapter six. Just as the individual soul is a unity of distinct but related
powers and capacities, individual spirits relate to one another to form the powers and
capacities of a single great soul, which has the appearance of a great man. The Grand Man is
a corpus mvsticum in which each spirit enjoys the most intimate community with every other.
One's place in the Grand Man is determined by one's inner truth and goodness, and so long as
these qualities remain the same, one's position remains the same, no matter what position one
occupies in the corporeal world. Kant offers without explanation the strange suggestion that
the Grand Man derives from the ancient art of memory, which employs such mnemonic
devices as giving ideas pictorial form and associating different aspects o f complex ideas with
the parts of complex wholes, like the human body.15 Swedenborg devotes sixteen chapters to
15. Kant discusses mnemonic devices and the ars memoria in the Anthropology. § 34 (AK
7:183-5; Dowdle, 74-6; Gregor, 58-9) and in On Pedagogy. §§ 69-70 (Churton, 72-75).
Stuckenberg writes that Kant's "memory was prodigious... . Late in life, when he readily
forgot recent impressions he still remembered earlier ones, and could correctly and easily
repeat long passage from favorite authors. Professor Knutzen delivered lectures on
mnemonics, which may have aided him in the development of this faculty" (Stuckenberg,
108).
sout-body correspondences and the Grand Man in the Arcana Coelestia (see Chapter Six,
note 15). There is no equivalent to these ideas in Dreams 1.2.
11. Summary and Transition

By placing his account of Swedenborg's spirit world between passages which raise the
possibility and suspicion that Swedenborg influenced him, and by over-strenuously denying
such influences, Kant fairly invites comparisons between his account of the spirit world and
Swedenborg’s.
The comparison o f Dreams 1.2 and II.2 reveals significant parallels. Both Kant and
Swedenborg hold that the cosmos is divided into material and spiritual worlds. The material
world is spatio-temporal and governed by physical laws The spiritual world lies outside of
space and time and is governed by moral laws. The material world is governed by the laws of
nature, the spiritual world by the laws of freedom.
All beings in the material world exist simultaneously in the spiritual world, man
included. Our inner characters and conduct in the material world directly affect our place in
the spiritual world. In the spiritual world, all communities are based upon shared values,
whereas in the material world they are founded merely upon spatio-temporal proximity. The
moral ordering of the spiritual world providentially counterbalances the injustices of the
material world.
Cognition in the material world is based upon sensation. Cognition in the spiritual
world is free of sensation. The difference between spiritual and material modes of cognition
makes it impossible for embodied beings to know the spiritual world as they know the
material world, and vice versa. Any influxes from the spiritual world would, therefore, have
to take on the form of sensuous, spatio-temporal beings which are related only symbolically to
underlying spiritual realities. There are, furthermore, intelligible correspondences between the
spiritual and the material worlds, which make it possible in principle to decode the inner
spiritual meaning of material realities. Access to the spiritual world would, therefore, require
an art of interpreting symbolic spiritual influxes.
There are, of course, differences as well. Swedenborg claims that there are three kinds
of spirit apparitions, Kant only one. Swedenborg claims that his knowledge of the spirit world
is a unique and miraculous gift, a special privilege extended to nobody else. Swedenborg
claims the status of an authoritative revelator, conveying to us truths about the spirit world
that would be otherwise unavailable. Although Kant does not think that all people are suited
to become spirit seers, his account of spirit cognition does not appeal to special providence,
but instead refers to abnormalities in the cognitive mechanisms common to all men.
Swedenborg recounts visions o f heaven, hell, the spirit world, and other planets-
elaborate descriptions of buildings, landscapes, clothes, and customs. He offers describes the
Grand Man and the systematic correspondences between the angelic communities that
compose the Grand Man and the different parts of the human body. He interprets the spiritual
inner sense of the first two books o f Moses and of his visions of the spiritual world. None of
these extraordinary claims can be confirmed by another living soul. We must simply take
Swedenborg's word for them.
Kant offers no equivalent doctrines because, in order to guard against enthusiasm, he
holds that any account of the spirit world must be based on intersubjectively verifiable
common experiences and any interpretations o f the inner spiritual sense of worldly phenomena
must be governed by intersubjectively verifiable canons of interpretation. The differences, in
short reduce to matters of method. Swedenborg is an enthusiast and Kant a man of the
enlightenment. Within these methodological strictures, however, Kant manages to preserve a
remarkable amount of Swedenborg’s metaphysics.
However, as we have seen in our chapter on Dreams 1.4, Kant preserves elements of
Swedenborg's metaphysics as postulates of practical reason. Thus it should come as no
surprise that the final chapter of Dreams is entitled '’Practical Conclusion Drawn from the
Treatise as a Whole." The fourteenth and last paragraph of Dreams n.2, as well as the last
lines o f paragraph thirteen, serve as a transition to this conclusion by raising the issue of
practical knowledge.
Paragraph thirteen concludes, "I have deceived the reader so that I might be of use to
him, and although I have offered him no new knowledge, I have nevertheless destroyed that
vain belief and empty knowledge which inflates reason, and, in its narrow space, takes the
place which might be occupied by the teachings of wisdom and of useful instruction" (AK
2:368; Walford, 354; Goerwitz, 113-14; trans. Goerwitz). Theoretical reason is subject to
inflated pretenses. These pretenses crowd out wisdom and useful knowledge, both of
which are practical in nature. Kant's task has, therefore, been to deflate the pretenses of
theoretical reason to know the spiritual world in order to make room for the development of
practical reason.16 (Dreams 1.4 shows, however, that practical reason can support rational
faith in the spirit world.)
Paragraph fourteen elaborates on this contrast: "Thus far we have been wandering, like
Democritus, in empty space, whither the butterflv-wings of metaphysics have raised us,
conversing there with spirit-forms. Now, when the styptic power of self-knowledge has
folded those silken wings, we find ourselves back on the humble ground of experience and
common sense .. ." (AK 2:368; Walford 354-55; Goerwitz, 114; trans. Walford). Democritus
of Abdera taught that ultimate reality consists of atoms wandering through void.17 The
identification of Swedenborg's spirit world with Democritus's void is typically ambiguous, for
the void is nothing, yet it is also constitutive of ultimate reality.18 The butterfly wings of
16. Susan Shell relates the language o f bloating in this passage to Kant's hypocondriacal
obsession with digestive maladies, such as gas (The Embodiment of Reason. 127-8).
Compare the reference to Hudibras at the end of Dreams 1.3.
17. Paragraph fourteen begins with a sentence mentioning Diogenes the Cynic: "The
impatience of the reader, who has been tired without being instructed by my reflections so far,
may be appeased by what Diogenes, it is said, promised to his yawning audience, when he
came to the final page of a boring book: Courage, gentlemen, land is in sight!" (AK 2:368;
Walford, 354; Goerwitz, 114; trans. Walford). There may be a tenuous connection between
the reference to Diogenes and the reference to Democritus which immediately follows. The
anecdote is from Diogenes Laertius, Lives VI, xxxviii, where he reports that, "Someone had
been reading aloud for a very long time, and when he was near the end of the roll pointed to a
space with no writing on it. 'Cheer up, my men,' cried Diogenes; 'there's land in sight'"
(Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers. 2 vols. trans. R.D. Hicks [Cambridge:
Loeb Classical Library, 1925], vol. 2,41). The Diogenes comment is prompted by an empty
space on the scroll; Democritus teaches the empty space of the void; metaphysics floats
around in the empty space of the supersensible.
18. Since Kant mentions the atoms and void of Epicurus earlier in the chapter, it is worth
wondering why he mentions Democritus here. One relevant difference between Epicurus and
Democritus is that Epicurus was not primarily a metaphysician but a moral philosopher who
adopted Democritean atomism dogmatically to further his moral aims by offering a non-
theistic vision o f the cosmos. Democritus, by contrast, was apparently primarily a
metaphysician. Thus it would make sense to connect Democritus with the excesses o f
metaphysics, which holds to the primacy of theoretical reason. On the primacy of Epicurus's
metaphysics refer to the Egyptian symbolization of the soul by the butterfly, mentioned in
the note to Dreams 1.4 (AK 2:351; Walford, 338, n.; Goerwitz, 87, n.; see chapter nine
above).
The wings o f metaphysics are folded by self-knowledge, knowledge of the limits of
theoretical reason. This self-knowledge is characterized as "styptic." Stypsis is a therapeutic
measure in which tissues are contracted by binding.19 Once the wings of metaphysics have
been bound, we will be confined to the surface of the earth. A butterfly with its wings bound
looks like a worm, hence Shell observes that Kant's process is the exact reverse of the
metamorphosis of caterpillar into butterfly.20 More precisely, a butterfly with its wings bound
looks like a cocoon, hence Kant's project is analogous to the reinsertion of the butterfly of the
soul into the cocoon of the body.
This reinsertion returns us to "humble ground of experience and common sense."
Kant criticizes Swedenborg's visions because they do not conform to common experience and
common sense. But Kant's own account of the spirit world appeals to these very standards
and therefore cannot be excluded by them. The aim of this return to the world of experience
and common sense seems to be a purely secular form of existence. It is a realm in which we
can be "happy," on the condition that "we regard it as the place to which we have been
assigned: the place from which we can never depart with impunity, the place which also
contains everything which can satisfy us, as long as we devote ourselves to what is useful"
(AK 2:368; Walford, 355; Goerwitz, 114; trans. Walford).
Here we must distinguish, however, between two conceptions of practical reason:
orientation by the nobte and orientation by the useful. In Dreams 1.2 and 1.4, Kant asserts that
the soul's noblest impulses provide foundation for belief in the spirit world and the afterlife.
By contrast, here he claims that "as long as we devote ourselves to the useful" we will be
entirely satisfied with the present world. Note the hypothetical form of this proposition. Kant
does not necessarily endorse devotion to the useful and its attendant satisfaction with this
moral motives, see Leo Strauss, Spinoza's Critique o f Religion (New York: Schocken Books,
1982), ch. 1, "The Tradition of the Critique of Religion."
19. In paragraph thirteen Kant speaks of releasing internal pressure, whereas stypsis involves
applying external pressure.
world. But he makes it clear that this is a horizon in which spiritual matters never arise,
allowing his readers to accept or reject it. Those who accept it will be drawn toward the
exoteric teaching, those who reject it to the esoteric.
Both the noble and the utilitarian versions of practical reason are found in Dreams II.3,
the concluding chapter to which we now turn.
Chapter 12
"Practical Conclusion Drawn from the
Treatise as a Whole'': Dreams II.3
What is unfortunate is that [the poet] can hardly elevate himself to the true ideal of
human ennoblement without taking some steps beyond it. In order to get to that point
he must take leave of the actual world, for he can fashion it, like any ideal, only from
inner and moral sources. He does not encounter it in the world around him and in the
bustle of active life, but only in his heart, and he finds his heart only in the stillness of
solitary reflection. But this withdrawl from life will not always remove only the
contingent limitations of humanity from view. More often it will also remove the
necessary and indestructible limitations of humanity and, while it looks at pure form, it
will be in danger of losing all content. Reason will pursue its business far too removed
from experience, and what the contemplative mind discovered on the serene path of
thought, the acting person will not be able to realize on the beleaguered path of life.
Usually this is precisely what brings out the enthusiast fSchwarmer] and what alone
can mold the sage [Weisen], The superiority of the sage might well consist less in the
fact that he did not become an enthusiast than in the fact that he did not remain one.
—Friedrich Schiller, On Naive and Sentimental Poetry1
1. Impractical and Inconclusive

What is most remarkable about Dreams n.3, the "Practical Conclusion Drawn from
the Treatise as a Whole," is just how thinly "practical" and "conclusive" it is, particularly when
compared to Dreams 1.4, the "Theoretical Conclusion Established on the Basis o f All the
Observations Contained in the First Part." Dreams II. 3 consists of two lengthy paragraphs.
The first paragraph argues that philosophical insight into the nature of spirits is impossible. It
is one of the most skeptical passages in the entire book, and tends to confirm readers in the
I. Friedrich Schiller, "On Naive and Sentimental Poetry," trans. Daniel O. Dahlstrom, in
Friedrich Schiller, Essavs. ed. Walter Hinderer and Daniel O. Dahlstrom (New York:
Continuum, 1993), 247-8, trans. modified.
267
received view. Its analysis of causal powers is clearly indebted to Hume and is the primary
basis for Humean interpretation of Dreams advanced by Kuno Fischer.2 The second
paragraph adds that philosophical insight into spiritual matters is useless and unnecessary.
The practical conclusion of the work is merely that, since theoretical insight into the nature of
spirits is impossible, useless, and unnecessary, we should leave off speculation entirely and
busy ourselves with the very this-worldly task of "cultivating our garden."
If, however, one compares this "Practical Conclusion" to the "Theoretical Conclusion"
of Dreams I, an ironic reversal takes place. Compared to the "Practical Conclusion," the
"Theoretical Conclusion" has a far richer conception of the interests of practical reason.
Furthermore, although the "Practical Conclusion" is supposed to bring "the Treatise as a
Whole" to a close, it leaves the attentive reader with more questions than answers. By
contrast, the "Theoretical Conclusion" brings the first part of Dreams to such an intellectually
satisfactory conclusion, capping it off as such a well-rounded whole, that the second part of
Dreams seems to be merely an appendix. The reader who notices these contrasts can find no
closure in the "Practical Conclusion." This dissatisfaction may naturally draw him back to the
first part of Dreams to discover a conclusion that is more richly practical and more genuinely
conclusive—and more accommodating to a new kind of metaphysics.
2. The Impossibility of Knowledge of Spirits (f 1)

The first paragraph of the "Practical Conclusion" is so relentlessly skeptical in tone
that one might conclude that the enlightened skeptic of Dreams 1.3 has returned. Closer
inspection, however, reveals that the “Practical Conclusion," has much more in common with
the Rousseauian position of the "Theoretical Conclusion."
These Rousseauian elements are evident in the opening sentences of the "Practical
Conclusion," which draw a contrast between erudition (Gelehrsamkeit) and wisdom
(Weisheit). Erudition is characterized as a "zeal" (Eifefi to pursue every "curiosity"
(Vorwitze) and "passion for knowledge" fErkenntnissucht) with "no other boundaries
2. Kuno Fischer, Geschichte der neuem Philosophic, vol. 4, Immanuel Kant und seine Lehre.
part 1, Entstehung und Grundlegung der kritischen Philosophic. 2nd ed. (Heidelberg: Carl
Winter, 1869), 308-17.
fGrenzen) than incapacity (XJnyennogen].1' Wisdom, by contrast, surveys the multitude of
intellectual problems available for erudite treatment, but chooses to solve only those of human
import. Erudition is primarily theoretical in character, whereas wisdom is primarily practical.
Theoretical erudition seeks, to the best of its ability, to know the entire cosmos. This
boundless object gives rise to boundless ambition, hence Kant's language of excess (Eifer.
ErkenntnissuchtV Wisdom, however, takes its bearings by the humanly significant, allowing it
to impose limits on the ambitions o f theoretical reason. Wisdom, in short, involves the
assertion o f the primacy of practical reason over theoretical reason. Erudition is characterized
as "vain and discontented" (eitel und unzufrieden) while wisdom is "composed and contented"
(gesetzt und genuesaml.
Having distinguished between erudition and wisdom, Kant then argues that erudition
can, through a dialectical inversion into skepticism, lead one eventually to wisdom. If one
pursues "science" fWissenschaft [= Gelehrsamkeit]) with sufficient zeal, one will eventually
collide with one's incapacities: "eventually science arrives at the determination of the limits
imposed upon it by nature of human reason; all the groundless projects, which, however, may
not be unworthy in themselves, but lie outside of the human sphere, fly into the limbo of
vanity,"3 and one's overweening vanity will eventually give way to "modest mistrust" of one's
own powers. In its frustration, science cries out, "How many are the things which 1do not
understand!" (AK, 2:369; Walford, 355; Goerwitz, 115; trans. Walford). Dogmatism,
through dialectical inversion, has passed into skepticism.
Wisdom, however, is a third position, beyond both dogmatism and skepticism.
Wisdom presupposes skepticism, i.e., theoretical reason's discovery of its own limits and
incapacities. But wisdom is not identical to skepticism, for wisdom rejects a presupposition
held by both dogmatism and skepticism: namely, the primacy or autonomy of theoretical
reason. This autonomy can be displaced only when the skeptical frustration of theoretical
reason leads to a turn toward self-knowledge—from an extraverted, cosmologically-centered
philosophy to an introverted, anthropologically-centered philosophy.
3. Kant here alludes to Milton's Paradise Lost (1667). EH, 495; Kant explicitly mentions the
source in his Only Possible Argument for the Existence of God (1763), AK 2:148; Walford,
188.
When a theory-centered philosophy turns toward self-knowledge, its initial focus
will be primarily epistemological. It will seek to trace the limits o f human knowledge. If,
however, it confines itself merely to transcendental reflection, it stops short of wisdom, for it
still has not gone beyond the primacy of theoretical reason; it has merely gone on to theorize
the conditions of theorizing.
Wisdom is reached only when self-knowledge moves beyond man the spectator to man
the actor. The realm of wisdom is not the sphere of human knowledge, but of human action.
The touchstone of wisdom is not the theoretically interesting, but the practically important.
Not the True, but the Good. For Kant, Socrates is the voice of wisdom not because he
recognizes what he does not know, but because he recognizes what he does not need:
"Reason, ripened through experience into wisdom, speaks through the mouth of Socrates,
amid the wares of an annual fair, with serene soul: How many are the things which I do not
need!"4 (AK, 2:369; Walford, 355; Goerwitz, 115; my trans.). Wisdom is associated with
simplicity (Ejnfak), for by imposing moral, not merely transcendental, limits on the activities
o f theoretical reason, wisdom elevates the life of the mind precisely by constricting its scope.
Although Kant affirms the primacy o f moral philosophy over theoretical reflections on
the limits o f knowledge, he also regards such reflections and necessary for establishing the
primacy of moral philosophy in the first place. In short, metaphysics, understood as
knowledge of the limits of reason, is an indispensable “companion of wisdom,” for until the
boundaries of human reason are clearly marked, dogmatic philosophy will continue to
overreach itself, and it will mistake the “wise simplicity” and the "deliberate and reflective
contentment" of true philosophy for a “foolish simplicity fdumme Einfalt j which wishes to
oppose the ennoblement of our nature” (AK, 2:369; Walford, 355-6; Goerwitz, 116; trans.
Walford). This distinction between wise and foolish simplicity is a characteristically
Rousseauian gesture. It also appears in a clearly Rousseauian passage in the Announcement
4. This anecdote about Socrates is found in Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent

Philosophers. II, xxv (Hicks trans., vol. L page 155). On Kant’s relationship to Socrates, see
Richard L. Velkley, “On Kant’s Socratism,” in The Philosophy of Immanuel Kant, ed. Richard
Kennington (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1985) and
Freedom and the End of Reason. 41-43.
o f 1765 as the distinction between “crude” (rohen) and “wise” simplicity (AK 2:312;
Walford, 298).
Kant then applies the distinction between wisdom and erudition to “the questions of
spiritual nature, of freedom and predestination, of the future condition, and the like.” The
“excellence” (Vortrefflichkeit) of these questions “activates all the powers of the
understanding” and draws the enquirer into “contentious speculations,” “quibbling and
resolution, professing or refuting without distinction,” and “specious insight” (Scheineinsicht).
If, however, these enquiries are to become truly philosophical, they must not only pursue
knowledge of their proper objects, they must also reflect upon their own activities and
conditions. They must enquire about their relationship of their objects to the limits and the
powers of the human understanding. Such transcendental reflection will force us to contract
and carefully mark the frontiers (Grenzen) of the understanding, forcing us to live within our
borders, and forbidding any sallies beyond them.
Kant then makes it clear precisely how such reflections constrict the range of possible
knowledge of the soul. First, Kant alludes to Dreams 1.1, in which he used philosophical
analysis to clarify the popular concept of a spirit. Second, he asserts that a little more
philosophy suffices to convince us that all knowledge o f spirits lies beyond the "horizon of
man" (Gesichtskreise der Menschenl. According to Kant, philosophy is capable of taking the
complex relationships of cause and effect (Ursache und Wirkung). and of substance and action
(Substanz und Handlung). and reducing them to simpler phenomena. But when philosophy
arrives at "fundamental relations" (Grundverhaltnissen). its work is at an end. I take Kant's
point to be that philosophy can clarify what causes and effects, substances and actions, are,
but it cannot explain why these relationships exist. It can neither explain why these
relationships exist in general, nor why they exist in any particular case. Instead, philosophy
must simply accept these relationships as they are given in experience, and cannot get behind
or beyond them.
Kant goes on to criticize, in rather a Humean fashion, the common rationalist
assumption that causal relationships can be assimilated to logical relationships, that the
ultimate cause of an entity’s actions is its essence, and if we can intuit its essence, we can
deduce its actions by explicating its essence. Kant denies that causal relationships can be
reduced to logical ones.
In logical relationships, the rule o f reason "only governs the drawing of comparisons in
respect of identity and contradiction." Consider the proposition, "A Bachelor is an unmarried
man." There is a relationship o f identity between the subject and the predicate, because the
concepts have the same meaning. By substituting synonymous terms, therefore, the
proposition can be turned into a tautology: "An unmarried man is an unmarried man" or "A
bachelor is a bachelor." If however, one were to deny the logical relationship asserted in this
proposition, claiming that, "A bachelor is not an unmarried man," one could through simple
substitutions of synonymous terms, reduce the denial to a contradiction: "An unmarried man is
not an unmarried man" or "A bachelor is not a bachelor."
The same is not true of propositions about causal relationships, e.g., "Staring at the
sun is a cause of blindness," for the concepts of staring at the sun and being a cause of
blindness do not mean that same thing, so the relationship between them cannot be reduced to
a tautology. Furthermore, the denial of the initial proposition, e.g., "Staring at the sun is not a
cause of blindness," cannot be reduced to a contradiction. One cannot, therefore, arrive at
causal relationships through pure reason. Causal relationships can be established only through
experience. Therefore, any claim about the "fundamental concepts of things as causes,
powers, and actions," if not derived from experience, is "totally arbitrary," and can neither be
proved nor refuted.
Next, Kant then applies this point to the soul-body interaction. We know that by
thinking or willing we can move our bodies, "but I can never reduce this phenomenon, as a
simple experience, to another phenomenon by analysis; hence, I can recognize the
phenomenon, but I cannot understand it" (AK 2:370; Walford, 356; Goerwitz, 117; trans.
Walford). Here Kant clearly supposes that the only way to offer a philosophical
understanding of a causal relationship is to reduce it to a logical identity through analysis.
Since this is impossible, however, we cannot understand what makes causal relationships
possible. We can only observe that they are actual.
Kant claims that the power of his will to move his arm is no more intelligible to him
than the claim that one's will can halt the orbit of the moon. The only difference is that he has
a first person experience o f the former, while he has no experience of the latter. This same
first person experience inclines Kant to believe that his soul is "an incorporeal and permanent
being," but whether or not this being has the power to exist independently of the body can
neither be established through an analysis of the concept of the soul nor from our experience
of the soul's embodied existence. Furthermore, experience shows that our souls are related to
other souls through the medium of matter, but whether they also have immediate spiritual
relations with other souls in a spiritual world, can neither be established apriori nor through
experience (at least this side of the grave).
At this point, the reader might ask: "If one cannot arrive at an explanation of the soul-
body interaction either apriori or aposteriori, then why not offer up the spirit world as an
imaginative hypothesis?" Kant, in effect, answers this question by claiming that all
explanations of the soul-body relationship are mere "fictions" fErdichtuneenV These fictions
cannot, however, serve as hypothetical explanations. He does grant that the hypothesis of a
spirit world renders certain obscure phenomena intelligible. But he denies that this makes the
spirit world a legitimate hypothesis, for proper scientific hypotheses (Hvpothesen) do not
invent new "basic forces" (Grundkrafte! or new "fundamental relationships"
(Fundamentalverhaltnisse) of cause and effect. If this were the case, then we could explain
anything simply by arbitrarily positing certain fundamental forces. Instead, proper hypotheses
merely connect forces which one already knows through experience. Furthermore, scientific
hypotheses have to give rise to implications which can be tested in experience, whereas the
spirit world cannot be tested in any experience.5 He does grant that we may, of course, find
empirical proof of a spirit world after our deaths. But he argues that to speculate about it
beforehand is as foolish as positing that matter has an attractive force before there was any
experiential proof of the claim.
Having dispensed with the idea of the spirit world as a hypothesis, and having
established that at present we can neither prove nor disprove the spirit world either apriori or
5. Compare Kant’s treatment of metaphysical hypotheses in the Kririk der reinen Vemunft
(henceforth cited as KRV) chapter on “The Discipline of Pure Reason in Regard to
Hypotheses,” A 769/B 797-A 782/B 810; in English: Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman
Kemp Smith (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1929), 212-20; henceforth cited as Kemp Smith.
aposteriori, Kant counsels that we treat the idea o f the spirit world just as we would treat
the unproven claim that magnets have curative powers. Since we cannot answer the question
apriori, and since there is at present no aposteriori evidence, we simply have to suspend
judgment on the question and wait for experience to supply an answer. Kant hastens,
however, to add one final point: that any empirical evidence of a spirit world would have to
fall under a "law of sensation" that could be accepted by "the majority of men," else they
could be rejected as merely an "irregularity in the testimony of the senses." This,
unfortunately, is the case with the ghost stories that currently circulate. The available
historical knowledge of spirits lacks the regularity and consistency necessary for drawing any
firm conclusions.
3.. The Uselessness of Knowledge of Spirits (f 2)

The concluding paragraph of Dreams argues that not only is philosophical insight into
spirits impossible, it is also unnecessary and useless. Kant claims that the "vanity of science"
leads it to make spurious claims about its practical importance. In this case, it is claimed that
attaining a rational understanding o f the nature o f the soul is necessary to establish the
immortality of the soul, and establishing the immortality is the soul is in turn necessary to
provide the requisite motives for leading a virtuous life. Conspiring with the arrogance of
science, the "idle thirst for novelty" advances the claim that spirit apparitions provide
empirical proof o f the immortality o f the soul.
In characteristically Rousseauian fashion, however, Kant counters that "true wisdom"
fwahre Weisheit) is the “companion of simplicity** (Begleiterin der EinfaltL not o f scientific
vanity or the idle thirst for novelty. (Compare Rousseau's characterization of virtue in the
First Discourse as "the sublime science o f simple souls," which is "engraved in all hearts" and
can be known with no more elaborate preparation than "to commune with oneself and listen to
the voice of one's conscience in the silence of the passions."6) Kant then equates this simple
6. Rousseau, Discourse on the Sciences and Arts (1750), trans. Judith R. Bush and
Roger D. Masters, in The Collected Writings of Rousseau, vol. 2, ed. Roger D. Masters and
Christopher Kelly (Hanover and London: Dartmouth College/University Press of New
England, 1992), 22, final paragraph.
moral wisdom with the guidance of the heart: when it comes to morality, "the heart gives
direction to the understanding," rendering the "great preparations o f erudition" superfluous.
The simple wisdom of the heart democratizes virtue, removing it from the preserve of the
learned few and placing it within the reach of the uneducated many. Kant then offers a series
o f hypothetical questions.
What, is it only good to be virtuous because there is another world? Or is it not rather
the case that actions will one day be rewarded because they are good and virtuous in
themselves? Does not the heart of man contain within itself immediate moral
prescriptions? Is it really necessary, in order to induce man to act in accordance with
his destiny here on earth, to set the machinery moving in another world? Can that
person really be called honest, can he really be called virtuous, who would readily
abandon himself to his favorite vices, were it not for the deterrence of future
punishment? Would one not rather have to say that, although he fears to practice
wickedness, he nourishes within his soul a vicious character, that he loves the
advantage of actions which present the appearance of virtue, while hating virtue itself?
(AK 2:372; Walford, 358-9; Goerwitz, 120-21; trans. Walford)
In this passage, we can discern accounts of moral obligation and proper moral motivations.
Virtuous actions are virtuous in and of themselves, not because of the consequences to which
they lead. Thus, to do justice to the nature of moral actions, we must do what is right for no
other reason than the fact that it is right. To do the right thing for reasons other than its
intrinsic rightness is not to act morally. As we have seen in the previous chapter, these views
are found in Swedenborg’s Arcana Coelestia. They are also, of course, found in Kant's mature
moral philosophy, particularly in the Groundwork o f the Metaphysics of Morals (1785). where
they are formulated as the claim that moral imperatives are categorical, not hypothetical, and
that moral actions spring from the dutiful recognition o f their intrinsic goodness, not from
calculations of consequences they are likely to produce.7 Kant then ends this line of argument
7. Kant, Groundwork o f the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), part II, esp. AK 4:414-17.
with the observation that many people who believe that justice will be meted out in the
afterlife behave viciously anyway, hoping cunningly to avoid the eventual consequences of
their actions.
Having argued that belief in the afterlife cannot be the cause o f virtue, Kant then
argues that belief in an afterlife is actually the effect o f virtue: "But surely a righteous soul
frechtschaffene Seele] has never lived which could bear the thought that with death everything
comes to an end, and whose noble disposition [edle Gesinnung] has not risen to hope for the
future fzur Hofftiune der Zukunft erhobenl." Because of this, Kant concludes that it is more
consistent with "human nature and the purity o f morals . . . to ground the expectation of the
future world on the sentiments of a well-disposed soul, than conversely [to ground] its good
conduct on hope for the future world" (AK 2:372; Walford, 359; Goerwitz, 121; my trans ).
Kant then characterizes this viewpoint as "moral faith" (moralische Glaube). Here, of course,
we have both the language and the teaching of the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of
Practical Reason, in which pure reason's capacity to know the nature of God, the cosmos, and
the soul (both its freedom and its immortality) is limited precisely to make room for a moral
faith in God, the immortality of the soul, and the justice of providence.
Kant then concludes with a rather bombastic passage attacking dogmatic metaphysics
and underlining the compatibility o f moral faith with skepticism about the power of theoretical
reason to penetrate the secrets of nature. The "simplicity" of moral faith can lead all human
beings to their "true ends," rendering superfluous the "many subtleties of sophistry," the
"clamorous systems of doctrine about. .. remote objects o f speculation," and the "fleeting
illusions o f reasons" which are the stock and trade o f the teamed few. Kant then advises
metaphysicians to simply shut up about the next world—until they die, at which time their
speculations either will or will not find empirical confirmation:
Nor has human reason been endowed with the wings which would enable it to fly so
high as to cleave the clouds which veil from our eyes the mysteries of the other world.
And to those who are eager for knowledge of such things and who attempt to inform
themselves with such importunity about mysteries of this kind, one can give this simple
but very natural advice: that it would probably be best if they had the good grace to
wait with patience until they arrived there. (AK 2:372; Walford, 359; Goerwitz,
121-2; trans. Walford)
Kant’s concluding words strongly underline his turn toward the primacy of the
practical, although he displays a rather restricted sense of the interests of practical reason:
But since our fate in that future world will probably very much depend on how we
have comported ourselves at our posts in this world, I will conclude with the advice
which Voltaire gave to his honest Candide after so many futile scholastic disputes: Let
us attend to our happiness, and go into the garden and work! (AK 2:372; Walford,
359; Goerwitz, 121-2; trans. Walford)
Kant's last line is not an exact quote, but rather a paraphrase of the last line of Voltaire's
Candide. "Celas es bien dit. repondit Candide. mais il faut cultiver notre jardin"—'"That is well
said, replied Candide, but we must cultivate our garden."8 Candide is, o f course, replying to
the irrepressible Dr. Pangloss, who at the happy end of their horrific journey began to wax
optimistic, yet again defending that paradigm of dogmatic metaphysics, the Leibnizian thesis
that this is the best o f all possible worlds. Walford suggests that Kant conflates Candide's
statement with a slightly earlier statement by Martin, the Manichean pessimist (Waiford, 456,
n71). Martin also tries to cut ofFPangloss's optimistic theorizing, saying, "Let's work without
speculating . . . it's the only way o f rendering life bearable."9 If Kant did indeed have this
passage in mind, then it reinforces Candide's clear presupposition, namely that there is a deep
and unbridgeable gulf between speculation and practical life—that speculation cannot lead us
to practice, and practice cannot lead us to speculation. Thus Kant seems to conclude with a
counsel of vulgar, anti-intellectual pragmatism.
4. The Theoretical and Practical Conclusions Compared
8. Voltaire, Candide (1759), final paragraph.

9. Candide. antepenultimate paragraph.
Both the "Theoretical Conclusion" and the "Practical Conclusion" share an
essentially Rousseauian perspective. Both evince a deep skepticism about the power of
theoretical reason to penetrate the realm of the spirit. Because of this, both are scornful of
dogmatic metaphysics, and of academic philosophy in general. Both texts recognize,
however, that the failure of dogmatic metaphysics can set in motion a dialectic that leads to
the discovery of true wisdom, by forcing philosophers to take a turn toward self-knowledge—
to reflect upon the limits of theoretical reason and upon the nature and interests o f practical
reason. Thus both texts counsel a philosophical turn from the primacy of theory to the
primacy of practice. Both claim that practical wisdom is superior to theoretical wisdom on at
least four counts. First, practical wisdom is genuine, whereas theoretical wisdom is spurious.
Second, theoretical wisdom is complex and sophisticated, while practical wisdom is simple
and homespun. Third, practical wisdom is available to all human beings, while theoretical
wisdom~if it is available at all—is available only to the learned few. Fourth, practical wisdom
is more important than theoretical wisdom, for it alone leads mankind to its proper end. Both
texts, moreover, agree that the organ of practical wisdom is conscience, sentiment, the heart,
and that one gains practical wisdom by attuning oneself to their voices. Finally, both texts
assert that "hope for the fixture"—for immortality-is one of the heart's deepest needs.
The two conclusions differ, however, in two crucial ways. In the "Theoretical
Conclusion," the turn toward practical reason and its interests provides a foundation for
renewed philosophical speculation on the nature of the soul, a form of speculation which I
have dubbed "pragmatic metaphysics." As we have seen in chapter ten, the paradigm of
pragmatic metaphysics is Rousseau's credo o f the Savoyard Vicar in Emile. The starting point
of pragmatic metaphysics is the failure o f dogmatic metaphysics. Dogmatic metaphysics
seeks, by means of pure reason, to penetrate the natures of God, providence, and the soul.
But theoretical reason negates itself by generating skeptical antinomies. For each and every
argument, it produces an equal and opposite counter-argument. The scales of reason,
therefore, always stand in perfect equipoise, rendering decision impossible.
At this point, however, the paths of the "Theoretical Conclusion" and the "Practical
Conclusion" diverge. The "Practical Conclusion" is essentially Pyrrhonnian. Once it discovers
the speculative incapacities o f theoretical reason, it turns toward practical fife, abandoning
speculation altogether.
The "Theoretical Conclusion," however, goes beyond Pyrrhonnism. There we find
that when we turn to the practical realm, we discover practical reason has interests of its own,
particularly a need for hope for the future. We find that the interests of practical reason are
more important than those of theoretical reason. The need to have hope for the future
therefore overrides the Pyrrhonnian suspension of judgment. When theoretical reason finds
itself unable to decide on the question of the immortality of the soul, practical reason places its
thumb in the positive pan. The turn from theoretical speculation to the practical realm thus
gives us resources for a return to speculation, albeit speculation of a pragmatic kind.
This brings us to the second important divergence between the two conclusions. The
pragmatic approach to metaphysics makes available tools that are unavailable to dogmatic
metaphysics. Whereas dogmatic metaphysics demands certitude, pragmatic metaphysics
recognizes that certitude is unavailable. Whereas dogmatic metaphysics demands the truth
about the soul, pragmatic metaphysics recognizes that the truth is unavailable. But since the
interests of practical reason make it impossible to suspend judgment on the immortality of the
soul, pragmatic metaphysics must make a "Second Sailing"; it must content itself with
likelihoods and fictions—with likely stories—with imaginative hypotheses. These likely stories
can be accepted or rejected based on their pragmatic "truth"—i.e., based on their accordance
with the deepest interests of practical reason. Pragmatic metaphysics thus gives a much freer
rein to the metaphysical imagination, allowing us to consider even the spirit world of Dreams
1.2, not to mention Swedenborg's visions, as possible candidates for truth.
These imaginative hypotheses are mentioned in the "Practical Conclusion"—only to be
rejected out of hand. There is, moreover, a deep inner connection between this
methodological priggishness and the chapter's recommendation of Pyrrhonnian suspension of
judgment. By rejecting imaginative hypotheses, the "Practical Conclusion" rejects the only
possible way o f breaking out of the Pyrrhonnian deadlock. But why should one accept such
hypotheses? Why should one want to break out of Pyrrhonnian equipoise? These questions
can only be answered by recognizing that the need o f practical reason to arrive at convictions
about God, freedom, and immortality trumps the need o f theoretical reason to maintain its
purity and probity by "framing no hypotheses."
Kant has, in short, given Dreams two conflicting conclusions. Hermeneutical charity
requires that we entertain the hypothesis that Kant knew what he was doing, i.e., that he
meant the two conclusions to conflict. Assuming that Kant wished to communicate his
considered judgment of Swedenborg to at least some readers, we then have to ask: Which
conclusion is Kant's? It is reasonable to assume that, when an author communicates two
conflicting doctrines, the most heterodox is his real opinion, for if he held the more orthodox
opinion, then he would not risk confusing the issue by stating a heterodox opinion at all. Of
the two conclusions of Dreams, the Pyrrhonnian "Practical Conclusion" is the safer and more
orthodox, for it recommends that we simply suspend judgment on matters spiritual and turn
our attention to common life. The "Theoretical Conclusion," by contrast, is relatively
heterodox. It offers a new pragmatic way of approaching spiritual issues that is immune from
skeptical antinomies, and which makes it possible to take even Swedenborg's visions seriously.
Thus it is reasonable to infer that the "Theoretical Conclusion" represents Kant's true teaching,
while the "Practical Conclusion," is merely exoteric.
5. The "Theoretical Conclusion" Compared to the Critical Philosophy
This inference is confirmed by comparing the "Theoretical Conclusion" to Kant's

mature critical viewpoint. Consider, first, the Critique o f Pure Reason's chapter on "The
Paralogisms of Pure Reason." In the A edition o f 1781, Kant writes:
I admit that this [critical doctrine of the impossibility of rational insight into the
nature of spirits] does not give any further knowledge of the properties of this thinking
self, nor does it enable me to determine its permanence or even that it exists
independently of what we conjecture to be the transcendental substratum of outer
appearances; for the latter is just as unknown to me as is the thinking self. But it is
nevertheless possible that I may find cause, on other than merely speculative grounds,
to hope for an independent and continuing existence of my thinking nature, throughout
all possible change of my state. In that case much will already have been gained if)
while freely confessing my own ignorance, I am yet in a position to repel the
dogmatic assaults of a speculative opponent, and to show him that he can never know
more of the nature of the self in denying the possibility of my expectations than I can
know in clinging to them. (KRV, A 383-4; Kemp Smith, 354; trans. Kemp Smith)
In the "Paralogisms," Kant displays how any attempt to gain theoretical insight into the nature
of spirits leads to antinomies. The outcome of these antinomies is a Pyrrhonnian suspension
of judgment. Theoretical reason thus leads us to agnosticism on the nature of the soul. Here,
however, Kant makes it clear that this theoretical agnosticism is not the last word. In fact, he
treats it as a new starting point, the starting point of a philosophical search for "other than
merely speculative grounds" for "hope for an independent and continuing existence" of the
soul.
The precise nature of these non-speculative grounds is clarified in the thoroughly
rewritten version of the "Paralogisms" in the B edition of 1787. Kant claims that after his
critique, rational psychology exists no longer as a "doctrine" (Doktrin), but only as a
"discipline" (Disziplin) imposed upon speculative reason, saving us from both a "soulless
materialism" and from "enthusing around in groundless spiritualism" (erundlosen Spiritualism
herumschwarmend) (KRV, B 421; Kemp Smith, 377; my trans ). (The verb
"herumschwarmend" derives from "Schwarmerei." The sentence likely alludes to
Swedenborg.)
In a sentence that initially brings to mind the reference to Candide in the final lines of
the "Practical Conclusion" of Dreams. Kant lauds his critical pneumatology as "reason's hint
to divert our self-knowledge from fruitless and extravagant speculation to fruitful practical
employment." The rest of the sentence, however, immediately demonstrates that this is not a
counsel of vulgar pragmatism, for the "fruitful practical employment" of reason requires lofty
as well as lowly concerns: "Though in such practical employment it [reason] is directed always
to objects o f experience only, it derives its principles from a higher source, and determines us
to regulate our actions as if our destiny reached infinitely far beyond experience, and therefore
far beyond this present life" (KRV, B 421; Kemp Smith, 377; trans. Kemp Smith).
A bit later, Kant assures us that the agnosticism concerning spiritual matters to
which the employment of theoretical reason is driven does not hinder, but actually helps, the
pursuit of "the highest interests of humanity" (KRV, B 423; Kemp Smith, 378; trans. Kemp
Smith). Indeed:
. . . nothing is thereby lost as regards the right, nay, the necessity, of postulating a
future life in accordance with the principles of the practical employment of reason,
which is closely bound up with its speculative employment.. . . Man's natural
endowments—not merely his talents and the impulses to enjoy them, but above all else
the moral law within him—go so far beyond all the utility and advantage which he may
derive from them in this present life, that he learns therefore to prize the mere
consciousness of a righteous will as being, apart from all advantageous consequences,
apart even from the shadowy reward of posthumous fame, supreme over all other
values; and so feels an inner call to fit himself, by his conduct in this world, and by the
sacrifice of many of its advantages, for citizenship in a better world upon which he lays
hold in idea. (KRV, 425-26; Kemp Smith, 379-80; trans. Kemp Smith)
Earlier in the same paragraph, Kant refers to this ideal world as the "order of ends" (Ordnung
derZwecke), clearly identifying it with the "kingdom of ends" (Reich der Zwecke) of the
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, published in 1785, two years before the B edition
o f the Critique o f Pure Reason. Kant's argument here is, in essence, identical to the moral
argument for the existence of the spirit world offered in Dreams 1.2 (If 8). Practical reason
finds itself constrained by moral laws of freedom that cannot be derived from the mechanical
laws o f phenomenal nature, and which frequently contravene the conventions of social life, the
drives and incentives of our own physical frames, and the advantages recommended to us by
technical-instrumental reason and by calculations of self-interest. This a sign that as moral
beings we are already citizens of a higher realm, a moral or spiritual realm, whose laws we feel
constrained to live by in this world, against all the contrary laws of the kingdom o f nature.
Unfortunately, however, the kingdom of nature is quite inhospitable to those who
would live under the laws of the spiritual world. Thus the moral life is like a small
beleaguered outpost o f civilization in the midst o f hostile savages, from which we are both
inclined and entitled to hope for deliverance. The only deliverance, however, is through death
and personal survival. Once the soul severs its ties to the physical body, it can live under
moral laws without impediment.
The connection between practical reason and immortality is spelled out with even
greater clarity in the Critique of Practical Reason o f 1788, in the chapter on "The Dialectic of
Pure Reason in Defining the Concept of the Highest Good." In section three of this chapter,
"On the Primacy of Pure Practical Reason in its Association with the Speculative," Kant
makes explicit the primacy of the interests of practical reason over the interests of speculative
reason. Therefore, when speculative reason leads to agnosticism and indecision on a question
of vital importance to practical reason, practical reason has the right to decide the issue
according to its own interests.
Kant is careful, however, to stress that practical reason is still reason, and that the
limits of speculative reason do not open the door to, "Mohammed's paradise or the fusion with
the divine o f the theosophists [Theosophen] and mystics [Mystiker]"; indeed, "it would be as
well to have no reason at all as to surrender it in such a manner to all sorts of dreams
(Traumereien]."10 Again, this is a clear allusion to Swedenborg, among others.
In section four o f the chapter, "The Immortality of the Soul as a Postulate of Pure
Practical Reason," Kant applies the primacy of practical reason to the question of human
immortality. The moral law commands us to strive to achieve the highest good. The highest
good is a life that is both moral and happy, its happiness caused by and apportioned to its
morality. The highest good requires complete subordination of the will to the moral law.
This, however, is "holiness" (Heiligkeit). and holiness is not possible to any rational being in
the world o f sense:
But since it [holiness] is required as practical necessity, it can be found only in an

infinite progress ITJndendliche eehenden Progressusl to that complete fitness; on
10. Immanuel Kant, Kritik der praktischen Vemunft AK 5:120-21; in English: Critique of
Practical Reason, trans. Lewis White Beck (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1956), 125, trans.
modified. Henceforth cited as Beck.
principles of pure practical reason, it is necessary to assume fanzunehmenj such a
practical progress as the real object of our will.
This infinite progress is possible, however, only under the presupposition of an
infinitely enduring existence [Existenzj and personality of the same rational being
(which one calls the immortality o f the soul). Thus the highest good is practically
possible only on the supposition of the immortality o f the soul, and the latter, as
inseparably bound to the moral law, is a postulate o f pure practical reason. (AK
5:122; Beck, 126-27; trans. Beck, modified; emphasis in original)
Kant defines a "postulate of pure practical reason" as a theoretical proposition which is not
theoretically demonstrable (for its object falls beyond the grasp of theoretical reason), yet it
can be established as an inseparable corollary or presupposition of an unconditionally valid
practical law.
Once again, Kant is careful to distinguish his practical argument for the immortality of
the soul from "enthusiastic theosophical dreams" (schwarmende . . . theosophische Traume)
"which completely contradict our knowledge of ourselves" (AK 5.122; Beck, 127; trans.
Beck, modified). This is, once again, an allusion to Swedenborg, who seems always to be a
ghostly presence at Kant's elbow whenever he writes about the afterlife. It is noteworthy,
however, that Kant's criticisms are directed not at Swedenborg's account of the spirit world,
but at his claim o f mystical (as opposed to moral-practical) access to it.
In sum, Kant's "Theoretical Conclusion" is in complete accord with his mature critical
philosophy, whereas his "Practical Conclusion" falls short. This provides us further reason to
believe that the "Theoretical Conclusion" represents Kant's own viewpoint.
6. The Effect of the "Practical Conclusion"

If the "Practical Conclusion" does not represent Kant's own thinking, what role does it
play in creating the "total effect” of Dreams? I have suggested that it plays a dual role, as a
tool for communicating both the exoteric and the esoteric teachings of Dreams.
If one takes the "Practical Conclusion" at face value, one will set the book aside,
cease to trouble oneself about the nature and immortality of one's souL, and submerge oneself
in practical affairs. One will naturally conclude that Dreams is indeed a fundamentally
skeptical, anti-metaphysical diatribe. This is, of course, what I take to be the exoteric
teaching.
If, however, one reads more carefully, one will find this conclusion extraordinarily
dissatisfying. On the one hand, all of the central tenets of pragmatic metaphysics are strewn
about it. There is, for instance, a particularly good statement about the noble soul's need to
believe in its own immortality. Yet when practical reason finally speaks, it does not draw the
conclusion we are led to expect from our recollections of the "Theoretical Conclusion."
Instead, we are simply advised not to speculate about this deep and fundamental need. If,
however, the reader is particularly attuned to the voice and interests of practical reason, if his
soul is sufficiently ardent and noble, then he cannot be fobbed off with such vulgar
divertissements. Thus he will likely feel the conclusion to be a disappointment. He will
marvel at how constricted its sense of practical reason seems in the end—particularly when
compared with that of the "Theoretical Conclusion."
In short, I wish to suggest that the "Practical Conclusion" is conclusive only for
careless readers, who close the book confirmed in the received view. More exacting readers,
however, find the conclusion downright inconclusive and treat it as an occasion for turning
back to the beginning of the book and reading it anew. And if one does so, one might
discover what I take to be the esoteric teachings. If one should re-read Dreams I in the light
Dreams U—particularly in light o f the synopsis o f Swedenborg's visions—one might very well
draw the conclusion that Kant so strenuously seems to deny in Dreams II.2: that Swedenborg
had a positive influence on Kant. And if one re-reads the "Theoretical Conclusion" in light of
the disappointment of the "Practical Conclusion," one may well conclude that practical reason
requires more from us than merely cultivating the soil of our earthly garden. It requires that
we cultivate ourselves, that we care for our souls, in preparation for our heavenly estate.
Conclusion
Swedenborg, a learned and highly intelligent man, was a visionary of unexampled

fertility. His importance is attested by the fact that he had a considerable influence on
Kant.
—C.G. Jung, "On Spiritualistic Phenomena," 19051
In this work, I have argued that Swedenborg influenced Kant, that Kant sought to
obscure this debt, but that he also left enough clues to discover it.
Have I proved my case? The answer would have to be: Yes and no.
In the "yes" column:
I have shown, by a comparison of Dreams and the letter to Charlotte von Knobloch,
that in Dreams Kant deliberately conceals and downplays his interest in Swedenborg. I have
also shown, through a careful analysis o f the rhetoric of Dreams, that the text systematically
conveys two different messages to two different types of reader.
I have, moreover, shown through a narrative of the development of Kant's early
thought, that Kant's encounter with Rousseau led to questions which could not be answered in
the framework of Kant's early metaphysics, but which could be answered within the
framework of Swedenborg's. Kant's question was: "How to be a Newtonian and a
Rousseauian at the same time?" The answer is: By being a Swedenborgian.
Finally, by comparing Dreams to Kant's mature critical philosophy, I have shown that
the most Swedenborgian and "Swedenborg-friendly" doctrines in Dreams also appear in
Kant's mature writings, e.g., the distinction between the phenomenal/material and
noumenal/spiritual worlds, man's dual citizenship in both worlds, the ideality of space and
time, the accommodation of the forms of experience to the natures of finite intellects, the
identification of the spiritual world with the moral community, the account of moral law as a
spiritual influx, and the claim that in moral actions, we do our duty for duty's sake.
1. C.G. Jung, "On Spiritualistic Phenomena," in The Collected Writings of C.G. Jung, vol.
18, The Symbolic Life: Miscellaneous Writings, trans. R.F.C. Hull (Princeton. Princeton
University Press, 1976), 299 714).
286
By contrast, the anti-Swedenborgian teachings o f the enlightened skeptic of
Dreams 1.3 are placed in the mouth of one of the Popularphilosophen. for whom Kant shows
scorn both in Dreams and in his mature writings. There is, furthermore, no trace of the
skeptic's wholesale dismissal of spiritual matters in Kant's mature thought.
Kant does, however, adopt two of the skeptic's principles. He treats empiricism and
conformity with the sensus communis as standards for knowledge. (And even on these points,
he is not too far from the Swedenborgian metaphysics of Dreams 1.2.) These principles are,
of course, incompatible with Swedenborg’s claim to a unique mystical insight.
But it is important to note that Kant does not think that mystical insight is impossible.
Indeed, he goes to some trouble to explain how it is possible. Kant does, however, think that
mystical insight is both cognitively useless and politically dangerous, and for the same reason.
Mystical insight is essentially private and idiosyncratic. To offer useful insights, however, the
mystic must be able to explain his visions to the sensus communis. To be a good citizen,
furthermore, the mystic must be able to conform in thought and action to the sensus
communis. If he cannot, then he is a dangerous enthusiast. Mysticism must, in short,
transform itself into a public, intersubjectively verifiable form of knowledge.
Both in Dreams and in the critical philosophy, this transformation is accomplished
through what I have dubbed "pragmatic metaphysics." Pragmatic metaphysics begins with the
recognition that the arguments for the spirit world in Dreams 1.2 based upon the experiences
of moral obligation and of the sensus communis escape the criticisms of the enlightened
skeptic. Moral obligation and the sensus communis are both based in experience and
intersubjectively verifiable. One can, therefore, use them as a foundation for belief in a
spiritual world and the immortality o f the soul without fear of lapsing into enthusiasm and
theosophy. Thus, although Kant rejects the mystical form of Swedenborg's visions, he accepts
their mystical content, and seeks to ground them in intersubjectively available experience.
This much, I believe, I have shown.
In the "no" column:
I am, first of all, acutely aware o f the difficulties of establishing that any author is
engaging in esoteric writing. Indeed, the very idea o f esoteric writing implies that it is
impossible ever to offer an airtight case that it has taken place. The purpose of esoteric
writing is, after alt, to communicate a dangerous or heretical teaching while avoiding
persecution. The only way to avoid persecution is to make it impossible to prove that a
heretical teaching is being advanced. After all, it is always possible that the various textual
enigmas that may be used to communicate an esoteric teaching may also be nothing more than
slips of the pen. It is in the shadow of such doubts that the esotericist conceals himself If a
reader were able to dispel all of these shadows, then esotericism would fail in its self-
protective function. But then it is unlikely that anyone would adopt such a flimsy strategy.
Thus, if esoteric writing exists, one can never prove that it exists. And if one can prove that it
exists, it does not really exist at all.
Although it is impossible to offer an airtight case for esotericism, it is still possible to
offer a more or less probable case. I believe that my own case is highly probable for two
reasons. First, I have offered the most comprehensive and detailed interpretation of Dreams
thus far, and I have discovered that one can reconcile the text's conflicting claims by
distributing them between esoteric and exoteric levels. Second, I have shown through my
comparisons between Dreams and the letter to Charlotte von Knobloch that Kant has, indeed,
concealed certain dimensions of his interest in Swedenborg. This makes it much more
plausible to consider that Kant is engaged in other acts of subterfuge as well.
Second, my argument would be significantly strengthened by tracing, in detail, the
Swedenborgian threads o f Kant's thought throughout his entire philosophical corpus.
Limitations of time and space, however, make this impossible. But I am entitled to hope for a
life after graduate school, during which time I can complete this task. I do, however, think
that 1have succeeded in my stated goal of laying the groundwork for such a project.
Bibliography
PRIMARY TEXTS
KANT’S WRITINGS:
Kant, Immanuel. Immanuel Kants gesammelte Schriften. 29 vols. Ed. Preussischen
Akademie der Wissenschaften (vols. 1-22), Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften
zu Berlin (vol. 23), and Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Gottingen (vols. 24-29).
Berlin: De Gruyter, 1902-. (Henceforth cited as AK followed by the volume and page
numbers.)
Dreams of a Snirit-Seer:
German Editions:
[Kant, Immanuel.] Traume eines Geistersehers. erlautert durch Traume der Metaphvsik.
Konigsberg and Riga: Johann Jacob Kanter, 1766. ("A" edition)
__________. Traume eines Geistersehers. erlautert durch Traume der Metaphvsik. Riga:
Johann Friedrich Hartknoch, 1766. ("B" edition. Title page with rose branch
vignette.)
________ .Trdume eines Geistersehers. erlautert durch Traume der Metaphvsik. Riga:
JoHahn Friedrich Hartknoch, 1766. ("C" edition. T itle page with vignette of reclining
cherub holding wreath.)
Kant, Immanuel. Traume eines Geistersehers. erlautert durch Traume der Metaphvsik.
AK 2:315-73.
__________. Traume eines Geistersehers. erlautert durchTraume der Metaphvsik. Text

ed. with appendices. Ed. Rudolf Malter. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1976.
__________. Traume eines Geistersehers. erlautert durch Traume der Metaphvsik. ("AM
edition) Ed. Karl Kehrbach. Halle, 1880.
English Translations of Dreams:

__________. Dreams of a Spirit Seer Illustrated bv Dreams o f Metaphysics. Trans. E.F.
Goerwitz. Ed. Frank Sewall. London: Swan Sonnenschein. 1900.
__________. Dreams of a Spirit Seer bv Immanuel Kant and Other Related Writings
[sic], Ed. and trans. John Manolesco. New York: Vantage, 1969.
__________. Dreams of a Spirit-Seer Elucidated bv Dreams of Metaphysics. Trans.

David Walford. In Immanuel Kant, Theoretical Philosophy. 1755-1770. Ed. and
trans. David Walford with Ralf Meerbote. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1992.
English Translations of Excerpts from Dreams:

__________. Dreams of a Spirit-Seer. [Excerpts from the whole of the work.] In Kant
Ed. and trans. Gabriele Rabel. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963.
289
__________. Dreams o f a Visionary Explained bv Dreams o f Metaphysics. Part I.
Fourth Chapter. "Theoretical Conclusion from the Whole of the Considerations of the
First Part." In The Philosophy of Kant- Immanuel Kant's Moral and Political Writings.
Ed. and trans. Carl J. Friedrich. New York: The Modem Library, 1949.
__________. "Kant's Abstract o f Swedenborgianism." [The bulk of Dreams, part II,

chapter 2.] Trans. Thomas de Quincey. In The Collected Writings of Thomas He
Quincey. 14 vols. Vol. IX. Ed. David Masson. London: A. and C. Black, 1896.
French Translation:
Kant, Emmanuel [sic], Reves d'un visionnaire. 2nd ed. Ed. and trans. F Courtes Paris
Vrin, 1977.
O ther Texts W here Kant Discusses Swedenborg:

Immanuel Kant, Anthropoloeie in praematischer Hinsicht (Konigsberg. Friedrich
Nicolovius, 1798), AK 7:191-2.
__________. Brief an Charlotte von Knobloch, August 10, 1763, AK 10:43-8.
__________. Brief an Moses Mendelssohn, April 8, 1766, AK 10:69-73.
__________. Fragment einer spateren Rationaltheologie nach Baumbach (1789-90 or

1790-91), AK 28.2,2:1324-5.
__________. Metaphvsik Dohna (1792-931. AK 28 2 1 689
__________. Metaphvsik Herder (1763-641. AK 28.1:113-14T 121-2.
__________. Metaphvsik K2 (1791-92 or 1792-93), AK 28.2,1:768.
__________. Metaphvsik LI (1770s), AK 28.1:298-9.
__________. Metaphvsik L2 (1790-911. AK 28 2.1 -393
__________. Metaphvsik Volckmann (1784-85), AK 28.1:445-9.
__________. Nachtrage Herder (1763-64), AK 28.1:897-8, 905-6.
__________. Reflexion no. 1486 (1770s), AK 15:710.
__________. Reflexion no. 5026 (1770s), AK 18:65.
__________. Per Streit der Fakultaten (Konigsberg: Friedrich Nicolovius, 1798), AK

7:46.
Texts Where Kant Alludes to Swedenborg:

Kant, Immanuel, Brief an Moses Mendelssohn, February 7, 1766, AK 10:67-8.
__________. Logik Blomberg fearlv 1770s), AK 24:248.
291
__________. Loeik Philippi (M1T\ AK 24:448
__________. Metaphvsik Mroneovius (1782-83V AK 29 1 2-919-20
__________. Reflexion no. 938. (1770s), AK 18:416.
Other Works by Kant:

Kant, Immanuel. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point o f View. Trans. Victor Lyle
Dowdell. Rev. and ed. Hans H. Rudnick. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University
Press, 1978.
__________. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. Trans. Mary J. Gregor.

The Hague: Martinus Nijoff, 1974.
__________. Attempt to Introduce the Concept of Negative Magnitudes into Philosophy.

Trans. David Walford. In Immanuel Kant, Theoretical Philosophy. 1755-1770. Ed.
and trans. David Walford with Ralf Meerbote. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1992.
__________. Bemerkungen in den ''Beobachtungen uber das Gefiihl des Schonen und
Erhabenen." Ed. Marie Rischmuller. Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1991.
_________ . The Conflict o f the Faculties. Bilingual ed. Trans. Mary J. Gregor with
Robert Anchor. New York: Abaris, 1979.
_________ . “Conjectures on the Beginning of Human History.” In Political Writings.

2nd ed. Ed. Hans Reiss. Trans. H.B. Nisbett. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1991.
_________ . Correspondence. Trans, and ed. AmulfZweig. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1999.
_________ - Critique of Judgment. Trans. Werner S. Pluhar. Indianapolis: Hackett,

1987.
. Critique of Practical Reason. Trans. Lewis White Beck. Indianapolis:

Bobbs-Merrill, 1956.
. Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. Norman Kemp Smith. New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1929.
. Essays and Treatises. 2 vols. Trans. John Richardson. London. William

Richardson, 1798-99.
. The False Subtlety of the Four Syllogistic Figures. Trans. David Walford.
In Immanuel Kant, Theoretical Philosophy. 1755-1770. Ed. and trans. David Walford
with Ralf Meerbote. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. Trans. Lewis White Beck.
292
Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1959.
. Four Neglected Essavs bv Immanuel Kant. Ed. Stephen Palmquist. Trans.

John Richardson. Hong Kong: Philopsychy Press, 1994.
. “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose.” In Political

Writings. 2nd ed. Ed. Hans Reiss. Trans. H.B. Nisbett. Cambridge: Cambridge
. Immanuel Kants Vorlesuneen uber Psvchologie. Mit einer Einleitung: Kants

mvstische Weltaunschuung. herausgegeben von Dr. Carl du Prel. Leipzig: Gunther,
1889. Reprint: Pforzheim: Rudolf Fischer, 1967.
. Inquiry Concerning the Distinctness of the Principles of Natural Theology

and Morals. Trans. David Walford. In Immanuel Kant, Theoretical Philosophy. 1755-
1770. Ed. and trans. David Walford with Ralf Meerbote. Cambridge: Cambridge
. Kant. Ed. and trans. Gabriele Rabel. Oxford: Clarendon, 1963.
. Kant on Education. Trans. Annette Churton. London: Kegan Paul, Trench

andTriibner, 1899. Reprint: Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1992.
. Kant's Latin Writings. Rev. ed. Ed. Lewis White Beck. Trans. Lewis
White Beck, Mary J. Gregor, [John Handyside,] Ralf Meerbote, and John A.
Reuscher. New York: Peter Lang, 1992.
. Kants Vorlesungen iiber die Metaphvsik. Zum Druck befordert von dem
Herausgeber der Kantischen Vorlesungen tiber die philosophische Religionslehre. Ed.
Karl von Politz. Erfurt: Kaisers, 1821.
. Kritik der reinen Vemunft. Ed. Raymund Schmidt. Hamburg: Felix

Meiner, 1956.
. Lectures on Ethics. Ed. Peter Heath and J.B. Schneewind. Trans. Peter
Heath. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
. Lectures on Logic. Ed. and trans. J. Michael Young. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1992.
. Logic. Ed. Gottlob Benjamin Jasche. Trans. Robert Hartmann and

Wolfgang Schwartz. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1974.
. Lectures on Metaphysics. Ed. and trans. Karl Ameriks and Steve Naragon.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
. M. Immanuel Kant's Announcement of the Programme of his lectures for

the Winter Semester of 1765-1766. Trans. David Walford. In Immanuel Kant,
Theoretical Philosophy. 1755-1770. Ed. and trans. David Walford with Ralf
Meerbote. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
293
. Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. Trans. James W. Ellington.
In Kant's Philosophy of Material Nature. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1985.
. The Metaphysics of Morals. Trans. Mary J. Gregor. Cambridge:

. Observations on the Feeling o f the Beautiful and Sublime. Trans. John T.

Goldthwait. Berkeley: University of California, 1960.
. “On the Common Saying: ‘This May be True in Theory, But it Does not
Apply in Practice.”’ Trans. H.B. Nisbet. In his Political Writings. 2nd rev. ed. Ed.
Hans Reiss. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
. On the Form and Principles of the Sensible and the Intelligible World
(Inaugural Dissertation). Trans. John Handyside. Rev. Lewis White Beck. In Kant's
Latin Writings. Rev. ed. Ed. Lewis White Beck. New York: Peter Lang, 1992.
. On the Form and Principles of the Sensible and Intelligible World

(Inaugural Dissertation). Trans. David Walford. In Immanuel Kant, Theoretical
Philosophy. 1755-1770. Ed. and trans. David Walford with Ralf Meerbote.
The Only Possible Argument in Support o f a Demonstration of the

Existence of God. Trans. David Walford. In Immanuel Kant, Theoretical Philosophy.
1755-1770. Ed. and trans. David Walford with Ralf Meerbote. Cambridge:
. Opus postumum. Ed. Eckhart Forster. Trans. Eckhart Forster and Michael
Rosen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
. Philosophical Correspondence. 1759-99. Trans. AmulfZweig. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 1967.
. The Philosophy of Kant. Ed. and trans. Carl J. Friedrich. New York:
Modem Library, 1949.
. Practical Philosophy. Ed. and trans. Maiy J. Gregor. Cambridge:

. Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics that Will be Able to Come

Forward as Science. Trans. Paul Carus. Rev. James W. Ellington. Indianapolis:
Hackett, 1977.
. Religion and Rational Theology. Ed. and trans. Allen W. Wood and
George di Giovanni. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
. Theoretical Philosophy. 1755-1770. Ed. and trans. David Walford with

Ralf Meerbote. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
. Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens. Trans. William
Hastie. Ann Arbor University of Michigan Press, 1969.
. Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens. Trans. Stanley L.

Jaki. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1981.
. "The Use in Natural Philosophy of Metaphysics Combined with Geometry.

Physical Monadology." Trans. Lewis White Beck. In Kant's Latin Writings. Rev. ed.
Ed. Lewis White Beck. New York: Peter Lang, 1992.
. Vorlesungen Kants uber Metaphvsik aus drei Semestem. Ed. Max Heinze.
Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1894.
SWEDENBORG'S WRITINGS:
Swedenborg, Emanuel. Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence. Trans. William
Frederick Wunsch. New York: Swedenborg Foundation, 1851.
__________. Angelic Wisdom Concerning Divine Love and Wisdom. Trans. John C.
Ager. New York. Swedenborg Foundation, 1943.
__________. The Apocalypse Revealed, wherein are disclosed the arcana there foretold
which have hitherto remained concealed. 2 vols. Trans. John Whitehead. New York:
Swedenborg Foundation, 1928.
__________. Arcana Coelestia. quae in Scriptura Sacra, seu Verbo Domini sunt detecta.
8 vols. 3rd ed. London: Swedenborg Society, 1949-73.
__________. Arcana coelestia. The Heavenly Arcana Contained in the Holy Scriptures
or Word of the Lord Unfolded. Beginning with the Book of Genesis: Together with
Wonderful things Seen in the World of Spirits and in the Heaven o f Angels. 13 vols.
Trans. Anonymous. London: Swedenborg Society, 1977.
__________. Concerning the Last Judgment and Babylon Destroyed. Trans. Doris
Harley. London: Swedenborg Society, 1961.
__________. Concerning the Messiah about to Come and Concerning the Kingdom of
God and the Last Judgment. Trans. Alfred Acton. Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania:
Academy of the New Church, 1949.
_________ . Concerning the White Horse in the Apocalypse chap. xix_ and then
concerning the Word and its spiritual or internal sense, from the Arcana Coelestia
Trans. B. Wilmott. London: Swedenborg Society, 1955.
_________ . Continuation Concerning the Last Judgment and Concerning the Spiritual
World. Trans. John Whitehead. In Miscellaneous Theological Works. New York:
Swedenborg Foundation, 1913.
_________ . Correspondences and Representations. In Emanuel Swedenborg,

Psychological Transactions and Other Posthumous Tracts. 1734-1744. Ed. and trans.
Alfred Acton. 2nd rev. ed. Philadelphia: Swedenborg Scientific Association, 1984.
. The Delights o f Wisdom Concerning Coniuciat fsicT Love. After Which
Follows the Pleasures of Insanity Concerning Scortatorv Love. Trans Alfred Acton.
London: Swedenborg Society, 1953.
. The Earths in Our Solar System which are Called Planets and the Earths in
the Starry Heaven and their Inhabitants: also the Spirits and Angels There: from
Things Heard and Seen. Trans. John Whitehead. In Miscellaneous Theological
Works. New York: The Swedenborg Foundation, 1913.
. Emanuel Swedenborg: Essential Readings. Ed. Michael Stanley. London:

Crucible, 1988.
. Emanuel von Swedenborg's Revision der bisherieen Theologie. sowol der

Protestanten als Romischkatholischen. Trans. Anonymous. (Trans, of Summaria
Expositio Doctrinae Novae Hierosolvmae.) Breslau: Gottlieb Lowe, 1786.
. The Four Doctrines. Ed. Alice Spiers Sechrist. Trans. John Faulkner Potts.
New York: Swedenborg Foundation, 1984.
. A Glossary, or The Meaning of Specific Terms and Phrases Used bv

Swedenborg in his Theological Writings. Given in His Own Words. Ed. John Stuart
Bogg. Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania: The Swedenborg Association, 1994.
. Heaven and its Wonders and Hell, from Things Heard and Seen. Trans.
John C. Ager. Rev. by Doris H. Harley. London. Swedenborg Society, 1966.
. The Infinite and the Final Cause o f Creation. Trans. James John Garth
Wilkinson. London: Swedenborg Society, 1915.
. The Last Judgment land Babylon Destroyed]. Trans. John Whitehead. In

Miscellaneous Theological Works. New York: Swedenborg Foundation, 1913.
. The Letters and Memorials o f Emanuel Swedenborg. 2 vols. Ed. and

trans. Alfred Acton. Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania: Swedenborg Scientific Association,
1948-55.
. The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine. From What Has Been
Heard in Heaven, to Which is Prefixed Something Concerning the New Heaven and
the New Earth. Trans. John Whitehead. In Miscellaneous Theological Works. New
York: Swedenborg Foundation, 1913.
. A Philosopher's Note Book. Excerpts from Philosophical Writers and from

Sacred Scriptures on a Variety of Philosophical Subjects: together with some
Reflections, and Sundry Notes and Memoranda bv Emanuel Swedenborg. Trans.
Alfred Acton. Philadelphia. Swedenborg Scientific Association, 1931.
. Psvchologia. being Notes and Observations on Christian Wolffs

Psvchologia Empirica bv Emanuel Swedenborg. Trans. Alfred Acton. Philadelphia.
Swedenborg Scientific Association, 1923.
. Rational Psychology. Trans. Alfred Acton. Philadelphia: Swedenborg
296
Scientific Association, 1950.
_________ . Sapientia angelica de Divina Providentia. Amsterdam, 1764.
_________ . Sapientia angelica de Divino Amore et de Divina Sapentia. Amsterdam,

1763.
_________ . The Soul-Bodv Interaction. In Emanuel Swedenborg, The Universal

Human and the Soul-Bodv Interaction. Ed. and trans. George F. Dole. New York:
Paulist Press, 1984.
_________ . The Spiritual Diarv of Emanuel Swedenborg. 5 vols. Trans. George Bush,
John H. Smithson, and James F. Buss. London: James Speirs, 1883-1902.
_________ . A Theosophic Lucubration on the Nature of Influx, as it respects
the Communication and Operations of Soul and Body. Trans. T. Hartley. London:
M. Lewis, 1770.
_________ . The Universal Human and the Soul-Bodv Interaction. Ed. and trans.
George F. Dole. New York: Paulist Press, 1984.
SECONDARY LITERATURE
Works Dealing Exclusively or Extensively with the Kant-Swedenborg Relationship:
(A) Works Documenting the Kant-Swedenborg Relationship:

The Academy Collection of Swedenborg Documents: Comprising every known Document
by or concerning Swedenborg, including all available Transcripts and Translations
thereof. 10 vols. Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, 1962. In the Swedenborg Library,
Swedenborgiana Collection, Academy of the New Church, Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania.
(Henceforth cited as The Academy Collection of Swedenborg Documents, followed by
the document number.)
Anonymous. Review of Immanuel Kant, Traume eines Geistersehers. erlautert durch

Traume der Metaphvsik. Konel. Bibliotekets Tidniear om Larda Saker ('Stockholm.
l767):189-90. The Academy Collection of Swedenborg Documents, no. 964.12.
Bergmann, Horst and Eberhard Zwink, eds. Emanuel Swedenborg 1688-1772.

Naturforscher und Kundieer der Uberwelt. Stuttgart: Wurttembergische
Landesbibliothek, 1988.
Clemm, Heinrich Wilhelm. Vollstandige Einleitung in die Religion und in die pesammte
Theologie 4 (Tubingen: Johann Georg Cotta, 1767). Excerpt in Immanuel Kant,
Traume eines Geistersehers. erlautert duch Traume der Metaphvsik. Text ed. with
appendices. Ed. Rudolf Malter. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1976.
[Feder, Johann Heinrich Georg], Review o f Traume eines Geistersehers. erlautert duch
Traume der Metaphvsik. Erlangische gelehrte Anmerkungen und Nachrichten auf
das Jahr 1766 21 (Erlangen, 1766):308. In Immanuel Kant, Traume eines
Geistersehers. erlautert duch Traume der Metaphvsik. Text ed. with appendices. Ed.
Rudolf Malter. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1976.
297
Hamann, Johann Georg. Brief an Moses Mendelssohn, November 6, 1764. In Immanuel

Kant, Traume eines Geistersehers. erlautert duch Traume der Metaphvsik. Text ed.
with appendices. Ed. Rudolf Malter. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1976.
Herder, Johann Gottfried. Review o f Traume eines Geistersehers. erlautert duch

Traume der Metaphvsik. Koniesbereischen Gelehrten und Politischen Zeituneen auf
das Jahr 1766. no. 18 (Konigsberg, March 3, 1766). In Immanuel Kant, Traume eines
Geistersehers. erlautert duch Traume der Metaphvsik. Text ed. with appendices. Ed.
Rudolf Malter. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1976.
Jung-Stilling, Heinrich. Brief an Immanuel Kant, March 1, 1789. AK 11:7-9.

Jurgulan. Brief an Immanuel Kant (date unknown). AK 12:350-55.
Lambert, Johann Heinrich. Brief an Holland, April 7, 1766. In Immanuel Kant, Traume
eines Geistersehers. erlautert duch Traume der Metaphvsik. Text ed. with appendices.
Ed. Rudolf Malter. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1976.
Mendelssohn, Moses. Review of Immanuel Kant, Traume eines Geistersehers. erlautert

durch Traume der Metaphvsik. Alleemeine deutsche Bibliothek 4, no. 2 (Berlin,
1767):281. In Immanuel Kant, Traume eines Geistersehers. erlautert duch Traume der
Metaphvsik. Text ed. with appendices. Ed. Rudolf Malter. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1976.
Oetinger, Friedrich Christoph. Brief an Emanuel Swedenborg, December 4, 1766. In

Immanuel Kant, Traume eines Geistersehers. erlautert duch Traume der Metaphvsik.
Text ed. with appendices. Ed. RudolfMalter. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1976.
__________. Gesprach von dem Hohepriesterthum Christi und von der Reeierung der
Sichtbaren und unsichtbaren Welt nach Art des Buchs Hiob voreetraeen zwischen
einem Mvstiker. Philosophen und Orthodozen, dem iedesmal ein heutieer Hiob. ein urn
der Wahrheit willen Leidender. antwortet. Frankfurt und Leipzig, 1772. Excerpt in
Immanuel Kant, Traume eines Geistersehers. erlautert duch Traume der Metaphvsik.
Text ed. with appendices. Ed. RudolfMalter. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1976.
__________. Des Wurttembergischen Pralaten Friedrich Christoph Oetinger
Selbstbiographie. Ed. Julius Hamberger. Stuttgart, 1845.
Wielkes, Hieronymus Gottfried. Brief an Immanuel Kant, March 18, 1771. In Immanuel
Kant, Traume eines Geistersehers. erlautert duch Traume der Metaphvsik. Text ed.
with appendices. Ed. RudolfMalter. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1976.
(B) Works Presenting or Presupposing the Received View of the Kant-Swedenborg

Relationship:
Anonymous. "Kant and Swedenborg." The Intellectual Repository and New Jerusalem
Magazine 11 (1864): 441-7, 537-42.
Anonymous. "Prufimgsversuch, ob es wol schon ausgemacht sei, das Swedenborg zu den

Schwarmengehore." In Emanuel von Swedenborg's Revision der bisherigen
Theoloeie. sowol der Protestanten als Romischkatholischen. Trans. Anonymous.
Breslau: Gottlieb Lowe, 1786.
298
Bohme, Hartmut and Gemot. Das Andere der Vemunft: Zur Entwicklung von
Rationalitatsstrukturen am Beispiel Kants. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1983.
__________ . "The Battle of Reason with the Imagination." In What is Enlightenment?

Eighteenth-Centurv Answers and Twentieth-Centurv Questions. Ed. James Schmidt.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
Bohatec, Josef. Die Relieionsphilosophie Kants in der "Religion innerhalb der Grenzen
der blossen Vemunft": Mit besonderer Beriicksichtigung ihrer theologish-
dogmatischen Ouellen. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1966.
Borowski, Ludwig Ernst. Darstelluna des Lehens und Charakters Immanuel Kants von
Ludwig Ernst BorowskL von Kant selbst eenau revidiert und berichtigt (Konigsberg,
1804). In Immanuel Kant: sein Leben in Darstellungen von Zeiteenossen. Die
Bioeraphen von L.E. Borowski. R.B. Jachmann und A.Ch. Wasianski. Ed. Felix
Gross. Darmstadt: WissenschaftlicheBuchgesellschaft, 1980.
Butts, Robert E. Kant and the Double Government Methodology: Supersensibilitv and
Method in Kant's Philosophy of Science. Dordrect: Reidel, 1984.
Cassirer, Ernst. Kant's Life and Work. Trans. James Haden. New Haven. Yale
Carboncini, Sonia. Tranzendentale Wahrheit und Traum. Stuttgart-Bad Canstatt. Frommann-

Holzboog, 1990.
Courtes, F. Introduction to Emmanuel [sic] Kant, Reves d'un visionnaire. 2nd ed. Ed.
and trans. F. Courtes. Paris: Vrin, 1977.
David-Menard, Monique. La folie dans la raison pure: Kant lecteur de Swedenborg.

Paris: Vrin, 1990.
Ebbinghaus, Julius. "Kant und Swedenborg." In his Interpretation und Kritik: Schriften
zur Theoretischen Philosophie und zur Philosophiegeschichte. 1924-1972. Ed. Hariolf
Oberer and Georg Geismann. Bonn: Bouvier: 1990.
Fischer, Kuno. Geschichte der neuem Philosophie. Vol. 4, Immanuel Kant und seine
Lehre. Part 1, Entstehung und Gmndleeune der kritischen Philosophie. 6th ed.
Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1928.
Goetschel, Willi. Constituting Critique: Kant's Writing as Critical Praxis. Trans. Eric
Schwab. Durham: Duke University Press, 1994.
Goldmann, Lucien. La communaute humaine et l'univers chez Kant. Paris: Presses

Universitaires de France, 1948.
__________. Immanuel Kant. Trans. Robert Black. London: New Left Books, 1971.
Gulyga, Arsenij. Immanuel Kant: His Life and Thought. Trans. Marijan Despalatovic.
299
Boston: Birkha user, 1987.
Henrich, Dieter. "Uber Kants Entwicklungsgeschichte." Philosophische Rundschau 13
(1965):252-63.
Kehrbach, Karl. Vorrede. Immanuel Kant, Traume eines Geistersehers erlautert durch
Traume der Metaphvsik. Ed. Karl Kehrbach. Halle, 1880.
Kreimendahl, Lothar. Kant—Per Durchbruch von 1769. Koln: Jurgen Dinter, 1990.
Kronenberg, M. Kant: Sein Leben und Seine Lehre. 8 vols. Munich: Beck, 1897.
Laywine, Alison. Kant's Early Metaphysics and the Origins of the Critical Philosophy.
Atascadero, California: Ridgeview Publishing Company, 1993.
Rozenberg, Jacques. "La Theorie optique de l'hallucination dans les Reves d'un
visionnaire de Kant." Revue philosophique de la France et de I'etraneer (19851:1-26.
Schmucker, Joseph. "Kant's kritischer Standpunkt zur Zeit der Traume eines Geistersehers
im verhaltnis zum dem Kritik der reinen Vemunft." In Beitraee zur Kritik der reinen
Vemunft. Ed. Ineeborg Heidemann and Wolfganf Ritzel. Berlin, 1981.
__________. Die Ursprunee der Ethik Kants in seinen vorkritischen Schriften und
Reflexionen. Mainsheim am Gian: W. Fink, 1978.
Schonfeld, Martin. The Philosophy of the Young Kant: The Precritical Project. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2000.
Seung, T.K. Kant's Platonic Revolution in Moral and Political Philosophy. Baltimore:
The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.
Stuckenberg, J.H. W. The Life of Immanuel Kant. London: Macmillan, 1882.
Wundt, Max. Kant als Metaphvsiker: Ein Beitrae zur Geschichte der deutschen
Philosophie im 18. Jahrhundert. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1984.
Weissberg, Liliane. “Cataraction und der schone Wahn. Kants ‘Traume eines
Geistersehers, erlautert durch Traume der Metaphysik.’” Poetica 18 (1986):96-116.
(C) Works Challenging the Received View of the Kant-Swedenborg Relationship:

Anonymous. Review of Immanuel Kant, Traume eines Geistersehers. erlautert durch
Traume der Metaphvsik. Neue Critische Nachrichten 3 (Griefswald. 17671:257-62.
The Academy Collection o f Swedenborg Documents, no. 964.
Anonymous. "Testimony of Professor Kant to the Unquestionable Reality of

Swedenborg's Intercourse with the Spiritual World." The Intellectual Repository and
New Jerusalem Magazine 1 (1830-31):53-63.
Anonymous. "Testimony or Professor Kant to the Unquestionable Reality of
300
Swedenborg's Intercourse with the Spiritual World * New Jerusalem Mapasrine 3
(1830):249-56.
Begenat. Roland. "Swedenborg und Kant. Ein andauemdes Missverstandnis, erklart

durch die Unvereinbarkeit der Standpunkte." In Emanuel Swedenborg. 1688-1772:
Naturforscher und Kundieer der Uberwelt. Ed. Horst Bergmann and Eberhard Zwink.
Stuttgart: Wurttembergischen Landesbibliothek, 1988.
Benz, Ernst. “The Mysterious Datum: Zu Kants Kritik an Swedenborg.” In his Vision
und Offenbarung: Gesammelte Swedenborg-Aufsatze. Zurich: Swedenborg Verlag,
1979.
. Swedenborg in Deutschland. F.C. Oetingers und Immanuel Kants

Auseinandersetzung mit der Person und Lehre Emanuel Swedenborgs nach neuen
Ouellen bearbeitet. Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1947.
Beminger, Claire E. "Oetinger, Kant, and Swedenborg." The New Philosophy 51

(1948):255-8.
Bormann, Walter. "Kantische Ethik und Occultismus." In his Beitrage zur

Grenzwissenschaft. Jena, 1899.
Broad, C.D. "Immanuel Kant and Psychical Research." In Religion. Philosophy and
Psychical Research. 2nd ed. New York: Humanities Press, 1969.
Charet, F.X. Spiritualism and the Foundations of C.G. Jung's Psychology. Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1993.
Cole, Robert M. "Space, Time, and the Ether." The New Philosophy 61 (1958):357-66.
Dole, George F. "The Ambivalent Kant." Studia Swedenborgiana 10, no. 2 (May
1997):1-10.
DuPrel,Carl. "Kants mystische Weltanschauung." In Immanuel Kants Vorlesungen uber

Pscvhologie. Mit einer Einleitung: Kants mvstische Weltanschauung, herausgegeben
von Dr. Carl du Prel. Leipzig: Gunther, 1889. Reprint. Pforzheim: Rudolf Fischer,
1967.
Edmunds, Albert J. "Time and Space. Hints Given by Swedenborg to Kant." The New-
Church Review 4 (1897):257-65.
Florschutz, Gottlieb. Kant and Swedenborg: Emanuel Swedenborg's Mystical View of

Mankind and the Dual Nature of Humankind in Immanuel Kant. West Chester
Pennsylvania: Swedenborg Foundation, 1993.
__________. "Swedenborg's Hidden Influence on Kant, Part 1." Trans. Kurt P. Nemitz
and J. Durban Odhner. The New Philosophy 96 (1993): 171-225.
and J. Durban Odhner. The New Philosophy 96 (1993):277-307.
301
and J. Durban Odhner. The New Philosophy 97 (l994):347-96.
_________ "Swedenborg's Hidden Influence on Kant, Part 5." Trans. Kurt P Nemitz
andJ. Durban Odhner. The New Philosophy 98 (19951:229-58.
__________. "Swedenborg's Hidden Influence on Kant, Part 7: Arthur Schopenhauer's

View o f Swedenborg and Occult Phenomena." Trans. Kurt P. Nemitz and J. Durban
Odhner. The New Philosophy 99 (1996):341-85.
__________. Swedenborgs verborgene Wirkune auf Kant: Swedenborg und die okkulten
Phanomene aus der Sicht von Kant und Schopenhauer. Ph.D. Dissertation, University
of Kiel, 1991.
__________. Swedenborgs verborgene Wirkung auf Kant: Swedenborg und die okkulten
Phanomene aus der Sicht von Kant und Schopenhauer. Wurzburg: Konighausen und
Neumann, 1992.
Gerding, J.L.F. Kant en het paranormale. Utrecht: Parapsychology Institute, 1993.
__________. "Was Kant a Sceptic?" Proceedings of the 37th Annual Convention of the
Parasvchological Association. Ed. Dick J. Bierman.
Hite, Lewis F. "Some Testimonies to the Greatness o f Swedenborg." The New-Church

Review 34 (1927):308-29.
__________. "Swedenborg, Kant, and Laplace on the Nebular Hypothesis." The New
Philosophy 33 (l930):244-52.
Hoffman, Richard Adolf. Kant und Swedenborg. Wiesbaden: J.F. Bergman, 1909.
Holmfeld, C. Dirckinck. "Kant's Opinion About Swedenborg." The Intellectual

Repository and New Jerusalem Magazine 11 (1864):345-52.
Horn, Friedemann. "Kant's Verhaltnis zu Swedenborg und die Folgen." Offene Tore 32
(1988):202-16.
__________. Schelling and Swedenborg: Mysticism and German Idealism. Trans. George F.
Dole. West Chester, Pennsylvania: Swedenborg Foundation, 1997.
Johnson, Gregory R. “Did Kant Dissemble His Interest In Swedenborg?” The New
Philosophy 102 (July-December 1999): 529-60.
302
. “Kant on Swedenborg in the Lectures on Metaphysics: The 1760s-1770s.”
Studia Swedenborgiana 10, no. 1 (October 1996): 1-38.
__________. “Kant on Swedenborg in the Lectures on Metaphysics: The 1780s-1790s.”

Studia Swedenborgiana 10, no. 2 (May 1997): 11-39.
__________. “Kant's Early Metaphysics and the Origins of the Critical Philosophy.”
Studia Swedenborgiana 11, no. 2 (May 1999): 29-54.
__________. “The Kinship of Kant and Swedenborg.” The New Philosophy 99, nos. 3 &
4 (July-December l996):407-23.
__________. Review o f Gottlieb Florschutz, Swedenborgs Verborgene Wirkung auf

Kant. Journal o f Scientific Exploration 13, no. 3 (Summer 1999):545-9.
__________. “Schopenhauer as Reader of Swedenborg.” In The True Philosophy. Ed.
Stephen McNeilly. London: The Swedenborg Society, forthcoming.
__________. “Strange New World.” Reason Papers, no. 22 (19973:140-43.
__________. “Swedenborg's Spirit World and Kant's Kingdom of Ends.” In The True
Philosophy. Ed. Stephen McNeilly. London: The Swedenborg Society, forthcoming.
Jung Carl Gustav. "On Spiritualistic Phenomena." In The Collected Works of Carl
Gustav Jung, vol. 18, The Symbolic Life: Miscellaneous Writings. Trans. R.F.C. Hull.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976.
__________. "Some Thoughts on Psychology." In The Collected Works of Carl Gustav

Jung Supplementary Volume A, The Zofinea Lectures. Ed. William McGuire. Trans.
Jan van Heurck. Princeton: Princeton Unviersity Press, 1983.
Kirven, Robert J. "Swedenborg and Kant Revisited: The Long Shadow of Kant's Attack
and a New Response." In Swedenborg and His Influence. Ed. Erland J. Brock, E.
Bruce Glenn, Carroll C. Odhner, J. Durban Odhner, Cynthia H. Walker, and Jane K.
Williams-Hogan. Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania: The Academy of the New Church, 1988.
Lutgert, Wilhelm. Die Religion des deutschen Idealismus und ihr Ende. 3 vols. Guterloh,
1923.
Mann, C. Riborg. "Swedenborg and Kant on the Nebular Hypothesis." The New
Philosophy 3 (1900V147-50
Manosiesco, John. Introduction and Commentary to Immanuel Kant, Dreams of a Spirit

Seer bv Immanuel Kant and Other Related Writings [sic]. Ed. and trans. John
Manolseco. New York: Vantage Press, 1969.
Maxwell, Alexander. Swedenborg versus Berkeley. Kant, and Coleridge. London.

William Smith, 1846.
McLemee, Scott. "Under the Influence. The Long Shadow o f Emanuel Swedenborg."
305
Studia Swedenborgiana. II (November 1998): 1-9.
Meyer, E. "Kant und der Occultismus." In Immanuel Kant Festschrift zur zweiten
Jahrhundertfeier seines Geburtstaaes. Lepizig: Albertus-Universitat Konigsberg,
1924.
Menzer, Paul. "Entwicklungsgang der kantischen Ethik in den Jahren 1760-1785."

Kant-Studien 3 (1899):41-I04
Niles, Marston. "Problems from Kant's Metaphysics." The New Philosophy 4

(1901). 147-8.
Palmquist, Stephen R. "Kant's Critique of Mysticism: (1) The Critical Dreams."

Philosophy and Theology 3 (1989):355-83.
__________. "Kant's Critique of Mysticism: (2) Critical Mysticism." Philosophy and

Theology 4 (1989):67-94.
Pendleton, Charles R. "The Concept of Space in the Philosophical Works." The New
Philosophy 60 (1957^:204-21.
. "The Concept of Space in the Writings." The New Philosophy 60

(1957):225-43.
. "Concepts of Space Through the Ages." The New Philosophy 60

(1957): 161-77.
Radermacher, Hans. Kant. Swedenborg. Borges. Frankfurt, 1986.
Retzius, Gustav. "Uber Swedenborgs Kosmogonie und Kants Himmelstheorie."

Naturwissenschaftliche Rundschau 11 (1909).
Richard, Heinrich. "Unbeachtete Vorlesungen Kants. Zugleich ein Beitrag zur

Swedenborgforschung." Zeitschrift fur Religions- und Geisteseeschichte 9
(1957):280-83.
Roeder, A. and Albert J. Edmonds. "Kant and Swedenborg: A Mistranslation

Corrected." The New-Church Messenger 62 (18971:10-11. 33-4.
Schlesak, Dieter. Gibt ed ein Leben nach dem Tod? Per Philosoph Immanuel Kant und
der Hellseher Emanuel Swedenborg. Zurich: Swedenborg Verlag, 1998.
Sewall, Frank. Introduction to Immanuel Kant, Dreams of a Spirit Seer Illustrated bv

Dreams of Metaphysics. Trans. E.F. Goerwitz. Ed. Frank Sewall. London: Swan
Sonnenschein, 1900.
. "Swedenborg and Kant on Cognition." The New-Church Review 5

(1898):481-513.
. Swedenborg and Modem Idealism: A Retrospect o f Philosophy from Kant
304
to the Present Time. London James Speirs, 1902.
_________ . "Swedenborg's Influence on Goethe." The New Philosophy 9 (1906): 12-

26.
Shell, Susan Meld. The Embodiment of Reason: Kant on Spirit. Generation, and
Community. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
Stroh, Alfred H. "‘On the State of the Soul After Death’, by Immanuel Kant: A New
Document Concerning Swedenborg." The New-Church Review 27 (1920):314-20.
Tafel, J.F. Immanuel. Supplement zu Kants Bioeraphie und zu den Gesammtauseaben
seiner Werke. oder die on Kant eecebenen Erfahrungsbeweise fur die
Unsterblichkeit und fortdauemde Wiedererinnerungskraft der Seele. durch
Nachweisune einer groben Falschung in ihrer Unverfalschtheit wieder hergestellt:
nebst einer Wurdigung seiner friiheren Bedenken geeen—sowie seiner spateren
Vemunftsbeweise fur-die Unsterblichkeit. Stuttgart: Becker and Muller, 1845.
Tonelli, Giorgio. "Divinae Particula Aurae: Genial Ideas, Organism, and Freedom. A
Note on Kant's Reflection N. 938." Journal of the History of Philosophy 7 (1969): 192-
8.
_________ . Kant's Critique of Pure Reason within the Tradition of Modem Logic: A
Commentary on its History. Ed. David H. Chandler. Hildesheim: Olms, 1994.
_________ . "Kant's Ethics as a Part of Metaphysics: A Possible Newtonian Suggestion?

With Some Comments on Kant's ‘Dreams of a Seer’" [sic]. In Philosophy and the
Civilizing Arts: Essavs Presented to Herbert W. Schneider. Ed. Craig Walton and
John P. Anton. Athens: Ohio Univerity Press, 1974.
Vaihinger, Hans. Review o f Immanuel Kants Vorlesungen uber Pscvhologie. Mit einer
Einleitung: Kants mvstische Weltanschauung, herausgegeben von Dr. Carl du Prel.
Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie 8 (1895):721.
Ward, Keith. The Development of Kant's View of Ethics. New York: Humanities Press,
1972.
Whitehead, John. "Authentic Evidence o f Swedenborg's Psychical Experiences." The

New-Church Review 34 (1927):399-412.
_________ . "Swedenborg's Influence on Kant." The New Philosophy 2 (1899):28.
Woofenden, William Ross. "Some Thought Affinities Between Immanuel Kant (1724-
1804) and Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772)." In his Swedenborg and 20th Century
Thought: Australian University Lectures (1979-1980). Sydney: Swedenborg Lending
Library and Enquiry Centre, 1981.
__________. "Emanuel Swedenborg and the Philosophy of Time." The New Philosophy
73 (1970):353-78.
Wright, Theodore F. "Kant and the Spirit-Seer." The New-Church Review 7
(l990):428-32.
. "Kant's Dealings with Swedenborg." The New-Church Review 8

(1901):85-101.
__________. "Swedenborg and the Nebular Hypothesis." The New-Church Review 4

(1897):361-79.
Works Dealing Briefly with the Kant-Swedenborg Relationship:
(A) Works Presenting or Presupposing the Received View:

Beck, Lewis White. Early German Philosophy: Kant and His Predecessors. Cambridge:
Harvard/Belknap, 1969.
__________. "A Prussian Hume and a Scottish Kant." In his Essavs on Kant and Hume.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978.
Beiser, Frederick. "Kant's Intellectual Development: 1746-i 781." In The Cambridge

Companion to Kant. Ed. Paul Guyer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Bernard, J.H. Introduction and Notes to Kant's Critique of Judgment. Trans. J.H.
Bernard. 2nded. London: Macmillan, 1914.
Butts, Robert E. "The Grammar of Reason: Hamann’s Challenge to Kant." In his

Historical Pragmatics: Philosophical Essavs. Boston: Kluwer, 1993.
__________. "Introduction: Kant's Quest for a Method for Metaphysics." In Kant's

Philosophy of Physical Science: Metaphvsische Anfanesgriinde der Naturwissenschaft
1786-1986. Ed. Robert E. Butts. Boston: Reidel, 1986.
Caird, Edward. The Critical Philosophy of Immanuel Kant. 2 vols. Glasgow: James
Maclehose and Sons, 1889.
Cassirer, H.W. A Commentary on Kant's Critique of Judgment. London: Methuen, 1938.
Collins, James. A History of Modem Philosophy. Milwaukee: Bruce, 1954.
Copelston, Frederick. A History of Philosophy. 9 vols. Vol. 6. Wolff to Kant. Garden

City, New York: Image, 1960.
Crampe-Casnabet, Michele. Kant: une revolution philosophique. Paris: Bordas, 1989.
Duncan, Howard. "Kant's Methodology: Progress Beyond Newton?" In Kant's

Philosophy of Physical Science: Metaphvsische Anfangserunde der Naturwissenschaft
1786-1986. Ed. Robert E. Butts. Boston: Reidel, 1986.
Gebler, Fred. Die Gottesvorstellungen in der fruhen Theologie Immanuel Kants.

Wurzburg: Konighausen and Neumann, 1990.
Guyer, Paul. Introduction to The Cambridge Companion to Kant Ed. Paul Guyer.
__________. Kant, Immanuel (1724-1804). Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 10

vols. Ed. Edward Craig. New York. Routledge, 1998.
Hartmann, Eduard von. Kants Erkenntnistheorie und Metaphvsik in den Vier Perioden
Ihrer Entwicklung. Aalen. Scientia, 1979.
Hbffe, Ottfied. Immanuel Kant. Trans. Marshall Farrier. Albany. SUNY Press, 1994.
Homan, Renate. Erhabenes und satirisches: Zur Grundlegune seiner Theorie asthetischer
Literatur bei Kant und Schiller. Munich. Wilhelm Fink, 1977.
Jaspers, Karl. Kant. Ed. Hannah Arendt. Trans. Ralph Manheim. New York: Harcourt,
Brace & World, 1962.
Jonsson, Inge. Emanuel Swedenborg. Trans. Catherine Djurklou. New York: Twayne,
1971.
Kroner, Richard. Speculation and Revelation in Modem Philosophy. Philadelphia: The

Westminster Press, 1961.
Kung, Hans. Eternal Life? Trans. Edward Quinn. Garden City, N. Y.: Anchor Books,
1985.
Larsen, Robin; Stephen Larsen; James F. Lawrence; and William Ross Woofenden, eds.
Emanuel Swedenborg: A Continuing Vision. A Pictorial Biography and Anthology of
Essavs and Poetry. New York: Swedenborg Foundation, 1988.
Larsen, Stephen. Introduction to Emanuel Swedenborg, The Universal Human and the
Soul-Bodv Interaction. Ed. and trans. George F. Dole. New York. Paulist Press,
1984.
Laywine, Alison. Swedenborg, Emanuel (1688-1772). Routledge Encyclopedia of

Philosophy. 10 vols. Ed. Edward Craig. New York: Routledge, 1998.
Liebel-Weckowicz, Helen and Thaddeaus E. Weckowicz. "Kant's Theory of Mental

Illness." In Studia Leibnitiana Supplementa XII (1972), vol. 1:261-79.
Lindsay, A.D. Kant. London. Ernest Benn Ltd., 1934.
Mayer, Frederick. A History of Modem Philosophy. New York: American Book
Company, 1951.
Muglioni, Jean-Michel. La philosophie de l'histoire de Kant: Ou'est-ce que l'homme?

Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1993.
Paulsen, Friedrich. Immanuel Kant: His Life and Doctrine. Trans. J.E. Creighton and
Albert Lefevre. New York: Ungar, 1963.
Puech, Michel. Kant et la causalitd: Etude sur la formation du svsteme critique. Paris:
Vrin, 1990.
Randall, John Herman Jr. The Career of Philosophy. 3 vols. Vol. 2. From the
Enlightenment to the Age o f Darwin. New York: Columbia University Press, 1965.
Redmann, Horst Gunther. Gott und Welt, die Schopfiingstheologie der vorkritischen
Periode Kants. Gottingen: Vandenhoek und Ruprecht, 1962
Ruyssen, Theodore. Kant. Paris: Felix Alcan, 1915.
Safranski, Rudiger. Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy. Trans. Ewald
Osers. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989.
Salmen, Joseph. Immanuel Kants Lehre und ihre Auswirken. Gelesenkirchen-Buer:

Neufang, 1969.
Schneewind, Jerome B. Introduction to Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Ethics. Ed. Peter

Heath and Jerome B. Schneewind. Trans. Peter Heath. Cambridge: Cambridge
. The Invention of Autonomy: A History of Modem Moral Philosophy.

Shea, William R. "Filled With Wonder: Kant's Cosmological Essay, the Universal Natural
History and Theory of the Heavens." In Kant's Philosophy of Physical Science:
Metaphvsische Anfangsgrunde der Naturwissenschaft 1786-1986. Ed. Robert E.
Butts. Boston. Reidel, 1986.
Vachlos, Georges. La pensee politique de Kant: Metaphvsique de I'ordre et dialectique du

progres. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1962.
White, William. Emanuel Swedenborg: His Life and Writings. 2nd rev. ed. London:
Simpkin, Marshall, and Company, 1868.
Walker, Ralph C.S. Kant. The Arguments of the Philosophers. New York: Routledge,
t978.
Walsh, W.H. Kant, Immanuel (1724-1804). The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 8 vols.

Ed. Paul Edwards. New York: Macmillan, 1967.
__________. Kant's Criticism of Metaphysics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

1975.
Ward, Keith. "Kant's Teleological Ethics." In Immanuel Kant: Critical Assessments. 4

vols. Vol. 3. Kant's Moral and Political Philosophy. Ed. Ruth F. Chadwick. New
York: Routledge, 1992.
Webb, Clement C.J. Kant's Philosophy of Religion. Oxford: Clarendon, 1926.
3Q8
Weldon, T.D. Kam‘s Critique of Pure Reason. Oxford: Clarendon, 1958.
Wenley, R.M. Kant and His Philosophical Revolution. New York: Scribner's, 1910.
Zammito, John H. The Genesis o f Kant's Critique of Judgment. Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1992.
Zweig, Amulf. Introduction. In Immanuel Kant, Correspondence. Trans, and ed. Amulf
Zweig. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
__________. Introduction. In Immanuel Kant, Philosophical Correspondence. 1759-99.

Ed. and trans. Amulf Zweig. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967.
(B) Works Challenging the Received View

Benz, Ernst. Emanuel Swedenborg. Naturforscher und Seher. Munich: Hermann
Rinn, 1948.
Horn, Friedemann. "Don't You Know How to Handle Books?" Studia Swedenborgiana.
11 (November 1998): 45-62.
Johnson, Gregory R. "The Tree of Melancholy: Kant on Philosophy and Enthusiasm."

Unpublished ms.
Jung, Carl Gustav. Memories. Dreams. Reflections. Ed. Aniela Jaffe. Trans. Richard and
Clara Winston. New York: Random House, 1961.
__________. Svnchronicitv: An Acausal Connecting Principle. Trans. R.F.C. Hull.

Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Will to Power. Ed. W’alter Kaufmann. Trans. R.J. Hollingdale
and Walter Kaufmann. New York: Random House, 1967.
Palmquist, Stephen R. Kant’s System of Perspectives: An Architectonic Interpretation of

the Critical Philosophy. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1993.
Schuchard, Marsha Keith. "Emanuel: The Desire of Nations": Swedenborg. Jacobitism.

and Freemasonry. Unpublished ms.
Sigstedt, Cyriel Odhner. The Swedenborg Epic: The Life and Works of Emanuel
Swedenborg. New York: Bookman Associates, 1952.
Vaihinger, Hans. Commentar zu Kants Kritik der reinen Vemunft. 2 vols. Stuttgart:
Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1922.
Voegelin, Eric. "On the Theory of Consciousness." In his Anam nesis Ed. and trans.
Gerhardt Niemeyer. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1990.
Williams-Hogan, Jane. "The Place o f Emanuel Swedenborg in Modem Western

Esotericism." Gnostica 2: Western Esotericism and the Science of Religion. Ed.
Antoine Faivre and Wouter J.Hanegraff. Amsterdam: Peeters, 1998.
309
(C) “Non-partisan” Treatments of the Kant-Swedenborg Relationship

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Marginalia to Kant. In Rene Wellek, Immanuel Kant in
England: 1793-1838. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1931.
Cuno, Johann Christian. J.C. Cuno's Memoirs on Swedenborg, to which is Added Dr.
J.A- Emesti's Libelous Attack and its Refutation. Ed. Alfred Acton. Trans. Claire E.
Beminger with Alfred Acton. Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania: The Academy Book Room,
1947.
De Quincey, Thomas. Autobiography. In The Collected Writings of Thomas de

Quincey. 14 vols. Vol. I. Ed. David Masson. London: A. and C. Black, 1896.
Doyle, Arthur Conan. The History of Spiritualism. 2 vols. New York: George
H. Doran, 1926.
GrolL, Ursula. Swedenborg and New Paradigm Science. Trans. Nicholas Goodrick-
Clarke. West Chester, Pennsylvania: Swedenborg Foundation, 2000.
Jordan, Bruno. Kants Stellung zur Metaphvsik bis zum Ende der 60 ten Jahre Leipzig:
Quelle und Meyer, 1909.
Jordan, Pascual. "Die Rolle des organischen Lebens im Kosmos." In Schopfung und
Geheimnis. Stalling.
Peebles, Waldo Cutler. "Swedenborg's Influence on Goethe." The New-Church Review

24 (1917):507-36.
Shell, Susan Meld. The Rights of Reason: A Study of Kant's Philosophy and Politics.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980.
Schopenhauer, Arthur. "Essay on Spirit Seeing and Everything Connected Therewith." In

his Parerga and Paralipomena: Short Philosophical Essavs. 2 vols. Trans. E.F.J.
Payne. Oxford: Clarendon, 1974.
__________. Per handschriftliche Nachlass. 5 vols. Ed. Arthur Hubscher. Frankfurt am

Main: Waldemar Kramer, 1966.
__________. Manuscript Remains. 4 vols. Ed. Arthur Hubscher. Trans. E.F.J. Payne.
Oxford: Berg, 1988.
Synnestvedt, Dan A "Emanuel, Immanuel: Magic, Miracles, and Morals in Enlightened

Religion." The New Philosophy 101 (1998) 303-328.
Teale, Albert Edward. Kantian Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951.
Teichner, Wilhelm. Die intelligible Welt, ein Problem der theoretischen und praktischen
philosophie Immanuel Kants. Mainsheim am Gian: W. Fink, 1967.
Theis, Robert. Approches de la critique de la raison pure: Etudes sur la philosophie
310
theorique de Kant. Hildesheim: Georg Otms, 1991.
Toksvig, Signe. Emanuel Swedenborg: Scientist and Mvstic. New Haven: Yale
Trobridge, George. Swedenborg: Life and Teaching. New York: Swedenborg

Foundation, 1949.
Velkley, Richard L. Freedom and the End of Reason: On the Moral Foundation of Kant's
Critical Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.
Walford, David. Introduction to the Translations. In The Cambridge Edition of the

Works of Immanuel Kant Theoretical Philosophy. 1755-1770. Ed. and trans. David
Walford with Ralf Meerbote. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Williams, T.C. The Unitv of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason: Experience. Language, and
Knowledge. Lewiston, New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1987.
•
Works on Kant:
Allison, Henry. “The Concept of Freedom in Kant’s ‘Semi-Critical’ Ethics.” Archiv fur
Geschichte der Philosophie 68 (1986): 97-115.
__________. Kant’s Theory o f Freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Ameriks, Karl and Steve Naragon. Translators’ Introduction. In Immanuel Kant,
Lectures on Metaphysics. Ed. and trans. Karl Ameriks and Steve Naragon.
Amoldt, Emil. “Characteristik von Kants Vorlesungen uber Metaphysik and moglichst
vollstandiges Verzeichnis aller von ihm gehaltenen oder auch nur angekundigten
Vorlesungen.” In Kritische Exkurse im Gebeite der Kantforschung. In Gesammelte
Schriften von Emil Amoldt. Vol. 5, part 2. Ed. Otto Schlondorffer. Berlin. Bruno
Cassirer, 1909.
Beck, Lewis White. “Did the Sage of Konigsberg Have No Dreams?” In his Essavs on
Kant and Hume. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978.
Buroker, Till Vance. Space and Incongruence: The Origin o f Kant’s Idealism. Dordrect:
Reidel, 1981.
Cassirer, Ernst. Rousseau. Kant. Goethe: Two Essavs. Trans. James Guttman, Paul
Oskar Kristeller, and John Hermann Randall, Jr. Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1945.
Caygill, Howard. A Kant Dictionary. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1995.
Ferrari, Jean. “Voltaire et Rousseau hommes de science et les sources fran?aises de sa

philosophie.” Revue Internationale de Philosophie 32 (1978): 348-56.
Forschner, Maximilian. Uber das Gluck des Menschen: Aristoteles. Epikur. Stoa. Thomas
von Aquin. Kant. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1993.
311
Gurvitch, Georges. “Kant et Fichte interpretes de Rousseau.” Revue de Metaphvsique et

de Morale 76 (1971): 385-405.
Heimsoeth, Heinz. "Metaphysical Motives in the Development of Critical Idealism." In

Kant: Disputed Questions. Rev. ed. Ed. Molkte S. Gram. Atascadero, California:
Ridgeview, 1984.
Heine, Heinrich. Religion and Philosophy in Germany: A Fragment. Trans. John

Snodgrass. New York: Macmillan, 1882.
Kuehn, Manfred. Scottish Common Sense in Germany: A Contribution to the History of

Critical Philosophy. Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1987.
Lachtermann, David R. "Kant. The Faculty of Desire." Graduate Faculty Philosophy

Journal 13 (1990): 181-211.
Lehmann, Gerhard. Einleitung to Kants Vorlesungen uber Metaphvsik und

Rationaltheoloeie. AK 28.2,2.
Lind, P. von. Kants mvstische Weltanschauung ein Wahn der Modemen Mystik.
Munich, 1892.
Mendelssohn, Moses. Review of Immanuel Kant, Per einzig moeliche Beweiserund zu

einer Demonstration des Daseins Gottes. Briefe die neueste Literatur betreffend 18
(1764):69-102.
Palmquist, Stephen R. "Immanuel Kant: A Christian Philosopher?" Faith and Philosophy

6 (1989):65-75.
__________. "Kant's ‘Appropriation’ of Lampe's God," Harvard Theological Review 85

(1992).
Puech, Michel. “Kant et la Metaphysique en 1762-1764. Les lemons de la ‘Metaphysik

Herder’.” Le Etudes Philosophiques (1990): 187-204.
Politz, Karl von. Vorrede. Kants Vorlesungen uber die Metaphvsik. Ed. Karl
von Politz. Erfurt: Kaisers, 1821.
Polonof£ Irving I. Force. Cosmos. Monads and Other Themes o f Kant's Early Thought.
Bonn: Bouvier, 1973.
Richardson, John. "Sketch of the Author's [i.e., Kant's] Life and Writings." In
Metaphysical Works o f the Celebrated Immanuel Kant. Ed. and trans. John
Richardson. London: W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 1836.
Roser, Andreas and Thomas Mohrs, eds. Kant-Konkordanz zu den Werken Immanuel
Kants (Bande I-IX der Ansgahe Her Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften!
Hildesheim: Olms-Weidmann, 1993.
3L2
Schelling, F.W.J. On the History of Modem Philosophy. Trans. Andrew Bowie.

Cambridge. Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Shell, Susan Meld. "Rousseau, Kant, and the Beginning of History." In The Legacy of
Rousseau. Ed. Clifford Orwin and Nathan Tarcov. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1997.
Schilpp, Paul. Kant's Pre-Critical Ethics. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1938.
Sherover, Charles M. "Kant's Evaluation of His Relationship to Leibniz." In The

Philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Ed. Richard Kennington. Washington, DC.: The
Catholic University of America Press, 1985.
__________. "The Question o f Noumenal Time." Man and World 10 (1977) 411-34.
Smith, Norman Kemp. A Commentary on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. 2nd
ed. London: Macmillan, 1923.
Velkley, Richard L. “The Crisis of the End of Reason in Kant's Philosophy and the
Remarks of 1764-1765.” In Kant and Political Philosophy: The Contemporary
Legacy. Ed. Ronald Beiner and William James Booth. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1993.
__________. “On Kant's Socratism.” In The Philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Ed. Richard
Kennington. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1985.
Warda, Arthur. Immanuel Kants Bucher. Berlin: Martin Breslauer, 1922.
Watkins, Eric. “Kant’s Theory of Physical Influx.” Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie
77(1995): 285-324.
Wimmer, R. “Reich der Zwecke.” In Historisches Worterbuch der Philosophie. 10 vols.

Ed. Joachim Ritter and Karlfiied Grunder. Basel: Schwabe & Co. AG, 1992.
Works Dealing with Swedenborg:

Acton, Alfred. “Some New Swedenborg Documents.” New Church Life 68 (1948):353-
68, 393-405.
Anonymous. Account of the Stockholm Fire. Hwad Nvtt i Staden. no. 27, July 30, 1759.
Supplement to the Gotheborska Maga^inet July 30, 1759. Anonymous trans. in The
Academy Collection o f Swedenborg Documents, no. 787.14.
Anonymous. Decree from the Wurttemberg government ordering the confiscation of all
copies of Friedrich Christoph Oetinger, Swedenborgs und Anderer irrdische und
himmliche Philosophie: zur Prufung des Besten. 2 vols. (Frankfurt und Leipzig, 1765).
Anonymous trans. in The Academy Collection o f Swedenborg Documents, no. 913.
Anonymous. Notice of Emanuel Swedenborg, Apocalvpsis Revelata. Neue Critische
Nachrichten 3 (Griefswaid, 1767):320. Anonymous trans. in The Academy
Collection of Swedenborg Documents, no. 965.
Anonymous. Notice o f [Emanuel Swedenborg], Doctrina Novae Hierosolvmae

de Domino. Svenske Mercurius (Stockholm. February 1765V167-9 Anonymous
trans. in The Academy Collection of Swedenborg Documents, no. 896.
Anonymous. Notice o f Swedenborg's Theological Works. Svenske Mercurius

(Stockholm, January 1764):73-4. Anonymous trans. in The Academy Collection of
Swedenborg Documents, no. 883.
Anonymous. Notice of Swedenborg's Theological Works. Svenske Mercurius

(Stockholm, August 1764):651. Anonymous trans. in The Academy Collection of
Swedenborg Documents, no. 889.
Anonymous. Notice o f Swedenborg's Travels. Svenska M agazinet (Stockholm , Fehm ary

1766): 132. Anonymous trans. in The Academy Collection of Swedenborg
Documents, no. 911.11.
Anonymous. Review of Heinrich Wilhelm Clemm, Vollstandiee Einleitune in die Religion

und gesammte Theoloeie 4 (Tubingen: Johann Georg Cotta, 1767). Gottineische
Anzeigen von eelehrten Sachen (Gottingen. January 1768):57-6l. Trans. Ernest
Pfeiffer in The Academy Collection of Swedenborg Documents, no. 981.
Anonymous. Review o f Friedrich Christoph Oetinger, Swedenborgs und Anderer
irrdische und himmliche Philosophic: zur Priifung des Besten. Gottineische Anzeigen
von eelehrten Sachen (Gottingen. March I766):20l-I0.

irrdische und himmliche Philosophic: zur Priifung des Besten. vol. 1. Erlaneische
Gelehrte Anmerkuneen (Erlangen. 1765):57.

irrdische und himmliche Philosophic: zur Priifung des Besten. vol. 2. Erlaneische
Gelehrte Anmerkungen (Erlangen. 1766):57-60.
Anonymous. Review o f Friedrich Christoph Oetinger, Swedenborgs und Andererirrdische

und himmliche Philosophic: zur Prufimg des Besten ans Licht gestellt. vol. 2. Svenska
Magaanet (Stockholm, August 1766):614-16.
Anonymous. Review o f [Emanuel Swedenborg], Arcana Coelestia. Neue Zeituneen von

Gelehrten Sachen (Leipzig, May 1750):313-16. Trans. Ernst Pfeiffer in The Academy
Collection of Swedenborg Documents, no. 759.11.
Anonymous. Review o f Emanuel Swedenborg. Apocalvpsis Revelata. Journal des
Scavans (Amsterdam, October 1766) 404-5. Anonymous trans. in The Academy
Collection of Swedenborg Documents, no. 932.11.
Anonymous. Review o f [Emanuel Swedenborg], Doctrina Novae Hierosolvmae de

Domino Journal de Scavans (Amsterdam. October 17641:528-33. Anonymous trans.
in The Academy Collection of Swedenborg Documents, no. 890.
Anonymous. Review o f [Emanuel Swedenborg], Doctrina Novae
Hierosolvmae de Domino. Doctrina Novae Hierosolvmae de Fide. Doctrina Novae
Hierosolvmae de Scriptura Sacra. Doctrina Vita pro Nova Hierosolvma ex praeceptis
Decalogi. and Continuatio de Ultimo Judicio: et de Mundo spirituali. The Monthly
Review or Literary Journal 30 (London. 1764):573-5.
Anonymous. Review o f [Emanuel Swedenborg], Doctrina Novae Hierosolvmae de

Domino. Doctrina Novae Hierosolvmae de Fide. Doctrina Novae Hierosolvmae de
Scriptura Sacra. Doctrina Vita pro Nova Hierosolvma ex praeceptis Decalogi. and
Continuatio de Ultimo Judicio: et de Mundo spirituali. Bibliotheque de Sciences et
des Beaux Arts (The Hague, 1763):550-53. Trans. Beryl G. Briscoe in The Academy
Collection o f Swedenborg Documents, no. 874.
Anonymous. Review o f Emanuel Swedenborg, A Theosophic Lucubration on the Nature

of Influx, as it respects the Communication and Operations of Soul and Body. The
Monthly Review or Literary Journal 42 (London. 1770):445-9.
Anonymous. Review o f Emanuel Swedenborg, A Theosophic Lucubration on the Nature

of Influx, as it respects the Communication and Operations of Soul and Body. Journal
Encvclopedique 6 (Bouillon, August 1770): 143-5. Trans. Beryl G. Briscoe in The
Academy Co lection of Swedenborg Documents, no. 1346.11.
Bell, Reuben. "Swedenborg and the Kabbalah." Arcana 1, no. 4 (1995):22-32.
Bergquist, Lars. "Swedenborg and Heavenly Hermeneutics." Arcana 1, no. 3 (1995):30-

40.
Breymayer, Reinhard. "‘Elias Artista’: Johann Daniel Muller aus Wissenbach/Nassau, ein
kritischer Freund Swedenborgs, und seine Wirkung auf die schwabischen Pietesten
F.C. Oetinger and P.M. Hahn." Chloe 22 (1995):329-71.
Brock, Erland J. with E. Bruce Glenn, Carroll C. Odhner, J. Durban Odhner, Cynthia H.
Walker, and Jane K. Williams-Hogan, eds. Swedenborg and His Influence. Bryn
Athyn, PA: The Academy of the New Church, 1988.
Corbin, Henry. Swedenborg and Esoteric Islam. Trans. Leonard Fox. West Chester,
Pennsylvania: The Swedenborg Foundation, 1995.
De Quincey, Thomas. "A Manchester Swedenborgian and a Liverpool Literary Coterie."
In his Literary Reminiscences. In The Collected Writings o f Thomas de Ouincev. 14
vols. Vol. II. Ed. David Masson. London: A and C. Black, 1896.
Dingwall, E.J. Very Peculiar People: Portrait Studies on the Queer, the Abnormal, and
the Uncanny. New York: University Books, 1962.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Swedenborg: or, The Mystic." In his Representative Mea In
Essays and Lectures. Ed. Joel Porte. New York: The Library of America, 1993.
Ernesti, Johann August. Neue Theologische Bibliothek darinnen von den neuesten
315
theologischen Buchem und Schriften Nachiichten eegeben wird. 10 vols. Leipzig:
Breitkopf, 1760-1769.
__________. Review of Heinrich Wilhelm Clemm, Vollstandiee Einleitung in die Religion

und gesammte Theoloeie 4 (Tubingen, 1767). Neue Theologische Bibliothek 8
(Leipzig: Breitkopf, 1767):860-92.
__________. Review of fEmanuel Swedenborg. 1 Apocalvpsis revelata. Neue

Theologische Bibliothek 6 (Leipzig: Breitkopf, 1765):685-92.
__________. Review off Emanuel Swedenborg. 1 Arcana coelestia. In Neue
Theologische Bibliothek 1 (Leipzig: Breitkopf 1760):515-27.
__________. Review of fEmanuel Swedenborg. 1 Doctrina novae Hierosolvmae. Neue

Theologische Bibliothek 4 fLeipzig: Breitkopf, 1763):725-33.
Formey, J.H.S. Souvenirs d'un citoven. 2 vols. Berlin, 1789. Excerpt on the Queen's
Secret. Trans. C. Vinet in The Academy Collection of Swedenborg Documents, no.
842.15.
Gabay, Al. "Alfred Deakin and Swedenborg: An Australian Experience." In Swedenborg
and His Influence. Ed. Erland J. Brock, E. Bruce Glenn, Carroll C. Odhner, J. Durban
Odhner, Cynthia H. Walker, and Jane K. Wtlliams-Hogan. Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania:
The Academy of the New Church, 1988.
__________. "Swedenborg, Mesmer, and the ‘Covert’ Enlightenment." The New

Philosophy 100 (1997) :619-90.
Garrett, Clarke. "Swedenborg and the Mystical Enlightenment in Late Eighteenth-

Century England." Journal o f the History of Ideas 24 (1984):67-81.
Gladish, Robert W. "Swedenborg Among the Nineteenth-Century Literarti." The New

Philosophy 76 (1973):498-510.
Goerwitz, Richard L. III. "Extraterrestrial Life: A Study of the Intellectual Context of

Emanuel Swedenborg's Earths in the Universe." The New Philosophy 88 (1985):417-
46, 477-85.
Gutekunst, Eberhard and Eberhard Zwink. Zum Himmelreich gelehrt. Friedrich Cristoph
Oetinger. 1702-1782: Wurttembergischer Pralat. Theosoph und Naturforscher.
Stuttgart: Wurttembergischen Landesbibliothek, 1982.
Hallengren, Anders. "Kabbalah, Qur’an, and the Crisis of Christianity." Arcana 1, no. 3
(1995):41-3.
Hite, Lewis F. "Materials for an Estimate of Swedenborg's Historical Position and

Influence." The New-Church Review 33 (19261:300-32.
__________. "Materials for an Estimate o f Swedenborg's Historical Position and

Influence, n." The New-Church Review 33 fl926L395-419.
. “Materials for an Estimate of Swedenborg’s Historical Position and
Intluence. m." The New-Church Review 34 (192Ti:31-51.
__________. "Materials for an Estimate of Swedenborg's Historical Position and

Influence. IV" The New-Church Review 34 ( 1927V167-90.
__________. "Some Testimonies to the Greatness of Swedenborg (II)." The

New-Church Review 34 (1927):413-36.
__________. "Swedenborg's Relation to Plato and Aristotle." The New Philosophy 35

(1932):74-81.
James, Henry, Sr. The Literary Remains of Henry James. Ed. William James. Boston.
James Osgood and Co., 1884.
__________. The Secret of Swedenborg: Being an Elucidation o f his Doctrine of the

Divine Natural Humanity. Boston: Fields, Osgood, and Company, 1869.
Jaspers, Karl. Strindberg and van Goeh: An Attempt at a Pathographic Analysis with
Reference to Parallel Cases of Swedenborg und Holderlin. Trans. Oskar Grunow and
David Woloshin. Tuscon: University of Arizona Press, 1977.
Lagercrantz, Olof. Vom Leben auf der anderen Seite: Ein Buch iiber Emanuel
Swedenborg. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1997.
Lamm, Martin. Emanuel Swedenborg: The Development o f His Thought. Trans. Tomas
Spiers and Anders Hallengren. West Chester, Pennsylvania: Swedenborg Foundation,
2000 .
Lewis, John. Advertisement (Announcement of Swedenborg's Arcana CoelestiaV

London: John Lewis, 1750. The Academy Collection of Swedenborg Documents, no.
756.
Morell, J.D. An Historical and Critical View of the Speculative Philosophy of Europe in
the Nineteenth Century. New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1854.
Nemitz, Kurt P. "Christian Wolff and Swedenborg." The New Philosophy 102
(January-June 1999):391-412.
__________. “The Development of Swedenborg’s Knowledge o f and Contact with

Wolff.” The New Philosophy 102 (July-December 1999):467-527.
__________. "The German Philosophers Leibniz and Wolff in Swedenborg's Philosophic

Development." The New Philosophy 97 (1994):411-25.
__________. "Leibniz and Swedenborg." The New Philosophy 94 (19911:445-87.
Nordenskiold, C.F. Considerations Generates sur le Christianisme Actuel. et la Lumiere.

que M. Emanuel Svedenborg repand sur les religions. Stockholm, 1819. Excerpt on
the Queen's Secret. Trans. B.G. Briscoe in The Academy Collection of Swedenborg
Documents, no. 845.16.
317
Odhner, C. Th. "Swedenborg and Emesti." New Church Life 32 (1912): 132-51, 196-
209.
Odhner, Cyriel Lj. "New Documents Concerning Swedenborg." New Church Life 36
(1916):95-102.
Odhner, Hugo Lj. "Christian Wolff and Swedenborg." The New Philosophy 54
(1951):237-51.
Oetinger, Friedrich Christoph. "Oetinger's Ten Points vindicating Swedenborg's

Doctrines." (A declaration to the Privy Council ofWurttemberg, 1767 or 1768.)
Trans. Rudolf L. Tafel. In Documents Concerning the Life and Character of Emanuel
Swedenborg. 3 vols. Ed. and trans. Rudolf L. Tafel. London: The Swedenborg
Society, 1875-77.
__________. Swedenborgs und Anderer irrdische und himmliche Philosophie: zur

Priifung des Besten. 2 vols. Frankfurt und Leipzig, 1765.
Penny, Stephen. Letter to John Lewis concerning the Arcana Coelestia. The Daily
Advertiser (London, December 25, 1749). The Academy Collection of Swedenborg
Documents, no. 747.
Potts, John Faulkner. The Swedenborg Concordance. 6 vols. London: The Swedenborg
Society, 1888-1902.
Schuchard, G.C.L. "The Last Scene in Goethe's Faust." The New Philosophy 85
(1 9 8 2 )3 1 -6 3 .
Schuchard, Marsha Keith. "Claims and Counter-Claims About Swedenborg and

Freemasonry." Unpublished ms.
__________. "Leibniz, Benzelius, and Swedenborg: The Cabbalistic Roots of Swedish

Illuminism." In L eibniz Mysticism, and Religion. Ed. Allison Coudert and Richard H.
Popkin. Boston: Kluwer, 1998.
__________. "The Secret Masonic History of Blake's Swedenborg Society." Blake: An

Illustrated Quarterly 2 6 (1 9 9 2 ):4 0 -8 .
__________. "Swedenborg, Jacobitism, and Freemasonry." In Swedenborg and His

Influence. Ed. Erland J. Brock, E. Bruce Glenn, Carroll C. Odhner, J. Durban
Odhner, Cynthia H. Walker, and Jane K. Williams-Hogan. Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania:
The Academy of the New Church, 1988.
__________. "Swedenborg's Travels: New Documents Raise New Questions." The

Swedenborg Society Annual R eport (1 9 9 7 ). London: The Swedenborg Society, 1998.
__________. "Why Mrs. Blake Cried: Swedenborg, Blake, and the Sexual Basis of
Spiritual Vision." Unpublished ms.
llg .
. “Yeats and the Unknown Superiors: Swedenborg, Falk, and Cagliostro." In
Secret Texts. Ed. Hugh Otmsby-Lennon and Marie Roberts. New York: AMS Press,
1995.
Sewall, Frank. "Descartes and Leibniz—How far they are Reflected in Swedenborg's
Philosophy." In his Swedenborg and Modern Idealism: A Retrospect of Philosophy
from Kant to the Present Time. London: James Speirs, 1902.
. "Emerson and Swedenborg." In his Swedenborg and Modem Idealism: A

Retrospect of Philosophy from Kant to the Present Time. London. James Speirs,
1902.
. "Jacobi and the Reason of Belief." In his Swedenborg and Modem

Idealism: A Retrospect of Philosophy from Kant to the Present Time. London: James
Speirs, 1902.
. "Progressive Phases of Idealism." In his Swedenborg and Modem

Speirs, 1902.
. "Swedenborg and Aristotle." In his Swedenborg and Modem Idealism: A

Retrospect of Philosophy from Kant to the Present Time. London: James Speirs,
1902.
. "Swedenborg and Modem Idealism." In his Swedenborg and Modem

Speirs, 1902.
. "Swedenborg on Life in Other Planets than Our Own." The New

Philosophy 14 (1911):83-100.
Stanley, Michael. Introduction to Emanuel Swedenborg, Essential Readings. London:

Crucible, 1988.
___________. "The Mystical Body of Christ." Arcana 1, no. 3 (1995):6-29.

Stroh, Alfred H. Catalogus Bibliothecae Emanuelis Swedenborgii. Holmiae: Ex Officina
Aftonbladet, 1907.
Tafel, Rudolf L., ed. and trans. Documents Concerning the Life and Character of
Emanuel Swedenborg. 3 vols. London: The Swedenborg Society, 1875-77.
Taylor, Eugene. "Emerson: The Swedenborgian and Transcendentalist Connection." In

Emanuel Swedenborg. A Continuing Vision. Ed. Robin Larsen, Stephen Larsen,
James F. Lawrence, and William Ross Woofenden. New York: Swedenborg
Foundation, 1988.
__________. "Jung in his Intellectual Context: The Swedenborgian Connection." Studia

Swedenborgiana 7 (l99l):47-69.
__________. “Peirce and Swedenborg.w Studia Swedenborgiana 6 fI986V25-5I.
__________. "Some Historic Implications of Swedenborg's Religious Psychology."

Studia Swedenborgiana 4 (l983):5-38.
__________. "Swedenborgian Roots o f American Pragmatism: The Case of D.T.

Suzuki." Studia Swedenborgiana 9 (1995V1-20.
__________. "Swedenborgianism." In America's Alternative Religions. Ed. Timothy

Miller. Albany: SUNY Press, 1995.
__________. "William James and Helen Keller." Studia Sw edenborgiana 4 (1981): 7-26
__________. William James on Consciousness Bevond the Margin. Princeton: Princeton

Tobisch, Othmar. "Lavater and Swedenborg." The New-Church Review 40 U933V21Q-
Van Dusen, Wilson. The Presence of Other Worlds: The

Psychological/Spiritual Findings of Emanuel Swedenborg. New York: Harper and
Row, 1974.
Woofenden, William Ross. Swedenborg Researcher's Manual: A Research Manual for

Writers of Academic Dissertations and for Other Scholars. Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania:
Swedenborg Scientific Association, 1988.
Other Works:
Aesop. Aesop's Fables. Trans. Thomas James. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, n.d.
Almeder, Robert. Death and Personal Survival: The Evidence for Life After
Death. Lanham, Maryland. Rowman and Littlefield, 1992.
Ariosto, Ludovico. Orlando Furioso. Trans. Allan H. Gilbert. New York: S.F. Vanni,
1954.
Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Trans. Hippocrates G. Apostle. Grinnell, LA: The

Peripatetic Press, 1984.
_________ . Problems. Trans. E.S. Forster. In The Complete Works of Aristotle. 2
vols. Ed. Jonathan Barnes. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.
Arkush, Allan. Moses Mendelssohn and the Enlightenment. Albany: SUNY Press, 1994.
Artemidorus. Artemidorus: The Interpretation of Dreams (OneirokritikaV Trans. Robert

J. White. Park Ridge, New Jersey: Noyes Press, 1975.
Babrius. Fables. In Babrius and Phaedrus. Ed. and trans. Ben Edwin Perry. Loeb
Classical Library. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965.
Bagley, Paul J. “On the Practice of Esotericism.” Journal of the History of Ideas 53
(l992):231-47.
Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb. Metaphvsica. Halle: Hemmerde, 1739.

Baumeister, Friedrich Christian. Philosophia definitiva. Wittenberg: Alfeldii, 1735.
Bayle, Pierre. Historical and Critical Dictionary of Mr. Peter Bavle. Ed. Burton Feldman.
5 vols. New York: Garland, 1984.
Beiser, Frederick C. Enlightenment Revolution, and Romanticism: The Genesis of
Modem German Political Thought. 1790-1800. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1992.
__________. The Fate o f Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1987.
__________. The Sovereignty of Reason: The Defense of Rationality in the Early English
Enlightenment. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.
Berlin, Isaiah. "The Counter-Enlightenment." In his Against the Current: Essavs in the
History of Ideas. Ed. Henry Hardy. New York: Viking, 1980.
__________. The Magus of the North: J.G. Hamann and the Origins of Modem
Irrationalism. Ed. Henry Hardy. London: John Murray, 1993.
Berman, David. “Deism, Immortality, and the Art of Theological Lying.” In Deism.
Masonry, and the Enlightenment: Essavs Honoring Alfred Owen Aldridge. Ed. J.A.
Leo Lemay. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1987.
Birtsch, Gunther. "The Berlin Wednesday Society." Trans. Arthur Hirsch. In What is
Enlightenment? Eighteenth-Centurv Answers and Twentieth-Centurv Questions. Ed.,
James Schmidt. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
Bradley, Francis Herbert. Appearance and Reality: A Metaphysical Essav. 2nd ed.
Oxford. Clarendon, 1897.
Brann, Eva T.H. "The Roots o f the Enlightenment." In The Ambiguous Legacy
of the Enlightenment. Ed. William A. Rusher with Ken Masugi. Lanham: University
Press o f America, 1995.
Brink, C.O. Horace on Poetry, vol. 2: Epistles Book II: The Letters to Augustus and
Florus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
Brunschwig, Henri. Enlightenment and Romanticism in Eighteenth-Centurv Prussia.

Trans. Frank Jellinek. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974.
Butler, Samuel. Hudibras. Ed. R. John Wilders. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967.
Cicero. De divinatione. Trans. William Armistead Falconer. Loeb Classical Library.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964.
__________. Tusculan Disputations. Trans. J.E. King. Loeb Ctassical Library.
Cambridge: Harvard Univeristy Press, 1927.
Coleiro, Edward. An Introduction to Virgil's Bucolics with a Critical Edition of the Text.
Amsterdam. Grtiner, 1979.
Comenius, Jan Amos. Qrbis Sensualium Pictus. Trans. Charles Hoole. London: Kirton,
1659.
Daries, Joachim Georg. Elements metaphvsica. Jena, 1743.

Deck, John N. Nature. Contemplation, and the One: A Study in the Philosophy of
Plotinus. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967.
Descartes, Treatise on Man. In The World and Other Writings. Ed. and trans. Stephen
Gaukroger. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Dick, Steven J. Plurality of Worlds: The Origins of the Extraterrestrial Life Debate from
Democritus to Kant. Cambridge: Cambridge Uniersity Press, 1982.
Diogenes Laertius. Lives of the Eminent Philosophers. 2 vols. Rev. ed. Trans. R.D.
Hicks. Loeb Classical Library. Cambrige: Harvard University Press, 1931.
Du Prel, Carl. Philosophy of Mysticism. 2 vols. Trans. C.C. Massey. London: George
Redway, 1889. Reprint: New York, Amo Press, 1976.
Edwards, Paul, ed. The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 8 vols. New York: Macmillan,
1967.
Eisler, Rudolf. Worterbuch de Philosophischen Beeriffe. 4 vols. 2nd ed. Berlin. Ernst
Siegfried Mittler und Sohn, 1904.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Nature. In Essavs and Lectures. Ed. Joel Porte. New York:
The Library of America, 1983.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method. 2nd rev. ed. Trans. Joel Weinsheimer and
Donald G. Marshall. New York: Crossroad, 1989.
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Goethes Werke. 134 vols. Weimar: Hermann Bohlau,
1887-1912.
Gourevitch, Victor. “Rousseau on Providence.” In Literary Imagination. Ancient and

Modem: Essavs in Honor of David Grene. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1999.
Hamann, Johann Georg. Briefwechsel. 6 vols. Ed. Walther Ziesemer and Arthur Henkel.
Wiesbaden: InseL, 195-75.
__________ . Hamanns Schriften. 8 vols. Ed. Friedrich Roth (vols. 1-7) and G.A.
Weiner (vol. 8). Berlin: Reimer, 1821-43.
. Samtliche Werke: Historische-Kritische Auseabe. 6 vc^s. Ed. Josef Nadler.
Vienna: Herder, 1949-57.
__________. Socratic Memorabilia. Trans. James C. O'Flaherty. Baltimore: Johns

Hopkins, 1967.
Hansche, Gottlob. Godefridi Guilelmi Leibnitti Principia philosophia more geometrico

demonstrata. Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1728.
Hartle, Ann. The Modem Self in Rousseau’s Confessions: A Reply to St. Augustine.
Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983.
Hassing, Richard. "Animals Versus the Laws of Inertia." The Review of
Metaphysics 46 (1992):29-61.
__________. "Wholes, Parts, and Laws of Motion." Nature and System 6 U 984V195-
215.
Hegel, G.W.F. The Encyclopaedia Logic. Trans. T.F. Geraets, W.A. Suchting, and H.S.
Harris. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1991.
Heracleitus. Fragments. Trans. T.M. Robinson. Toronto: University of Toronto, 1987.
Hibbert, Julian. “On the Supposed Necessity of Deceiving the Vulgar.” The Library of
Reason, no. 4 (1851): 1-7.
Hobbes, Thomas. The Elements of Law. Natural and Politic. Ed. J.C.A. Gaskin. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1994.
Horace. The Complete Works of Horace. Ed. Casper J. Kraemer, Jr. New York:
Modem Library, 1936.
Huizinga, J.H. Rousseau: The Self-Made Saint. New York: Viking, 1976.
Johnson, Gregory R. "Esotericism and Contemporary Hermeneutics." Unpublished ms.
_________. "Rousseau, Kant, and the Theodicy of the Human World," in The Cultural
Turn: Essavs in Honor of Donald Phillip Verene. Ed. Glenn Alexander Magee
(forthcoming).
Johnson, Paul. Intellectuals. New York: Harper and Row, 1988.
Kojeve, Alexandre. "Christianity and Communism." Trans. Hugh Gillis. Interpretation

A Journal of Political Philosophy 19 (1991-92): 192-95.
La Fontaine. The Fables of La Fontaine. Trans. Marianne Moore. New York: The
Viking Press, 1964.
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm Freiherr. New Essavs Concerning Human Understanding
Trans. Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett. Cambridge: Cambrige University
Press, 1981.
__________. Philosophical Papers and Letters. Ed. and trans. Leroy E. Loemker. 2nd
ed. Boston: Kluwer, 1969.
__________. Philosophical Writings. Ed. G.H.R. Parkinson. Trans. Mary Morris and
G.H.R Parkinson. London: J.M. Dent, 1973.
__________. Philosophical Essavs. Ed. and trans. Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber.
Indianapolis: Hackett, 1989.
__________. Selections. Ed. and trans. Philip P. Wiener. New York: Charles Scribner’s
Sons, 1951.
__________. Theodicy: Essavs on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man.

and the Origin of Evil. Trans. E.M. Huggard. La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1985.
Loemker, Leroy. The Struggle for Synthesis: The Seventeenth Century Background of
Leibniz’s Synthesis of Order and Freedom. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1972.
Malebranche, Nicolas. The Search after Truth. Trans. Thomas M. Lennon and Paul J.
Olscamp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
__________. Treatise on Nature and Grace. Trans. Patrick Riley. Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1992.
Maritain, Jacques. Distinguish to Unite, or The Degrees of Knowledge. Trans. Gerald B.

Phelan, et. al. Ed. Ralph Mclnemy. The Collected Works o f Jacques Maritain. vol.
7. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995.
Meyer, R.W. Leibnitz and the Seventeenth Century Revolution. Trans. J.P. Stem.
Cambridge, England: Bowes and Bowes, 1952.
Milton, John. Paradise Lost. In his Complete Poems and Major Prose. Ed. Merrit Y.
Hughes. Indianapolis. The Odyssey Press, 1957.
Neiman, Susan. “Metaphysics, Philosophy: Rousseau on the Problem of Evil.” In

Reclaiming the History o f Ethics: Essavs for John Rawls. Ed. Andrews Reath,
Barbara Herman, and Christine M. Korsgaard. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1997.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Portable Nietzsche. Ed. and trans. Walter Kaufmann. New
York: Penguin, 1959.
Oetinger, Friedrich Christoph. Inquisitio in sensum communem et rationem . . . Tubingen.

Johann Christoph Loffler, 1753.
__________. Die Wahrheit des sensus communis oder des allgemeinen Sinnes .. .
Stuttgart: Johann Nicolaus Stoll, 1754.
O'Neill, Eileen. "Influxus Phvsicus.1* In Causation in Early Modern Philosophy:

Cartesianism. Occasionalism, and Preestablished Harmony. Ed. Steven Nadler.
University Park: Penn State Press, 1993.
Ovid. The Metamorphoses of Ovid. Trans. Allen Mandelbaum. New York: Harcourt Brace,
1993.
Phaedrus. Fables. In Babrius and Phaedrus. Ed. and trans. Ben Edwin Perry. Loeb
Classical Library. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965.
Philostratus. The Life o f Apollonius of Tvana. 2 vols. Trans. F.C. Conybeare. Loeb
Classical Library. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1922. University Press,
1959.
Plotinus. Ennead IV. 7, On the Immortality of the Soul. In The Enneads. Trans. Stephen
MacKenna. Burdett, NY: Larson Publications, 1992.
Popkin, Richard H. The History of Skepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza. Berkeley:

University o f California Press, 1979.
Riley, Patrick. The General Will Before Rousseau: The Transformation of the Divine into
the Civic. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986.
Ritter, Joachim and Karlfried Griinder, eds. Historisches Worterbuch der Philosophic. 10
vols. Basel: Schwabe& Co., AG, 1992.
Roberts, Michael. British Diplomacy and Swedish Politics. 1758-1773. Minneapolis:

Minnesota University Press, 1980.
Rosenroth, Christian Knorr von, ed. Kabbala denudata. seu doctrine Hebraeorum
transcendentalis et metaphysics atque theologica. Opus antiquissimae philosophiae
barbaricae variis speciminibus refertissimum . . . 2 vols Sulzback and Frankfurt, 1677.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Discourse on the Sciences and Arts Trans. Judith R. Bush and
Roger D. Masters. In The Collected Writings of Rousseau. Vol. 2. Ed. Roger D.
Masters and Christopher Kelly. Hanover and London: Dartmouth College/University
Press of New England, 1992.
__________ . Emile, or On Education. Trans. Allan Bloom. New York: Basic Books,
1979.
__________ . Letter to Voltaire, August 18, 1756. Trans. Terence E. Marshall. In The
Collected Writings of Rousseau. Vol. 3. Ed. Roger D. Masters and Christopher
Kelly. Hanover and London: Dartmouth College/University Press of New England,
1992.
Schaeffer, John D. Sensus Communis: Vico. Rhetoric, and the Limits of Relativism.
Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1990.
Schiller, Friedrich. "On Naive and Sentimental Poetry." Trans. Daniel O. Dahlstrom. In
Friedrich Schiller, Essays. Ed. Walter Hinderer and Daniel O. Dahlstrom. New York:
Continuum, 1993.
Schmidt, James, ed. What is Enlightenment? Eighteenth-Centurv Answers and Twentieth-
Centurv Questions Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1996.
Schopenhauer, Arthur. “Sketch of a History o f the Doctrine of the Ideal and the Real.”
In his Parerea and Paralipomena: Short Philosophical Essavs. 2 vols. Trans. E.F.J.
Payne. Oxford. Clarendon Press, 1974.
Scholem, Gershom G. Kabbalah. Jerusalem: Keter, 1974.
__________. Maior Trends in Jewish Mysticism. New York: Schocken, 1946.
__________. On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead: Basic Concents of the Kabbalah.
Trans. Joachim Neugroschel. New York: Schocken Books, 1991.
Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. Consolation of Helvia. In The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca.

Ed. and trans. Moses Hadas. New York: Norton, 1958.
Shaftesbury (Anthony Ashley Cooper). "Sensus Communis An Essay on the Freedom of

Wit and Humour." In his Characteristics of Men. Manners. Opinions. Times. 2 vols.
Ed. J.M. Robinson. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1964.
Stoeffler, F. Ernest. German Pietism During the Eighteenth Century. Leiden: E.J. Brill,
1973.
Strauss, Leo. "Exoteric Teaching." In The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism: An

Introduction to the Thought of Leo Strauss. Ed. Thomas L. Pangle. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1989.
__________. "On a Forgotten Kind of Writing." In his What is Political Philosophy?

And Other Studies. Chicago. University of Chicago Press, 1988.
__________. "Persecution and the Art of Writing." In his Presecution and the Art of
Writing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.
__________. Spinoza's Critique o f Religion. New York: Schocken Books, 1982.

Toland, John. “Clidophorus, or of the Exoteric and Esoteric Philosophy, that is, of the
External and Internal Doctrines of the Ancients: the one open and public,
accommodated to the popular Prejudices and the established Religions; the other
private and secret, wherein, to the few capable and discrete, was taught the TRUTH
stripped o f all disguises.” In his Tetradvmus. London, 1720.
__________. Pantheisticon: or the Form of Celebrating a Socratic Society. London,
van Dulmen, Richard. The Society of the Enlightenment: the Rise of the Middle Class and
Enlightenment Culture in Germany. Trans. Anthony Wiliams. New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1992.
Vico, Giovanni Battista. The New Science of Giambattista Vico. Trans. Thomas
Goddard Bergin and Max Harold Fisch. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1968.
Virgil. The Aeneid. Trans. Robert Fitzgerald. New York: Random House, 1981.
Voltaire. Candide. Trans, and ed. Robert M. Adams. New York: Norton, 1966.
Watson, Eric. “The Development o f Physical Influx in Early Eighteenth Century

Germany: Gottsched, Knutzen, and Crusius.” Review of Metaphysics 49 (1995): 295-
339.
Wilson, Margaret. "Descartes on the Origin o f Sensation." Philosophical Topics 19

(1991):293-323.
Wolff, Christian von. Psvchologia Rationalis. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1965.
327
Figure
X LIII.
The Soul of man. Amma homttu.
From Jan Amos Comenius, Orbis Sensualium Pictus. trans. Charles Hoole (London: Kirton,
1659), 8 8 -9 .

A Commentary On Kant's "Dreams of A Spirit-Seer" Johnson, Gregory Robert. - White Nationalisty PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

A Commentary On Kant's "Dreams of A Spirit-Seer" Johnson, Gregory Robert. - White Nationalisty PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

A Commentary On Kant's "Dreams of A Spirit-Seer" Johnson, Gregory Robert. - White Nationalisty PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

INFORMATION TO USERS

The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon th e quality of the

Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by

Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced

ProQuest Information and Learning

A Commentary on Kant’s Dreams of a Spirit-Seer

Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company

Richard L. Velkley, Ph.D., Directo

Riccardo Pozzo , Ph.D., Reader f

Robert Sokolowski, Ph.D., Reader

Gregory R. Johnson, Ph.D.

Director: Richard Velkley, Ph.D.

Kant’s Dreams o f a Spirit-Seer is usually interpreted as a skeptical-empiricist

on the development of Kant’s mature critical philosophy.

Chapter two comments on Kant’s earliest surviving discussion of Swedenborg,

dissimulates these facts in Dreams.

Swedenborgian metaphysics to a parody of the arguments of the "popular philosophers”

Conclusion surveys the whole argument.

Gregory Robert Johnson

All Rights Reserved

Chapter I: On the Interpretation of Dreams............................................................................. 6

Chapter 2. Kant's First Encounter with Swedenborg:

§ 1. The Importance of the Letter to Charlotte von Knobloch....................... 24

Chapter 4: "A Tangled Metaphysical Knot": Dreams 1.1........................................................ 83

§ 1. Prospectus of "The First Part, Which is Dogmatic"................................83

§ 1. Two Moral Phenomena........................................................................... 128

Chapter 7: The Epistemology o f Spiritual Influx:

§ 1. A Parody of Popular Philosophy.............................................................185

Chapter 9: "Theoretical Conclusion": Dreams 1.4................................................................ 211

§ 1. Beyond Dogmatism and Skepticism......................................................211

Chapter 10: "A Story": Dreams II. 1.....................................................................................227

§ 1. Overview of Dreams II, "The Second Part, which is Historical"...........227

Chapter 11: "Ecstatic Journey of an Enthusiast":

§ 1. Overview of Dreams II.2...................................................................... 241

§ 1. Impractical and Inconclusive................................................................. 267

[In Kant] we must distinguish between philosophical principles he was prepared to

1. Lewis White Beck, General Introduction to Kant's Latin Writings: Translations.

Grundsatzen abgehandelt (Konigsberg and Leipzig: Johann Friedrich Petersen, 1755), AK

2. The Received View and its Critics

Re-enforcement for this interpretation is provided by Kant in his letter to Mendelssohn of

Philosophers Leibniz and Wolff in Swedenborg’s Philosophic Development,” The New

45. Letter to Mendelssohn, April 8, 1766, AK 10:70; also in Kant, Philosophical

50. See Bibliography, 299-305, 308-9.

52. Beiser, "Kant's Intellectual Development: 1746-1781," Cambridge Companion to Kant

1. The Importance of the Letter to Charlotte von Knobloch

3. The Method of Kant’s Investigation ( f 2)

4. The Affair of the Queen's Secret (f 3)

The Danish officer's follow-up investigation consisted, first, of asking Count

S. The Investigations of Kant's English Friends ( f 3)

21. See J.F. Immanuel Tafel, Supplement zu Kants Biographie. 28-34.

. . . and my previously mentioned fiiend has promised to dispatch to me some of his

23. rEmanuel Swedenborg]. De Coelo et ejus mirabilibus. et de Inferno, ex auditis et visis

25. [Emanuel Swedenborg], Doctrina Novae Hierosolvmae de Domino (Amsterdam, 1763);

7. The Affair of the Lost Receipt (f f 4-5)

In order, gracious Fraulein, to give you a pair of confirmations

29. For other accounts, see Documents, no. 274, 634-46.

Kant's "Madame Harteville" is actually Madame de Marteville, wife of Count Louis de

30. Broad, 121.