Kant’s Critique of Mysticism:
(1) The Critical Dreams
Prof. Stephen
Palmquist, D.Phil. (Oxon)
Department of Religion
and Philosophy
Hong Kong
Baptist University
Human reason
was not given strong enough wings to part clouds so high above us, clouds which
withhold from our eyes the secrets of the other world.[1]
I. The Traditional
Myth
Kant's life is traditionally portrayed as falling into two
rather distinct parts. The period prior
to 1770 is the "pre-Critical" period, while that from 1770 onwards is
the "Critical" period. The
turning-point is placed in the year 1770 because it was in this year that Kant
published his Inaugural Dissertation (for his newly gained post of Professor
of Logic and Metaphysics at the University of Kînigsberg). In this work, entitled On the Form and
Principles of the Sensible and Intelligible World, he proposed for the
first time that space and time should be regarded as "forms of
intuition", which we human subjects read into experience, rather than as
self-subsisting attributes of nature, which we read off from the objects we
experience. The typical "textbook"
account of Kant's life
usually declares that the pre-Critical Kant was a Leibnizian dogmatist, trained
in the school of Wolffian rationalism, and was as much (or more) interested in
natural science as in philosophy, but that sometime around 1770 Kant was
suddenly "awakened" from his dogmatic slumbers by his reflection on
David Hume's philosophy.[2] Some commentators go so far as to say not
only that "Kant and Hume aim at the very same thing", but that "all
the specific doctrines of Kant's critical enterprise are intimately bound up
with Hume's influence on Kant."[3]
Although it is difficult to determine the exact nature and date
of this dramatic awakening, there is no doubt that Kant was familiar with
Hume's ideas by the early 1760s, because in 1766 he published a book in which,
so the story goes, he adopts Hume's standpoint almost completely.[4] This book, entitled Dreams of a
Spirit-Seer, Illustrated by Dreams of Metaphysics, is typically interpreted
(when it is mentioned at all in accounts of Kant's writings) as a minor work of
an exceedingly sceptical nature which is of relatively little importance in
understanding Kant's mature thought. It
is, at best, a stage which he passed out of as quickly as he passed into it,
and at worst, an embarrassment for Kant and Kant-scholars alike. The embarrassment could come not only as a
result of the rather unorthodox subject-matter (visions and other mystical
experiences), but because of the flippant attitude which Kant adopts from time
to time throughout the book [see note 12].
This tradition, in my judgment, contains at least as much myth
as truth. While it is true that Kant
never mentions his mature theory of the transcendental ideality of space and
time before 1770, it is not true that he owes the theory to Hume (whose theory
of space and time bears little resemblance to Kant's). Nor is it legitimate to equate this doctrine
(expounded in its official form in the Aesthetic of the first Critique)
with the term "Critical", as is implied by the dating of the Critical
period from 1770. On the contrary, Kant
associates his "new method of thought, namely, that we can know a
priori of things only what we ourselves put into them", not with the Critical
method, but with his new "Copernican" insight, which he believed
would enable him to revolutionize philosophy [CPR xvi-xviii]. His description and use of criticism
as a philosophical method is quite distinct from its application to problems
in metaphysics by means of the "Copernican hypothesis". Thus, when Kant gave instructions to the
editor of his minor writings to ignore all those written before 1770,[5] he
was not defining the starting point of his Critical method, but rather that
of his use of the Copernican hypothesis. If labels must be given to the periods before
and after 1770, they should therefore be referred to as Kant's
"pre-Copernican" and "post-Copernican" periods.
Before we proceed it is crucial to have a thorough understanding
of Kant's mature conception of "criticism" or "critique"
(i.e. Kritik), as it is elaborated in CPR. In the first edition Preface, Kant describes
his "age" (i.e. the Enlightenment) as "the age of
criticism", during which reason accords "sincere respect...only to
that which has been able to sustain the test of free and open examination"
[CPR Axin]. This "habit of
thought" can be trusted, however, only if it also submits to its own
"tribunal" of criticism [Axi-xii].
Thus "the subject-matter of our critical enquiry" (i.e. of the
entire Critical System) is reason itself [Axiv], and its "first
task" is "to discover the sources and conditions of the possibility
of such criticism" [Axxi]. This
means that the questions addressed to reason cannot be answered by means of
a dogmatic
and visionary insistence upon knowledge...that can be catered for only
through magical devices, in which I am no adept. Such ways of answering them are, indeed, not
within the intention of the natural constitution of our reason; and...it is the
duty of philosophy to counteract their deceptive influence, no matter what
prized and cherished dreams may have to be disowned.[6]
Instead, only by first
examining "the very nature of knowledge itself" can we answer
reason's questions in such a way that will provide solutions to the problems
of metaphysics [Axiii-xiv].
In the second edition Preface Kant not only describes more fully
the subject-matter of the particular type of critique he plans to engage in,
but also explains more clearly the nature of the Critical method. Metaphysics will be "purified by
criticism and established once for all":
the purification is "merely negative, warning us that we
must never venture with speculative reason beyond the limits of
experience"; but the establishment is positive inasmuch as it
"removes an obstacle which stands in the way of the employment of
practical reason" [CPR xxiv-xxv]. In other words, the scope of
reason's speculative (i.e. theoretical) employment is narrowed by tying it to
sensibility, but this frees metaphysics to be established on the firmer
foundation of reason's practical employment--i.e. on morality
[xxv]. The Critical method, therefore,
is intended to establish limits, but to do so for both negative and positive
purposes. The former can be seen when
Kant refers to "our critical distinction between two modes of
representation, the sensible and the intellectual" and immediately adds
"and of the resulting limitation...";[7] likewise,
he argues that non-contradictory doctrines of freedom and morality are
"possible only in so far as criticism...has limited all that we can
theoretically know to mere appearances" [xxix]. The positive benefit of such limitations is
that they enable us to avoid "dogmatism" (defined here as "the
preconception that it is possible to make headway in metaphysics without a
previous criticism of pure reason"), which "is the source of all
that [sceptical] unbelief...which wars against morality" [xxx]. Indeed, Kant goes so far as to say that
"all objections to morality and religion will be for ever silenced"
[xxxi], because his critique will "sever the root of materialism,
fatalism, atheism, free-thinking, fanaticism, and superstition...as
well as of idealism and scepticism" [xxxiv].
Throughout the rest of CPR Kant repeats many of these
same claims about the nature of criticism in its special, philosophical
form. In most of their occurrences the
words "critical", "criticism" and "critique" are used
in close connection with some mention of the limitations of knowledge.[8] The only interesting exception is that on
several occasions he adds that criticism serves as a middle way between
the opposite extremes of dogmatism and scepticism [CPR 22-23,A388-389,
784-785,789,797]. Indeed, this
epitomizes Kant's association of the Critical method with synthesis,
which he claims always takes the trichotomous form of "(1) a condition,
(2) a conditioned, (3) the concept arising from the union of the conditioned
with its condition"[9] And of course, the most basic example of his
use of this type of distinction is his division of the Critical System into
three Critiques.
This brief analysis of Kant's understanding of his Critical
method reveals that he never associates it directly with the Copernican hypothesis,
but instead, with several key distinctions.
The Critical method is, for Kant, the method of striking a middle way
between two extremes ("a third step", as he calls it in CPR
789 [see also 177,194,196,264, 315,760-61,794]). It operates by trying to locate limits
between what can be known (and proved) and what can never be known (yet
remains possible)--the boundary line being defined in terms of "the
limits of all possible experience" [e.g. 121]. Thus it is closely associated with "the
distinction between the transcendental and the empirical" [81], as well
as with that between speculative (theoretical) and practical (moral)
employments of reason, or perspectives.[10] Although certain apparently sceptical claims
have to be made on the way, the ultimate purpose of criticism for Kant is positive: to lead to the foundation of metaphysics upon
solid (non-speculative, moral) grounds.
A careful reading of Kant's works reveals that traces of this
Critical way of doing philosophy are evident throughout most of his works,
from the earliest essays on metaphysics and natural philosophy to the latest
essays on history, religion, and other subjects.[11] Indeed, it is the fact that he used this
method to develop and expound the implications of his Copernican hypothesis
that gives lasting value to the theories which arise out of it, and not vice
versa. In this paper, however, I will
not attempt to provide a thoroughgoing proof of the ubiquity of the Critical
method in Kant's writings. Instead I
will concentrate on what I believe is the most neglected (and/or misunderstood)
book in the corpus of Kant's writings, namely the above-mentioned Dreams. In the next section I will sketch the
contents of this book, after which (in section III) I will draw attention to
its Critical character and discuss its role in Kant's discovery of the
Copernican hypothesis. Finally, I will
make some brief suggestions in section IV as to the relation between Dreams
and the Critical System itself. This
will lead directly to the sequel to this paper [see note 6], in which I will
consider in more detail the nature of Kant's "Critical mysticism",
which was envisaged first in Dreams and was to be brought to full
fruition in Kant's last work (known as Opus Postumum).
II. Kant's Criticism
of Mystical Dreams
In Dreams Kant examines the mystical visions of a Swedish
writer and scientist (sometimes regarded as the founder of crystallography)
named Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) and compares the dangers of fanatical
mysticism to those of speculative metaphysics.
This work, as we have seen, is traditionally interpreted as evidence of
a radically "empiricist" stage in Kant's development, where he is
supposedly adopting a kind of Humean position. But his actual intention, as we
shall see, is to encourage a Critical attitude: while he comes down hard on the misuse of
reason by spirit-seers and metaphysicians when they regard their respective
dreams "as a source of knowledge" [see "PIA" 146], he expresses
quite clearly his own dream that a properly balanced approach to both
mysticism and metaphysics would someday emerge.
A detailed examination of Dreams
can therefore provide some helpful clues as to Kant's motivations for
constructing the Critical philosophy itself.
The mystical experiences considered in Dreams are not
experiences of the presence of God (i.e. "of infinite spirit which is
originator and preserver of the universe" [Dreams 321n(44n)]), but
experiences of lower spiritual beings, who are supposed to be able to
communicate with earthly beings in visions and apparitions. Although Kant ridicules those who have such
experiences at several points in Dreams, he reveals his true attitude
towards such experiences in two important letters. In a letter to Charlotte von
Knoblock (dated 10 August, probably 1763) he admits he "always considered
it to be most in agreement with sound reason to incline to the negative
side..., until the report concerning Swedenborg came to my notice."[12] After recounting several impressive stories,
Kant tells how Swedenborg was once able to describe in precise detail a fire
which "had just broken out in Stockholm", even though he was fifty
miles away in Gottenburg ["PIA" 158].
He says this "occurrence appears to me to have the greatest weight
of proof, and to place the assertion respecting Swedenborg's extraordinary gift
beyond all possibility of doubt." In a subsequent letter (8 April 1766) to
Mendelssohn [quoted in "PIA" 162] Kant explains that he clothed his
thoughts in ridicule in Dreams in order to avoid being ridiculed by
other philosophers for paying attention to mystical visions (hardly taken
seriously by most philosophers in the Enlightenment [see Dreams
353-4(91-2)]). He admits that
the attitude
of my own mind is inconsistent and, so far as these stories are concerned, I
cannot help having a slight inclination for things of this kind, and indeed, as
regards their reasonableness, I cannot help cherishing an opinion that there
is some validity in these experiences in spite of all the absurdities
involved in the stories about them...
Elsewhere in the same
letter he draws a Critical conclusion:
"Neither the possibility nor the impossibility of this kind of
thing can be proved, and if someone attacked Swedenborg's dreams as
impossible, I should undertake to defend them."[13] Clearly, Kant believed something significant
is happening in such experiences--significant enough to merit a comparison with
the tasks of metaphysics, to which he admits to being hopelessly "in
love" [Dreams 367(112); cf. CPR 878]. The problem this set for him was to describe
"just what kind of a thing that is a- bout which these people think they
understand so much" [Dreams 319(41)].
In the Preface to Dreams Kant hints at the Critical nature
of his inquiry by asking two opposing questions, but offering a "third way
out": he asks (1) "Shall [the
philosopher] wholly deny the truth of all the apparitions [eye-witnesses] tell
about?"; or (2) "Shall he, on the other hand, admit even one of these
stories?"; and he answers that (3) the philosopher should "hold on to
the useful" [Dreams 317-8(38)]. The treatise itself consists of seven
chapters, grouped in two parts: Part One
contains four "dogmatic" chapters and Part Two contains three
"historical" chapters. The
correspondence between these two parts and the Critical System he was soon to
begin elaborating is evident by the fact that Part One ends with a chapter on
"Theoretical Conclusions" and Part Two ends with a chapter on
"Practical Conclusions" [348(85),368 (115)], thus foreshadowing the
division between the first and second Critiques.
The theoretical part begins in Chapter One, under the heading
"A complicated metaphysical knot which can be untied or cut according to
choice" [Dreams 319(41)], with a discussion of what a spirit
is or might be. Kant confesses in Dreams
320(42):
I do not
know if there are spirits, yea, what is more, I do not even know what the word
"spirit" signifies. But, as I
have often used it myself, and have heard others using it, something must be
understood by it, be this something mere fancy or reality.
To this rather
Wittgensteinian remark he adds that "the conception of spiritual nature
cannot be drawn from experience", though its "hidden sense" can
be drawn "out of its obscurity through a comparison of sundry cases of
application" [320n(42-3n)]. He then
argues that a spirit must be conceived as a simple, immaterial being,
possessing reason as an internal quality [320-1(43-5)]. After considering some of the difficulties
associated with this concept, he adopts an entirely Critical position: "The possibility of the existence
of immaterial beings can...be supposed without fear of its being disproved, but
also without hope of proving it by reason" [323(46-7), emphasis
added]. If it is assumed "that the
soul of man is a spirit", even though this cannot be proved, then the
problem arises as to how it is connected with the body [324-5(48-9)]. Kant rejects the Cartesian focus on a
mechanism in the brain in favor of "common experience":[14]
Nobody...is
conscious of occupying a separate place in his body, but only of that place
which he occupies as a man in regard to the world around him. I would, therefore, keep to common
experience, and would say, provisionally, where I sense, there I am. I am just as immediately in the tips of my
fingers, as in my head. It is myself
who suffers in the heel and whose heart beats in affection.
The chapter concludes
with the confession "that I am very much inclined to assert the existence
of immaterial natures in the world, and to put my soul into that class of
beings" [327(52)]. Although he
concedes that the various questions concerned with such a belief are
"above my intelligence" [328(54)], he does suggest in Dreams
327n(52-3n) that "Whatever in the world contains a principle of life,
seems to be of immaterial nature. For all life rests on the inner capacity
[cf. freedom in the second Critique] to determine one's self by one's
own will power."
After confirming the metaphysical possibility of (and his
personal belief in) spirits, Kant presents in Chapter Two "a fragment of
secret philosophy aiming to establish communion with the spirit-world" [Dreams
329(55)]. He begins by positing an "immaterial world" which is
conceived "as a great whole, an immeasurable but unknown gradation of
beings and active natures by which alone the dead matter of the corporeal world
is endued with life."[15]
As a member of both the material and the immaterial world, a human being
"forms a personal unit" [332(60)]. Kant conjectures that purely
immaterial beings may "flow into the souls of men as into beings of their
own nature, and...are actually at all times in mutual intercourse with
them", though the results of such intercourse cannot ordinarily "be
communicated to the other purely spiritual beings", nor "be
transferred into the consciousness of men" [333(61)]. As evidence for such a communion of spirits,
Kant examines the nature of morality.
Using one of his favorite geometrical metaphors (that of intersecting
lines), he says in Dreams 334-5(63):
"The point to which the lines of direction of our impulses converge
is...not only in ourselves, but...in the will of others outside of
ourselves." The fact that our
actions are motivated not only by selfishness, but also by duty and
benevolence, reveals that "we are dependent upon the rule of the will
of all" [335(64)]; and "the sensation of this
dependence"--i.e. our "sense of morality"--suggests that
"the community of all thinking beings" is governed by "a moral
unity, and a systematic constitution according to purely spiritual
laws." Thus, "because the
morality of an action concerns the inner state of the spirit", its effect
can be fully realized not in the empirical world, but "only in the
immediate communion of spirits" [336(65)].
In reply to the possible objection that, given this view of the
spirit-world, "the scarcity of apparitions" seems
"extraordinary", Kant stresses that "the conceptions of the one
world are not ideas associated with those of the other world"; so even if
we have a "clear and perspicuous" spiritual conception, this cannot
be regarded as "an object of actual [i.e. material] sight and
experience."[16] However, he freely admits that a person,
being both material and immaterial, can become
conscious of
the influences of the spirit-world even in this life. For spiritual ideas...stir up those pictures
which are related to them and awake analogous ideas of our senses. These, it is true, would not be spiritual
conceptions themselves, but yet their symbols.... Thus it is not improbable that spiritual
sensations can pass over into consciousness if they act upon correlated ideas
of the senses. [338-9(69-70)]
Even "our higher
concepts of reason" need to "clothe themselves" in, "as it
were, a bodily garment to make themselves clear", as when "the geometrician
represents time by a line" [339(69-70)].
An actual apparition, which might "indicate a disease, because it
presupposes an altered balance of the nerves", is unusual because it is
based not on a simple analogy, but on "a delusion of the
imagination", in which "a true spiritual influence" is
perceived in imagined "pictures...which assume the appearance of
sensations" [340(71)]. Kant warns
that in an apparition "delusion is mingled with truth", so it tends
to deceive "in spite of the fact that such chimeras may be based upon a
true spiritual influence" [340(71-2), emphasis added].
In truly Critical fashion Kant now adopts the opposite
perspective in Chapter Three, in which he presents an
"Antikabala"--that is, "a fragment of common philosophy aiming
to abolish communion with the spirit-world" [Dreams 342(74)]. Here Kant first states the analogy between
metaphysicians ("reason-dreamers") and visionaries
("sensation-dreamers"): in
both cases the dreamer imagines a private world "which no other healthy
man sees", yet "both are self-created pictures which nevertheless
deceive the senses as if they were true objects" [342-3(75)]. In order to help such dreamers "wake up,
i.e., open their eyes to such a view as does not exclude conformity with
other people's common sense" [342(74)], he proposes an alternative
description of what is happening in an apparition. The problem is to explain how
visionaries "place the phantoms of their imagination outside of
themselves, and even put them in relation to their body, which they sense
through their external senses" [343-4(77)]. He suggests that in external sensation
"our soul locates the perceived object at the point where the different
lines, indicating the direction of the impression, meet", whereas in a
vision this "focus imaginarius" is located not outside of the
body but "inside of the brain" [344-5(77-9)]. The difference between the fantasy of a sane
person [see 346n(81n)] and the delusions of an insane person is that only the
latter "places mere objects of his imagination outside of himself, and
considers them to be real and present objects" [346(80)]. So "the disease of the visionary
concerns not so much the reason, as a deception of the senses" [347(82)].
Kant concludes that this simpler interpretation "renders entirely
superfluous the deep conjectures of the preceding chapter... Indeed, from this
perspective, there was no need of going back as far as to metaphysics".[17]
The fourth and final chapter of Part One presents the
"theoretical conclusion from the whole of the consideration of the first
part" [Dreams 348(85)]. Kant
begins with a penetrating description of his own method of philosophizing (i.e.
the Critical method), according to which "the partiality of the scales of
reason" is always checked by letting "the merchandise and the weights
exchange pans" [348-9(85)]. He uses
this analogy between reason and commercial scales to make two points. First, it suggests the importance of being
willing to give up all prejudices:
I now have
nothing at heart; nothing is venerable to me but what enters by the path of
sincerity into a quiet mind open to all reasons... Whenever I meet with something instructive, I
appropriate it.... Formerly, I viewed
common sense only from the standpoint of my own; now I put myself into the
position of a foreign reason outside myself, and observe my judgments,
together with their most secret causes, from the standpoint of others.
[349(85-6)]
Kant's exposition in Dreams
exemplifies this Critical (perspectival) shift by opposing the merchandise of
his own prejudices concerning the spirit-world (Chapter Two) with the dead
weight of a reductionist explanation (Chapter Three). The second point of the analogy is, however,
the crucial one: we must recognize that
"The scale of reason is not quite impartial" and so move the
merchandise from the speculative pan to the pan "bearing the inscription
'Hope of the Future'" (i.e. from the standpoint of the first Critique
to that of the third), where "even those light reasons... outweigh the
speculations of greater weight on the other side" [Dreams
349(86)]. Here at the threshold of the
Critical System, then, Kant stresses the overriding importance of what I shall
call the "judicial" standpoint:[18] "This is the only inaccuracy [of the
scales of reason] which I cannot easily remove, and which, in fact, I never
want to remove" [349-50(86)].
On this basis Kant concludes that, even though "in the
scale of speculation they seem to consist of nothing but air", the dreams
of spirit-seers (and metaphysicians!) "have appreciable weight only in the
scale of hope" [Dreams 350(86-7)]. Even though he admits "that I do not
understand a single thing about the whole matter" of how the immaterial
can interact with the material, he claims "that this study...exhausts all
philosophical knowledge about [spiritual] beings...in the negative sense, by
fixing with assurance the limits of our knowledge" [349-50(88-9)]. The assumed spiritual principle of life
"can never be thought of in a positive way, because for this purpose no
data can be found in the whole of our sensations".[19] He is therefore constrained by ignorance to
"deny the truth of the various ghost stories", yet he maintains
"a certain faith in the whole of them taken together."[20] As I have argued elsewhere [see note 20],
this subordination of speculative knowledge to practical faith is the key to
the justification of Critical philosophy itself. Thus, when Kant concludes Part One by saying
that "this whole matter of spirits" will "not concern me any
more", because "I hope to be able to apply to better advantage my
small reasoning powers upon other subjects" [352(90)], he may have been
hinting that he was already beginning to formulate his plan for a Critical
System.
Having promised not to philosophize on spirits any longer, Kant
recounts in the first chapter of the second ("historical") part
three stories concerning the spiritual powers of Swedenborg, "the truth
of which the reader is recommended to investigate as he likes" [Dreams
353(91)]. He claims "absolute
indifference to the kind or unkind judgment of the reader", admitting that
in any case "stories of this kind will have...only secret believers, while
publicly they are rejected by the prevalent fashion of disbelief"
[353-4(92)].
In the second chapter of Part Two Kant provides a summary of Swedenborg's
own explanation of his "ecstatic journey through the world of
spirits" [Dreams 357(98)], and notes its similarity to "the
adventure which, in the foregoing [i.e. in Part One], we have undertaken in the
balloon of metaphysics" [360(102)].
The position Swedenborg develops "resembles so uncommonly the
philosophical creation of my own brain", Kant explains, that he feels the
need to "declare...that in regard to the alleged examples I mean no
joke" [359(100)]. To cover up his
own interest in Swedenborg's work, Kant ridicules his "hero" for writing
an eight-volume work "utterly empty of the last drop of reason"
[359-60(101)]--a good example of one of the occasional harsh or frivolous
statements which later embarrassed him [see note 13]. The extract turns out to be so close to the
views Kant had expounded in Chapter Two of Part One that he concludes his
summary by reassuring the reader that "I have not substituted my own
fancies for those of our author, but have offered his views in a faithful
extract to the comfortable and economic reader who does not care to sacrifice
seven pounds [more like seventy these days!] for a little curiosity"
[366(111)]. The chapter ends with an apology for leading the reader "by a
tiresome roundabout way to the same point of ignorance from which he
started", but adds that "I have wasted my time that I might gain
it. I have deceived the reader so that I
might be of use to him" [367-8(112-3)].
He confesses that "it is my fate to be in love" with
metaphysics, but insists that metaphysics as a rational inquiry "into the
hidden qualities of things" (i.e. speculative metaphysics) must be
clearly distinguished from "metaphysics [as] the science of the boundaries
of human reason" (i.e. Critical metaphysics):
Before...we
had flown on the butterfly-wings of metaphysics, and there conversed with
spiritual beings. Now...we find ourselves again on the ground of experience and
common sense. Happy, if we look at it as
the place allotted to us, which we can leave with impunity, and which contains
everything to satisfy us as long as we hold fast to the useful. [368(114)]
Far from indicating a
temporary conversion from dogmatic rationalism to sceptical empiricism, as is
usually assumed about Dreams, this passage, interpreted in its proper
context, clearly indicates that Kant already had a clear conception of the
Critical method, and was nurturing the seed which was to grow into his
complete philosophical System.
Any doubt about the Critical character of Dreams is
dispelled by the "practical conclusion from the whole treatise" given
in the final chapter of Part Two [368(115)].
Kant begins by distinguishing between what science can understand
to achieve knowledge and what reason needs to understand to
achieve wisdom--a distinction which pervades the entirety of his mature
System. By determining what is
impossible to know, science can establish "the limits set to human reason
by nature", so that "even metaphysics will become...the companion of
wisdom" [368(115-6)]. He then
introduces (what I have described as) the Principle of Perspective as the
guiding principle of this new way of philosophizing: once philosophy
"judges its own proceedings, and...knows not only objects, but their relation
to man's reason", thus establishing the perspective from which
the object is viewed, "then...the boundary stones are laid which in future
never allow investigation to wander beyond its proper district"
[368-9(116), emphasis added]. This is
followed by a warning against the failure to distinguish between philosophical
relations (i.e. those known by reflection) and "fundamental
relations" (i.e. those which "must be taken from experience
alone")--the distinction upon which all other Critical distinctions are
based [see "KE" 170-173]. That
he is here referring to immediate experience, and not to empirical knowledge,
is evident when he says "I know that will and understanding move my body,
but I can never reduce by analysis this phenomenon, as a simple [immediate]
experience, to another experience, and can, therefore, indeed recognize it,
but not understand it" [369(117)].
He reaffirms that our powers of reflection provide "good reason to
conceive of an incorporeal and constant being"; but because our immediate
experience as earthly beings relating to other earthly beings depends on
"corporeal laws", we can never know for certain what "spiritual"
laws would hold if we were "to think...without connection with a
body" [370-1(117-8)]. The possibility of establishing "new
fundamental relations of cause and effect"--i.e. of having an immediate
experience not of corporeal nature but of spiritual nature--"can
never...be ascertained"; the "creative genius or...chimera,
whichever you like to call it", which invents such spiritual (later called
noumenal) causality cannot establish knowledge (i.e. scientific
"proof") precisely because the "pretended experiences" are
not governed by corporeal (later called a priori) laws, which alone are
required to be "unanimously accepted by men" [371-2(118-9)].
This final chapter of Dreams ends with a concise (and
entirely Critical) explanation of the positive aspect of this otherwise
negative conclusion. The fact that
"philosophic knowledge is impossible in the case under consideration"
need cause no concern (neither for the metaphysician nor for the mystic) as
long as we recognize that "such knowledge is dispensable and
unnecessary", because reason does not need to know such things
[372(120)]. "The vanity of
science" fools us into believing that "a proof from experience of
the existence of such things" is required.
"But true wisdom is the companion of simplicity, and as, with the
latter, the heart rules the understanding, it generally renders unnecessary the
great preparations of scholars, and its aims do not need such means as can
never be at the command of all men."
The true philosophy, which Kant always believed would confirm common
sense, and therefore would be attainable for everyone (unlike a speculative
dependence on theoretical proofs or mystical apparitions, each available to
only a few individuals), should be based on "immediate moral
precepts"--that is, on a "moral faith" which "guides [the
"righteous soul"] to his true aims" [372-3(120-1)]. Thus he concludes [373(121)] by defending
the position later elaborated in his practical and religious systems, that it
is more appropriate "to base the expectation of a future world upon the
sentiment of a good soul, than, conversely, to base the soul's good conduct
upon the hope of another world."
III. Kant's Critical Dreams and Swedenborg's Copernican
Hypothesis
In the preceding section we have seen that all the main
characteristics of Kant's Critical method, together with anticipations of
several of his mature doctrines and distinctions, are present in Dreams. The method of choosing the middle path
between two extremes is exemplified by Kant's choice in the Preface to
"hold on to the useful", even though this is not exactly how
Kant later described his choice to steer critically between the extremes of
dogmatism and scepticism. The Critical
distinction between the theoretical and the practical, whose most obvious
application is to the distinction between the first two Critiques, is
foreshadowed by the conclusions to the two parts of Dreams, the first of
which is theoretical and the second, practical.
The attitude expressed in the first Chapter, that "spirits"
are theoretically possible, but can never be proved to exist, is reminiscent
of the standpoint adopted in the Dialectic of CPR, where all "ideas
of reason" are treated similarly.[21] Even the second Chapter, where Kant is letting
his metaphysical imagination run wild, contains an interesting parallel: Kant's suggestion that the inner state of
spirits is primarily important in its connection with morality is
completely consistent with his later decision to regard morality as the proper
foundation for metaphysics. (The same
point is emphasized in the last chapter, where the true basis for belief in
spirits is said to rest on morality rather than speculation.) And the scepticism Kant adopts in Chapter
Three is not unlike that which he sometimes adopts in the Dialectic of CPR
(in both cases as a temporary measure to guard against unwarranted speculation).[22] The
subordination of the theoretical (i.e. speculative) to the practical and
the judicial, which is hinted at by Kant's expressed preference for the
"useful", is forcefully emphasized by his reference to the
"scales of reason" in the fourth chapter. His use of this analogy to emphasize the
philosophical legitimacy of hope for the future in spite of our theoretical
ignorance clearly foreshadows both the third Critique and Kant's theory
of religion.[23] Throughout Part One, and again in the second
chapter of Part Two, Kant describes his new view of the sole theoretical task
of metaphysics in exactly the same terms as he would use some fifteen years
later in CPR: metaphysics is to
be first a negative science concerned with establishing the limits of
knowledge. And in the book's final
chapter we meet not only the distinction between immediate experience and
reflective knowledge, which is so crucial in Kant's Critical System [see
"KE" 170-173], but also the equally important notion that reason
does not need to have a theoretical understanding of mystical
experiences (or metaphysical propositions), as long as the common moral
awareness of all human beings is taken into consideration.
If Kant was in full possession of the Critical method by 1766,
why, it might be asked, did he take fifteen more years to write CPR? This is particularly perplexing in light of
the fact that after 1781 Kant published almost one major work per year
until 1798. On the traditional
explanation of Kant's development this problem is slightly less difficult,
because the "Critical awakening" is regarded as not happening until
the late 1760s or early 1770s [e.g. see note 4]. On this view Kant had a great deal of trouble
formulating his ideas for CPR, yet after it was completed he
suddenly realized the need for a second Critique, and after that,
the need for a third. However, the fact
that Kant could apply all the Critical tools in 1766 to write Dreams
makes it very difficult to believe that he would fumble around for fifteen more
years, and then suddenly turn into a prolific genius. Rather, it suggests that Kant may well have
wanted to have the plan for his entire philosophical System more or less
complete in his mind before even starting the long task of
committing it to paper. The need for a
fifteen year gap between Dreams and CPR, which included his long
"decade of silence", becomes more understandable if we regard Kant as
formulating in his mind during this time not just the first Critique,
but his entire System--though obviously, all the details concerning the precise
form it would take had not entirely crystallized by 1781.[24] The traditional view fails to take account of
the fact that writers do not always say everything they know about their plans
for future undertakings, and also ignores the importance of Kant's emphasis on
keeping to specific architectonic patterns.[25]
The one aspect of Kant's transcendental philosophy which is
conspicuously absent in Dreams is the cornerstone of the whole System,
the Copernican hypothesis (i.e. the assumption that objectivity is based
on a priori subjectivity, rather than vice versa). And this had begun to dawn on him by the time
he wrote his Inaugural Dissertation in 1770, in which time and space are
regarded as "forms of intuition" not inherent in the object
itself. Thus the crucial question
is: if "criticism" was the
original distinguishing character of Kant's life-long philosophical method,
what was the source of the sudden insight which he later called his
"Copernican" hypothesis? Copleston conjectures that the new insight
may have come as a result of his reading of the Clarke-Leibniz
Correspondence, newly published in 1768.[26] Others would cite Hume as responsible for all
such major changes in Kant's position [see e.g. note 3]. What has long been ignored in English
Kant-scholarship is the significant extent to which some of the details of the
Critical System, not the least of which is the Copernican hypothesis itself,
actually correspond to the ideas developed by Swedenborg. Kant himself acknowledges this correspondence
to some extent in Dreams, but claims that the ideas he presents as his
own were developed independently of his acquaintance with Swedenborg's writings
[Dreams 359(100),360(102), 366(111)].
However, the extent of the parallels between his subsequent
theories (especially those in his 1770 Inaugural Dissertation) and Swedenborg's
is sufficient to merit the assumption that, in spite of his ridicule in Dreams,
Kant actually adopted much of Swedenborg's "non-sense" into his own
thinking [see "PIA" ix,33]!
A good example of the similarity between Kant's mature views and
Swedenborg's ideas is brought out in Kant's summary of Swedenborg's position,
which highlights the distinction between a thing's true or "inner"
meaning and its outer manifestation. The
extent to which this coincides with the position he eventually defended in his
writings on religion is quite clear in Dreams 364(108) when he
says: "This inner meaning...is the
origin of all the new interpretations which [Sweden-borg] would make of the
Scripture. For this inner meaning, the
internal sense, i.e., the symbolic relation of all things told there to the
spirit-world, is, as he fancies, the kernel of its value, the rest only the
shell." Kant uses precisely the
same analogy in his own investigation of "pure religion" in Religion
within the Bounds of Bare Reason, except that the "inner meaning"
is derived from practical reflection (the Critical mode of dreaming?) rather
than from dreams about the spirit-world.
A more detailed examination of Swedenborg's epistemological
system would reveal numerous other corresponding theories. It is likely, in fact, that the Copernican
assumption, which marks the main difference between Dreams and Kant's
Inaugural Dissertation, has its roots, in part at least, in Swedenborg. For, as Vaihinger puts it, the relationship
of Kant's "transcendental subject...to the Spiritual Ego of Swedenborg is
unmistakable" [quoted in "PIA" 25]; indeed Kant may well have
taken his "doctrine of two worlds from Swedenborg direct" [24; see
also "PIA" 12-14]. Thus there
are good grounds for regarding Swedenborg's "spiritual" perspective
as the mystical equivalent of Kant's transcendental perspective in
metaphysics. Such a perspectival
relationship is hinted at by Sewall in "PIA" 22-23: "Neither of the two great system
builders asks the support of the other....
As Kant was necessarily critical, this being the office [i.e.
Perspective] of the pure reason itself, so was Swedenborg dogmatical, this
being the office [i.e. Perspective] of experience."
Sewall appends to the translation of Dreams various
extracts from Swedenborg's writings,[27]
which reveal that Swedenborg's ideas often anticipate (from his own mystical
perspective), and therefore may have influenced, many of the key ideas Kant
develops in his transcendental philosophy.
The roots of Kant's transcendental idealism can be seen in Swedenborg's
spiritual idealism: "spaces and
times...are in the spiritual world
appearances" ["PIA" 124]; "in heaven objects similar to
those which exist in our [empirical] world...are appearances" [125];
"appearances are the first things out of which the human mind forms its
understanding" [126]. The roots of
Kant's view of the intelligible substratum of nature are also evident: "nothing in nature exists or subsists,
but from a spiritual origin, or by means of it" [131]; "nature serves
as a covering for that which is spiritual" [132]; "there exists a
spiritual world, which is...interior...to the natural world, therefore all that
belongs to the spiritual world is cause, and all that belongs to the natural
world is effect" [132]; "causes are things prior, and effects are
things posterior; and things prior cannot be seen from things posterior, but
things posterior can be seen from things prior.
This is order" [133]. Even
views similar to Kant's "analogies of experience" in CPR are
developed by Swedenborg: "Material
things...are fixed, because, however the states of men change, they continue
permanent" ["PIA" 125]; "The reason that nothing in nature
exists but from a spiritual origin or principle is, that no effect is produced
without a cause" [132]. The
parallels extend beyond the theoretical to the practical and judicial
standpoints as well: "the will is
the very nature itself or disposition of the man" [138]; "heaven
is...within man" [135]. Moreover,
Kant's criticism of mystical visions as wrongly taking imagined symbols to be
real sensations cannot be charged against Swedenborg, who warns: "So long as man lives in the world he
knows nothing of the opening of these degrees within him, because he is then in
the natural degree...; and the spiritual degree...communicates with the
natural degree, not by continuity but by correspondences and communication by
correspondences is not sensibly felt" [135; see also 141].
Of course, Kant's use of
such ideas often differs in important respects from Swedenborg's, as when Kant
argues for the importance of phenomenal causality as being the only
significant causality from the standpoint of knowledge. Nevertheless, given the fact that before reading
Swedenborg he did not write about such matters, whereas afterwards such
"Copernican" ideas occupied a central place in his writings, it is
hardly possible to doubt that Swedenborg had a significant influence on Kant's
mature thinking. I am not claiming that Kant owes his recognition of the
importance of the Copernican hypothesis to Swedenborg alone, but only
that his influence has been much neglected, and deserves further exploration.
If Swedenborg did exercise an important influence on Kant, then
why does Kant seem to give Hume all the credit, for instance, in the oft-quoted
passage from the Introduction to Prolegomena [see note 2]? Swedenborg was far from being a philosopher,
so perhaps Kant did not feel constrained to acknowledge his influence (embarrassed
might be a more appropriate word, since Swedenborg's reputation was hardly
respectable among Enlightenment philosophers).
In this case, Kant's request that his writings prior to 1770 not be
included in his collected minor writings [see note 13] may reflect his desire
to protect his reputation from too close an association with the likes of
Swedenborg. In any case, as I have said,
Kant's claim that the ideas he expresses in Dreams predate his reading
of Swedenborg leaves open the possibility that Swedenborg stimulated him to
think through his own ideas more clearly, and in the process to adopt some of
Swedenborg's ideas, or at least to use them as a stimulus to focus and clarify
his own.
Does the Prolegomena passage therefore represent a false
"confession"? By no
means. But in order to understand that passage
properly, and so to give an accurate answer to the question of the relative
influence of Hume and Swedenborg on Kant, it will be necessary to distinguish
between four aspects of Kant's development which are often conflated:
(1) The
general Critical method of finding the limits which define the "middle way" between unthinking
acceptance of the status quo (dogmatism) and unbelieving doubt as to the
validity of the entire tradition (scepticism).
(2) The
general Copernican insight that the most fundamental aspects of human
knowledge (that which makes it objective) have their source in the human
subject as a priori forms, not vice versa (i.e. time, space, etc., are not
absolute realities which have their roots entirely in the object, as had
previously been assumed). This, of
course, was the seed which (when fertilized by the Critical method) gave rise
to the entire System of "transcendental philosophy".[28]
(3) The particular
application of (1) to itself (i.e. reason's criticism of reason itself).
(4) The particular
application of (2) to the problem of the necessary connection between a
cause and its effect.
As stated in section I,
we can see (1) operating in varying degrees in almost all of Kant's writings
[see note 11]. Indeed, his lifelong
acceptance of (1) is clearly the intellectual background against which alone
his great philosophical achievements could be made (and as such, is the source
of his genius). Although his ability to
make conscious use of this method certainly developed gradually during his
career, receiving its first full-fledged application in Dreams, neither
Swedenborg (the dogmatist) nor Hume (the sceptic) can be given the credit for
this. The Critical method is not
something Kant learned from these (or any other) philosophers, but
rather, is the natural Tao through which Kant read, and in reading,
transformed, their ideas.[29] If anyone is to be thanked, it should be his
parents, and in particular, his mother.[30]
Kant's recognition of (4) as one of the crucial questions to be
answered by his new philosophical System, is, by contrast, clearly traceable to
Hume's influence. In fact, his
discussion of Hume's impact on his development in Prolegomena 260(8)
undoubtedly refers only to this narrow sense of "awakening": Kant is telling us nothing more than that his
"recollection" of Hume helped him to recognize that causality cannot
be treated as an intellectual principle, so that it must be justified (if at
all) in some other way. The fact that
Kant uses the term "recollection" indicates a fairly late date
(probably 1772 [see note 4]) for this dramatic event. For Kant is suggesting that (4) came to him
as a result of remembering the scepticism of Hume ("the first spark
of light") which had begun influencing his thinking about ten years
before. However, if Kant's famous
"awakening" is only a dramatized account of his discovery of (4),
then such references to Hume do not answer the more fundamental question, the
answer to which we have been seeking here:
Where did Kant get the idea of using (2) as the insight with which to
solve all such philosophical problems?
Kant's discovery of (2) came in several fairly well-defined
steps, mostly from 1768 to 1772. Prior
to 1768 there is little (if any) trace of such an idea. Between 1768 and 1772 he applies the insight
to intuitions but not to concepts. In
1772 he realizes that concepts too must be regarded from this Copernican
(transcendental) perspective. As a
result of this somewhat unsettling discovery (unsettling because in early 1772
he believed he was within a few months of completing the first Critique),
he spent nine more years, from 1772 to 1781 working out in his mind the
thoroughgoing implications of this insight for his entire philosophical
System. It is plain enough to see how
Hume's ideas could have caused the final (and crucial) change in the extent of
Kant's application of (2) in 1772, because Hume's scepticism regarding
the a priori basis of the idea of necessary connection is among his most
powerful arguments. Kant's realization
in 1772 of the full force of this argument prevented him from doing what he
later would have regarded as a grave mistake--viz. applying (2) to only one of
the two sources of human knowledge.
But where did (2) come from in the first place? It could not have come from Hume, inasmuch as
nothing like it appears in Hume's doctrines of space and time (or anywhere else
in Hume's works). Hume's explanation for
our belief in all such "objective facts" is always to reduce them to
logic and/or an empirical kind of subjectivity [see e.g. the final
paragraph of his Inquiry]; he never so much as hints at the possibility
of any third way, such as is given by Kant's theory of transcendental
subjectivity. There are, to my
knowledge, only two likely explanations, both of which probably worked together
to awaken Kant to his Copernican insight sometime between 1766 and 1768. The first is his reading of Swedenborg's
writings, especially his massive work, Arcana Coelestia, which he read
in preparation for writing Dreams (1766) [see Dreams 318(39) and
"PIA" 14n]; and the second is his reading of the Clarke-Leibniz
Correspondence [see note 26], together with his consequent discovery of the
antinomies of reason [see below].[31] If this account of Kant's development during
these crucial years is correct, then Kant's description of (4) as an awakening
from dogmatic slumbers is a somewhat over-dramatized account, whose
purpose is not to emphasize a sudden break from lifelong dogmatism [see
note 28], but only to explain how Hume drove him away from the one-sided
form of (2) as he originally distilled it from the ideas of two
thinkers whom he regarded as dogmatists.
Thus, if we look at the overall picture, we see that Hume's influence
has, in fact, been highly overrated, fulfilling only one particular role
in Kant's long process of development.
This interpretation of Kant's development gives rise to two
further questions regarding Kant's use of his sleeping/dreaming/awakening
metaphor. For he uses it not only in
relation to Hume's influence, but also in many other contexts. In a letter to Garve (21 September 1798), for
instance, he confides that his discovery (c.1768) of "the antinomy of pure
reason...is what first aroused me from my dogmatic slumber and drove me to the
critique of reason itself".[32] How can this account of Kant's
"awakening" be made compatible with his (more well-known) references
to Hume? Although interpreters have often struggled with this question, the
answer seems obvious once we distinguish, as above, between the four aspects
of Kant's development. Kant's comments
must refer to different experiences of awakening: the awakening by Hume refers to (4), while
that for which the antimony is responsible refers to (3). Accordingly, Kant says the antinomy showed
him the need for a critique of reason, whereas he says Hume gave a "new
direction" [Prolegomena 260(8)] to his speculative research (thus
implying he had already begun working on that critique). The traditional view that these refer to the
same experience arises only because he uses the same metaphor to
describe both developments.
The second question arises once we recognize the obviously close
connection between Kant's metaphor of being awoken from sleep and the metaphor
of dreaming which permeates the entirety of Dreams (even its
title). If Kant's awakening really
happened only in 1768 (via the antinomies) or in 1772 (via Hume's
scepticism)--or even at both times--then Kant's comments would seem to
imply that Dreams itself dates from the period of "dogmatic
slumber" from which he only later awoke.
Yet even those who have failed to recognize the Critical elements
in Dreams would agree that it is not the work of a sleeping
dogmatist! So how could Kant's metaphor
apply to anything which happened after he wrote this book? Although I will not presume to give the final
answer to this difficult question, I will venture to offer a plausible
suggestion, based on the explanation of Kant's development given above.
Criticism is the middle path between dogmatism and
scepticism. It is the tool with which
Kant believed he could preserve the truth and value of both
methods and yet do away with the errors into which each inevitably falls. The Critical mind will therefore always allow
itself to be "tempted", as it were, by the two extremes which it
ultimately seeks to overcome; but in the process of becoming more and more
refined, it will appear at one moment to be more dogmatic and at another to be
more sceptical (just as we observed Kant's mind to be in the text of Dreams). In other words, the Critical method does not do
away with scepticism and dogmatism, so much as use them as opposing forces
to guide its insight further along the spiral path towards the central point of
pure Critique. Now in order to be
healthy a human being needs both sleep and waking; and in the same way, we
could develop Kant's analogy one step further by saying that the healthy
(Critical) philosopher needs a sufficient dose of both dogmatism and
scepticism. Scepticism functions like an
alarm clock to remind philosophers when it is time to stop their dogmatic
dreaming and return to the normal waking life of criticism. The Critical philosopher will
naturally experience many experiences of this type, just as a normal person is
often surprised to wake up in the middle of a dream, yet will dream again the
next night. Thus, the confusion caused
by Kant's various references to his awakening from dogmatic slumbers may be
best explained by regarding each as equally legitimate and equally important to
his development.
We have seen that Hume's influence was never such as to convert
Kant to scepticism, but only served as "the first spark of light" [Prolegomena
260(8)] to kindle his awareness of the need to reflect on the rationality of
his cherished dogmas. This limited
view of the influence of Hume on Kant comes out quite clearly in almost all
Kant's references to Hume or scepticism.
In CPR 785, for example, Kant again uses his favorite metaphor to
describe the relation between dogmatism, scepticism and criticism: "At best [scepticism] is merely a means
of awakening [reason] from its dogmatic dreams, and of inducing it to enter
upon a more careful examination of its own position." Kant's attempt in Dreams to examine
mysticism and metaphysics with a Critical eye should therefore be regarded as
resulting from one of his first major awakenings (perhaps largely as a result
of his initial reading of Hume).
Ironically, although he disagreed with the dogmatic use to which
Swedenborg put his ideas, Kant seems to have recognized in them some valuable hypotheses
which could be purified in the refining fire of criticism. The antinomies awoke him (in 1768) to the
realization that reason's Critical method must be applied not only to objects of
possible knowledge (such as mystical experiences and metaphysical theories),
but also to reason itself. And
just when he thought he was on the verge of perfecting this self-criticism of
reason (in 1772), Hume awoke him once again to the realization that his
Copernican insight must be used to limit not only intuition but also the
concepts arising out of human understanding.
We can conclude, therefore, that although Hume was instrumental in
awakening Kant to the limits of dogmatism, Swedenborg's speculations
were responsible in a more concrete way for the initial formation of his
Copernican hypothesis itself.
IV. The Dream of a
Critical System
A clear understanding of the influence of Swedenborg on Kant,
and of the function of Dreams as a kind of Critical prolegomenon to
Kant's mature System of transcendental Critique, makes it not so
surprising to hear Sewall say that mystics "from Jung-Stilling to Du
Prel" have always "claimed Kant as being of their number"
["PIA" 16-7,32]. Indeed, Du Prel stresses Kant's positive attitude
towards Swedenborg [PM 2.195-8,243, 290], and argues that in Dreams
"Kant...declared Mysticism possible, supposing man to be 'a member at once
of the visible and of the invisible world'" [2.302]. He even suggests that "Kant would confess
to-day [i.e. in 1885] that hundreds of such facts [based on mystical experience
and extra-sensory powers] are proved" [2.198]. This is probably going too
far, but so is Vaihinger's conclusion [quoted in "PIA" 19] that
"Kant's world of experience...excludes all invasion of the regular system
of nature by uncontrollable 'spirits'; and the whole system of modern
mysticism, so far as he holds fast to his fundamental principles, Kant is
'bound to forcibly reject.'" Kant is forced to reject mysticism only
as a component of his theoretical system (i.e. CPR); the other systems
nevertheless remain open to nontheoretical interpretations of mystical
experiences. Sewall reflects Kant's
purposes more accurately in "PIA" 20-1:
The great mission
of Kant was to establish...[that reason] can neither create a knowledge of the
spiritual world, nor can it deny the possibility of such a world. It can affirm indeed the rationality of such
a conception, but the reality of it does not come within its domain as
pure reason.
As Vaihinger himself
admits elsewhere, Kant's apparent rejection of mysticism therefore
"refers only to the practices (of spiritism), and to the Mysticism of
the Feelings; it does not apply to the rational belief of Kant in the 'corpus
mysticum of the intelligible world.'"[33]
Kant therefore has two distinct, though closely related,
purposes in Dreams. The first is to reject uncritical (speculative or
fanatical) forms of mysticism, not in order to overthrow all mysticism, but in
order to replace it with a Critical version which is directed towards
our experience of this world and our reflection on it from various
perspectives. This perspectival element
in Kant's mysticism is hinted at by Vaihinger [quoted in "PIA" 15,18]
when he says:
The other
world is [for Kant]...not another place, but only another view of even this
world.... [It] is not a world of other
things, but of the same things seen differently by us.... But the wildly fermenting must of the
Swedenborgian Mysticism becomes with Kant clarified and settled into the noble,
mild, and yet strong wine of criticism.
Unfortunately, the
general mystical thrust of Kant's overall philosophical System has been
grossly neglected by almost all Kant-scholars.[34] In the sequel to this article I will attempt
to set right this neglect by examining the extent to which Kant's Critique of
mysticism in Dreams paves the way for a full-blooded "Critical
mysticism".
Kant's second purpose in clearing from the path of metaphysics
the obstructions created by the speculative claims of mystical experiences is
to prepare the way for his own attempt to provide a metaphysical System which
could do for metaphysics what Dreams does for mysticism. For the Critical dream envisaged in Dreams
was to serve as a seed planted in his reason, which eventually matured into the
tree of the Critical System; and only when this tree finally bears fruit does
the mystical seed which gave birth to the philosophical System appear once
again (i.e. in the Opus Postumum). Accordingly, Kant's Critical labours
can be regarded as an attempt to build a rational System which can preserve
the true mystical dream--indeed, which thus puts mysticism in its true place,
at the centre of metaphysics. In
this sense, at least, Kant would agree with Du Prel [PM 1.70] when he
says: "It is...dream, not waking,
which is the door of metaphysic, so far as the latter deals with man."
Notes to: Kant's Critique of Mysticism (1)
[1] Immanuel Kant, Dreams of a Spirit-Seer,
Illustrated by Dreams of Metaphysics--hereafter Dreams--tr. E.
Goerwitz (London: Swan Sonneschein & Co., 1900). (References to Kant's works will cite the
Akademie page numbering. When this
number is not included in the translation, the translation's pagination will be
added in brackets. The only exception is
Kant's Critique of Pure Reason--hereafter CPR--tr. N. Kemp Smith
(London: Macmillan, 1929), references to which will cite the second (1787)
edition pagination, except where material is unique to the first (1781)
edition, in which case an "A" will precede the page number.)
[2] The latter is based on Kant's own account of the
matter in his Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, tr. L.W. Beck
(Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Co.,
1950), p.260(8): "I openly confess
my recollection of David Hume was the very thing which many years ago first
interrupted my dogmatic slumber and gave my investigations in the field of speculative
philosophy a quite new direction."
[3] Manfred Kuehn, "Kant's Conception of 'Hume's
Problem'", Journal of the History of Philosophy 21.2 (April 1983),
p.191.
[4] Beck suggests that "Kant had probably read
Hume before 1760, but only much later (1772?) did he begin to follow 'a new
direction' under Hume's influence" [Prolegomena, p.8n]. Beck defends his position in Early German
Philosophy (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1969), pp.465-467. (See also R.P. Wolff, Journal of the
History of Ideas XXI (1960), pp.117-123.)
In his Inaugural Dissertation, and as late as his letter to Marcus Herz
(February 21, 1772), Kant shows no awareness that Hume's scepticism challenges
his own conception of causality as an intellectual principle. The supposed reason is that Kant was familiar
only with Hume's Enquiry (1748), with its relatively modest scepticism,
until he read Beattie's Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth
(1772), which contained translations of long passages from the more radically
sceptical text of Hume's Treatise (1738). In a review of G. Gawlick and L. Kreimendahl's
Hume in der deutschen AufklÑrung [in Eighteenth-Century Studies
(1987), pp.405-408], Beck confirms his acceptance of this explanation despite
more recent conjectures that Kant's friend, Hamann, who translated part of the Treatise
in 1771, may have shown his translation to Kant as early as 1768. In any case, both these views account only
for Kant's recognition of the need for a more adequate defence of the
philosophical principle of causality.
They say nothing positive about the source of Kant's Critical
method, nor about the source of his "Copernican" assumption (which I
take to be the two most fundamental aspects of his mature philosophical
System). Moreover, they also fail to
account for the unique (Humean?) character of Dreams. In section III of this paper I will propose
an alternative explanation of Kant's development, which makes up for these and
other inadequacies of the traditional view.
[5] Frank Sewall, "Preface" (pp.vii-xi),
"Introduction" (pp.1-33) and "Appendices" (pp.123-162) to Dreams--hereafter
"PIA"--p.x.
[6] CPR Axiii, emphasis added. The emphasized words indicate that Kant was
still mindful of his earlier work in Dreams, which, as will become
apparent in the following section, adopts the same point of view expressed in
this quote. In fact, Kant uses terms referring to this sleeping/dreaming/awakening metaphor 27 times
in CPR [see S. Palmquist, A Complete Index to Kemp Smith's
Translation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason--hereafter Index--(distributed
privately, 1987), pp.34,109,347], most of which echo quite clearly the
attitudes adopted in Dreams. The
most significant references are CPR Axiii,503,519-21,785,792 [but see
also Axin,xxxvi,1,A112,217,247,278,A376-77,A380,A390,434,452,479,652,
808]. Such texts should not, however, be
taken as evidence that Kant was completely against all mysticism. Rather, they restate the same problem which
is posed in Dreams--viz. how one's "cherished dreams" can
be preserved, if not by dogma and/or magic.
Kant's solution will be examined in the sequel to the present paper [in Philosophy
& Theology 4.1 (Fall 1989)].
[7] CPR xxviii.
These two modes of representation are similar, though not identical, to
the distinction I make between "immediate experience" and
"reflective knowledge" in "Knowledge and Experience: An Examination of the Four Reflective
'Perspectives' in Kant's Critical Philosophy"--hereafter "KE"--Kant-Studien
78.2 (1987), pp.170-173.
[8] See e.g. CPR 352,A395. Index 86 lists 168 occurrences of
these three words in CPR.
[9] Critique of Judgment--hereafter CJ--tr.
J.C. Meredith (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1952), p.197n.
[10] Indeed, as I have argued on several previous
occasions [see e.g. "KE" 170-200, and "The Architectonic Form of
Kant's Copernican Logic", Metaphilosophy 17.4 (October 1986),
pp.266-288], the making of such perspectival distinctions is the key task of
the Critical method.
[11] In the earlier works, of course, the traces are
evident retrospectively even though Kant himself would not yet have been conscious
of the significance of the naturally Critical tendencies of his way of thinking. In fact, becoming conscious of what
was already there seems to be one of the implications of his much-used
metaphor of sleeping/dreaming/ awakening.
Otherwise he would have chosen a metaphor such as "coming
alive" or "giving birth".
[12] "PIA" 155. On the dating of this letter, see
"PIA" 160 and Gabriele Rabel (tr.), Kant--hereafter RK--(Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1963), p.74.
[13] Cited in RK 74. This tendency in Dreams to ridicule
that which in fact he wished to defend may be what led Kant to suggest that it
not be included in his collected minor writings [see "PIA" x]. Nevertheless, as we shall see, Dreams
adopts an entirely Critical method, and so first poses the problem (though
somewhat obscurely) which is to be solved by the Critical System.
[14] Kant notes in Dreams 325n(50n) that this
"prevalent opinion which assigns to the soul its seat in the brain, seems
to originate mainly in the fact, that we feel distinctly how, in deep
meditation, the nerves of the brain are taxed.
But if this conclusion is right it would prove also other abodes of the
soul. In anxiety or joy the sensation
seems to have its seat in the heart.
Many affections, yea most of them, manifest themselves most strongly in
the diaphragm. Pity moves the
intestines, and other instincts manifest their origin in other
organs." Here we see a good example
of Kant's awareness of and concern for the condition of his own body. Unfortunately, interpreters tend to excuse
this concern as stemming merely from his eccentric ideas about how he could
maintain his own health through sheer will power and self-determination [see
e.g. On the Diseases of the Head, excerpt tr. in RK 60, and Part
III of The Conflict of the Faculties, tr. M.J. Gregor (New York: Abaris, 1979)]. Yet it seems also to reveal the importance he
placed on fostering a meditative awareness of his immediate experience:
philosophy for Kant is ultimately not an abstract function of the mind or
brain, but a discipline in which the whole body participates as well.
[15] Dreams 330(57).
"The relation [of these "incorporeal substances"] by
means of things corporeal is consequently to be regarded as accidental"
[330(56-7)]. Since an "undoubted
characteristic of life" is "free movement" (including growth),
he suggests that both plants and animals may also have an immaterial nature
[330(57)]. In order to show the close
connection between plants and animals Kant mentions Boerhave's view that
"The animal is a plant which has its roots in the stomach
(inside)." He then suggests that
the converse is also true: "The
plant is an animal which has its stomach in the root (outside)." But he warns that "such
conjectures...have the ridicule of fashion against them, as being dusty
antiquated fancies"; since "the appeal to immaterial principles is a
subterfuge of bad philosophy", he will "not...use any of these
considerations as evidence" [331(58)].
[16] Dreams 337-8(67-9).
Kant conjectures that the spiritual conceptions which arise in the
deepest, dreamless sleep "may be clearer and broader than even the
clearest in the waking state. This is to
be expected of such an active being as the soul when the external senses are so
completely at rest. For man, at such
times is not sensible of his body."
When dreaming, by contrast, a person "perceives to a certain degree
clearly, and weaves the actions of his spirit into the impressions of the
external senses." Unfortunately,
Kant did not recognize the importance of this connective function of dreams,
so instead of regarding them as revealing profound symbols of spiritual
conceptions (as Jung, using Kant as his philosophical springboard, has since
suggested), he ridiculed them as being "only wild and absurd
chimeras" [338n(68n)]. Du Prel
develops an elaborate theory of "somnambulism" based explicitly on
Kant's philosophy [see e.g. The Philosophy of Mysticism--hereafter PM--tr.
C.C. Massey (London: George Redway,
1889), vol.1, pp.xxvi,5-7,62,71,etc.].
He also agrees with Kant on many specific points [see e.g. PM
1.57-8]. For example, in PM 1.44
he says: "With the deepening of
sleep must diminish the confusion of the dream." In arguing for "the scientific
importance of dream", he claims this clarity can be explained best by
assuming that in deepest sleep the centre of control changes from the brain
(the focus of consciousness) to the solar plexus (the focus of the
unconscious), and that the more control exercised by the latter, the more
significant will be the dream [1.27-44,68-9].
[17] Dreams 347-8(82-3).
The concluding paragraph of Chapter Three, which contains these
comments, also contains some harsh ridicule of the perspective adopted in
Chapter Two. He suggests, for instance, that although visionaries are not
necessarily insane, "insanity [is] a likely consequence of such
communion.... Therefore, I do not at all blame the reader, if, instead of
regarding the spirit-seers as half-dwellers in another world [as Kant himself
clearly prefers], he, without further ceremony, dispatches them as candidates
for the hospital" [348(83)]. No
doubt this is one of the bits of Dreams which embarrassed Kant in later
life, and led him to suggest that it be excluded from his collected minor
works [see "PIA" x].
[18] In previous publications I have referred to this
third standpoint as the "empirical" standpoint, because the empirical
details of nature are taken into consideration much more seriously here than in
reasoning based on the theoretical or practical standpoints. This can be rather misleading, however, since
(1) its use in this context is different from its use in the important
transcendental-empirical distinction, (2) it could be confused with the
empirical perspective within each standpoint (a similarity Kant himself
recognizes in CJ 178-179(17)), and (3) Kant states explicitly in CPR
739: "There is no need of a
critique of reason in its empirical employment". I have recently decided to refer to the standpoint
of CJ as "judicial" (i.e. relative to judgment) in hopes of
clarifying that its transcendental status is preserved, and that its scope is
broader than the empirical perspective within each standpoint.
[19] Dreams 351-2(89).
This position has an obvious affinity with the doctrines of positive and
negative noumenon developed in CPR [see my article, "Six
Perspectives on the Object in Kant's Theory of Knowledge", Dialectica
40.2 (1986), pp.135-142].
[20] Dreams 351(88).
Thus, Kant notes [350n(87-8n)] that our speculative ignorance "does
not at all invalidate the confidence that the conceptions thence evolved [i.e.
from hope] are right." For example,
the "inner perception" that death is "only a
transformation" leads "to that point to which reason itself would
lead us if it were more enlightened, and of a greater scope." Kant is saying, in other words, that our immediate
experience can provide existential certainty for a position which cannot be
proved rationally. This existential
certainty is, in essence, what Kant means by "faith" [see my article
"Faith as Kant's Key to the Justification of Transcendental
Reflection", The Heythrop Journal 25.4 (October 1984), pp.442-455].
[21] In the final chapter of Dreams a similar
view is adopted concerning the possibility of a spiritual influence on the
body: such influences are possible but
cannot be proved because they are not governed by corporeal laws. This is
directly parallel to Kant's mature attitude towards "noumenal
causality", which cannot lay claim to knowledge because it does not fall
under the a priori principles of the possibility of experience.
[22] Indeed, Kant even uses the analogy of awakening
in the sceptical chapter of Dreams [342(74), quoted above in section
II], thus indicating that in 1766 he was already thinking of scepticism as a
useful tool for stimulating philosophers to reconsider their dogmatism. This fact, as we shall see later in this
section, raises serious questions about the traditional view that Kant's
"awakening" by Hume did not happen until 1768, or perhaps even 1772
[see note 4 above].
[23] Moreover, Kant uses the same analogy in CPR
795, where he refers to "the assay-balance of criticism" [see also CPR
617,811]. And he uses the corresponding
metaphor of "weighing" two opposing arguments in CPR
A388-389,615,617,665,778 and in the second Critique, p.76.
[24] As early as 1764 Kant recognized a special
relationship between metaphysics, moral philosophy, and philosophy of religion
[see Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime,
p.246n]. In June of 1771 Kant affirmed
in a letter to Marcus Herz that his project would have to address the topics of
metaphysics, morality and aesthetics.
And his letter to Herz in February 1772 shows he already conceived of
his task as including work on "the principles of feeling, taste, and power
of judgement" in addition to its theoretical and moral aspects [Kant's
Philosophical Correspondence, 1759-99, tr. A. Zweig (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1967),
vol.10, p.124(71)]. Although he
apparently had not yet decided to devote a separate Critique to each
subject, he had already thought of the title "Critique of Pure
Reason" [73]. For a concise summary
of the importance of these two letters, see Fredrick C. Copleston, A History
of Philosophy, vol.VI, Wolff to Kant (London: Burns and Oates
Limited, 1960), pp.203-7.
[25] I discuss the architectonic structure of Kant's
System in "Architectonic Form" [see note 10 above].
[26] A History of Philosophy, vol.VI, p.196.
[27] Sewall translates these extracts in "PIA"
123-54 (Appendix I).
[28] This distinction between Kant's Critical method
and the transcendental orientation of his philosophy is often ignored by
Kant-scholars, who tend to conflate the terms by talking about Kant's
"transcendental method"--a phrase which Kant himself never uses. This type of interpretive error lies behind
Ernst Cassirer's claim that in CPR "Kant is presenting a completely
novel type of thinking, one in opposition to his own past and to the
philosophy of the Age of Enlightenment" [Kant's Life and Thought,
tr. James Haden (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1981), p.141]. This
notion of a complete "opposition" between Kant's past (wherein he is
portrayed as being unknowingly duped by his purportedly dogmatic upbringing)
and his Critical outlook (which is supposed to have sprung magically from his
reading of Hume) typifies the mythical account of Kant's development against
which I am arguing in this paper. In CPR
Kant is not negating his past, but pressing it to its natural limit; he is
separating the wheat from the chaff of his own background and of his Age [see
e.g. CPR Axin] by bringing into full view the Critical method which had
characterized his way of thinking from the start.
One exception to the above is
J. Fang, who calls attention to the mistake of regarding Kant's method
as transcendental in Kant-Interpretationen (MÅnster: Verlag Regensberg,
1967), pp.112-13. He also recognizes the
importance of distinguishing between the Critical method and the transcendental
character of Kant's mature philosophy: the
"critical method" is already "partially revealed" in
1770, but "concerns itself with 'limits' alone...and not yet with
'sources'", as it does in its transcendental application
[pp.118-119]. With intimations of
Einstein, he then suggests that "the special critical method of
1768-69, viz. 'to determine the validity and bounds of intuitive principles',
had to be generalized, and when it was finally 'broadened', the general
critical method was to discover and justify...the sources, the extent, and the
limits of the human faculty of knowledge or metaphysic in general--the main
task of the Critique" [p.121].
Unfortunately, Fang does not work out in any detail the significance of
this distinction (which relates more to Kant's gradual application of his
Copernican insight than to the Critical method as such), nor does he mention Dreams
as relevant to the development of Kant's Critical method.
[29] This implies that the traditional view of Dreams
as a temporary excursion into Humean scepticism [see section I] is entirely
unjustified, based as it is on a shallow reading of the text and a neglect of
the ubiquity of the Critical method in Kant's writings. Hume's influence on Kant in the early 1760s, as
we shall see, was only one of many influencing factors acting together as grist
for the Critical mill.
[30] Kant's biographers consistently report the strong
influence he felt his mother had in his general personal and intellectual
development. Her influence is discussed
further in section III of the sequel to the present article.
[31] In fact, the influence of Swedenborg is quite
compatible with the influence of Leibniz [see note 26]. For Swedenborg himself studied Descartes,
Leibniz and Wolff, much as Kant did in his early years [see Inge Jonsson,
"Swedenborg, Emanuel", in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed.
Paul Edwards (London: Collier Macmillan
Publishers, 1967), vol.8, p.47]. (In
sections 335.7 and 696 of The True Christian Religion Swedenborg even describes
his visions of Aristotle, Descartes and Leibniz, together with nine of their
followers, among whom was Wolff.) Thus,
Kant's reading of Swedenborg probably worked together with his reading
of the Clarke-Leibniz Correspondence to point Kant towards the
Copernican hypothesis.
[32] Philosophical Correspondence 12.255(252). See note 6 above for a list of references to
the sleeping/dreaming/awakening metaphor in CPR.
[33] Quoted in "PIA" 25. Kant affirms his
belief in the notion of a "corpus mysticum" at several points
even in CPR, as when he says that "if we could intuit ourselves and
things as they are, we should see ourselves in a world of spiritual
natures, our sole and true community" [CPR 836; see also
A393-94]. Kant's lifelong belief in a
spirit-world is demonstrated by Manolesco in the Introduction to his more
recent translation of Dreams (Montreal:
Vantage Press, 1969), which was unfortunately not available to this
author.
[34] "PIA" x (sic; page number should
read "ix") lists several works written between 1889 and 1895 which do
focus on Kant's mystical tendencies.
The most significant of these is Carl Du Prel's Kant's Vorlesungen
Åber Psychologie (1889), which contains an introduction entitled
"Kant's mystische Weltanschauung".
"PIA" 13-14n translates the following passage from
pp.vii-viii of that work:
"'Dreams'...has been interpreted as a daring venture of Kant's
genius in making sport of superstition; the accent has been laid on Kant's
negations, and his affirmative utterances have been overlooked. The 'Lectures on Psychology' now show,
however, that these utterances were very seriously intended; for the affirmative
portions of the 'Dreams' agree very thoroughly with the lengthier exposition of
the 'Psychology', and the wavering attitude of Kant is here no longer
perceptible."
This etext is based on a prepublication draft of the published version
of this essay.
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