KANT'S CRITIQUE OF MYSTICISM:
(1) The Critical Dreams
by Stephen
Palmquist (stevepq@hkbu.edu.hk)
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.
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. 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."
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. 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,
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.
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...";
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. 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" 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. 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. 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." 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." 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":
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."
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." 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".
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: "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". 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." 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. 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). 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. 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. 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.
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. 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, 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".
(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. If anyone is to be thanked, it should
be his parents, and in particular, his mother.
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]. 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". 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.'"
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. 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)
