Gregory R. Johnson (ed.) - Kant on Swedenborg: Dreams of a Spirit-Seer and Other Writings

Kant's Strangest Book

Immanuel Kant (17241804) published Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, Elucidated through Dreams of Metaphysics anonymously in the winter of 1766. The Spirit-Seer in the title is Emanuel Swedenborg (16881772), the eminent Swedish scientist and statesman who, in 1745 at the age of fifty-seven, embarked upon a second career as a theologian and visionary. Swedenborg's most famous work is the eight volume Arcana Coelestia (Secrets of Heaven, 17491756), which consists of a commentary on the inner meaning of every word and phrase of the books of Genesis and Exodus, as well as accounts of his journeys through the spiritual world, where he visited heaven and hell and conversed with angels and demons, all of whom are the departed spirits of human beings or the inhabitants of other planets.

My first impression of Dreams is typical, so it is worth sharing for the light it throws on the dominant interpretation. I first read Dreams in the spring of 1994. I had decided to write a doctoral dissertation on Kant, and I thought, perhaps navely, that I would have to read everything Kant wrote. So I started at the beginning, and when I got to 1766, I read Dreams. I knew vaguely from Ernst Cassirer's Kant's Life and Thought that Dreams dealt with Swedenborg. I also knew vaguely that Swedenborg was an older contemporary of Kant and that he was some sort of mystic.

Opening Dreams, I was immediately captivated by the brilliant images and biting sarcasm of Kant's brief preface. I was puzzled by the striking changes of both tone and perspective in the four chapters of the first dogmatic part of Dreams. But I did not linger long over these chapters because I was eager to get to the second historical part, where Kant deals with Swedenborg. I was, however, to be disappointed byKant's discussion of Swedenborg. It is dismissive, dogmatic, and gratuitously insulting. It is unworthy of the Kant I had come to know and respect. Although I was not predisposed to accept Swedenborg's claims, I felt sympathy for the poor old gentleman. And I felt embarrassed for Kant.

My overall impression was that Dreams is surely Kant's strangest book. It seemed to be a strongly skeptical work, evidently influenced by the empiricism of David Hume (17111776). Dreams appeared to mark Kant's break with the rationalism of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (16461716) and Christian Wolff (16791754), whose teachings dominated the German universities of the time, and to herald the emergence of the mature critical philosophy. But what role did Swedenborg play in this process? Kant seemed to regard Swedenborg's ideas as self-evidently absurd. He certainly assumes his readers hold that opinion. Kant then asserts that Swedenborg has a lot in common with metaphysicians like Wolff and Christian August Crusius (17151775). Like Swedenborg, Wolff and Crusius spin extravagant metaphysical theories out of their own substance rather than basing them on empirical observations. Swedenborg discredits the rationalist project by showing just how far from common sense we can stray when we do not have to square our theories with experience.

I found that most Kant scholars who had written on Dreams shared my initial impression. This interpretation, which I call the received view of Dreams, appears to originate with Kuno Fischer (18241907). Fischer was the author of the first major monograph on Kant, the magisterial two-volume Immanuel Kant and His Teaching, which was incorporated into the second edition of his History of Modern Philosophy. In Development and Foundation of the Critical Philosophy, the first volume of Immanuel Kant and his Teaching, Fischer offers an interpretation of Kant's precritical writings that has become a cornerstone of much subsequent scholarship.

The received view of Dreams has cast a long shadow over Swedenborg's reputation and influence. He may even have read it. But if he did, he did not see fit to record his opinion. It is fair to say, though, that Dreams has had a traumatic effect on Swedenborg's followers, who must quickly have grown tired of the following sort of exchange:

What theology do you subscribe to?

Swedenborg's.

Swedenborg? The fellow whom Kant refuted in some book, Dreams of a Fortune-Teller, or something like that? How can you take someone like that seriously?

As Robert Kirven puts it, for more than two centuries now, the mere invocation of the name of Immanuel Kant is sufficient to permit complete dismissal of the viewpoint, experience, and reasoning of Emanuel Swedenborg.

The Interpretation of Dreams

I did not, however, remain convinced by the received view. For reasons that remain mysterious to me, I found myself fascinated by Dreams. I read the book again, this time much more carefully. I began searching for secondary literature. I even picked up some volumes by Swedenborg. I discovered that, in spite of the popularity of the received view, there have always been some skeptics who suspect that Kant's professions of scorn for Swedenborg are not the whole story and that along with, or behind, the scorn is a genuine respect for Swedenborg and perhaps even actual debts to his thought. These skeptics include both Kant scholars (including convinced Kantians) and Swedenborg scholars (including convinced Swedenborgians).