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Dreams of a Spirit-seer and Other Writings
Dreams of a Spirit-Seer , Immanuel Kant's book on Emanuel Swedenborg, has mystified readers since its publication in 1766 during Swedenborg's lifetime. The unusual style and content of Dreams have given rise to two opposing interpretations. Most Kant scholars regard the work as a skeptical attack on Swedenborg's mysticism. Other critics, however, believe that Kant regarded Swedenborg as a serious philosopher and visionary, and that Dreams both reveals Kant's profound debt to Swedenborg and coneals that debt behind the mask of irony.
In addition, Dr. Gregory R. Johnson provides selections from other Kantian writings that mention Swedenborg and also contemporary reviews of Dreams , showing that Kant himself was ambivalent about Swedenborg's claims and that readers of his day questioned his position.
With its extensive notes, this work is an invaluable resource for students of Kant and of Swedenborg.
In addition, Dr. Gregory R. Johnson provides selections from other Kantian writings that mention Swedenborg and also contemporary reviews of Dreams , showing that Kant himself was ambivalent about Swedenborg's claims and that readers of his day questioned his position.
With its extensive notes, this work is an invaluable resource for students of Kant and of Swedenborg.
238 pages, paper
First published January 1, 1766
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About the author
Immanuel Kant
3,031 books4,363 followersImmanuel Kant was an 18th-century philosopher from Königsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). He's regarded as one of the most influential thinkers of modern Europe & of the late Enlightenment. His most important work is The Critique of Pure Reason, an investigation of reason itself. It encompasses an attack on traditional metaphysics & epistemology, & highlights his own contribution to these areas. Other main works of his maturity are The Critique of Practical Reason, which is about ethics, & The Critique of Judgment, about esthetics & teleology.
Pursuing metaphysics involves asking questions about the ultimate nature of reality. Kant suggested that metaphysics can be reformed thru epistemology. He suggested that by understanding the sources & limits of human knowledge we can ask fruitful metaphysical questions. He asked if an object can be known to have certain properties prior to the experience of that object. He concluded that all objects that the mind can think about must conform to its manner of thought. Therefore if the mind can think only in terms of causality–which he concluded that it does–then we can know prior to experiencing them that all objects we experience must either be a cause or an effect. However, it follows from this that it's possible that there are objects of such a nature that the mind cannot think of them, & so the principle of causality, for instance, cannot be applied outside experience: hence we cannot know, for example, whether the world always existed or if it had a cause. So the grand questions of speculative metaphysics are off limits, but the sciences are firmly grounded in laws of the mind. Kant believed himself to be creating a compromise between the empiricists & the rationalists. The empiricists believed that knowledge is acquired thru experience alone, but the rationalists maintained that such knowledge is open to Cartesian doubt and that reason alone provides us with knowledge. Kant argues, however, that using reason without applying it to experience will only lead to illusions, while experience will be purely subjective without first being subsumed under pure reason. Kant’s thought was very influential in Germany during his lifetime, moving philosophy beyond the debate between the rationalists & empiricists. The philosophers Fichte, Schelling, Hegel and Schopenhauer saw themselves as correcting and expanding Kant's system, thus bringing about various forms of German Idealism. Kant continues to be a major influence on philosophy to this day, influencing both Analytic and Continental philosophy.
Pursuing metaphysics involves asking questions about the ultimate nature of reality. Kant suggested that metaphysics can be reformed thru epistemology. He suggested that by understanding the sources & limits of human knowledge we can ask fruitful metaphysical questions. He asked if an object can be known to have certain properties prior to the experience of that object. He concluded that all objects that the mind can think about must conform to its manner of thought. Therefore if the mind can think only in terms of causality–which he concluded that it does–then we can know prior to experiencing them that all objects we experience must either be a cause or an effect. However, it follows from this that it's possible that there are objects of such a nature that the mind cannot think of them, & so the principle of causality, for instance, cannot be applied outside experience: hence we cannot know, for example, whether the world always existed or if it had a cause. So the grand questions of speculative metaphysics are off limits, but the sciences are firmly grounded in laws of the mind. Kant believed himself to be creating a compromise between the empiricists & the rationalists. The empiricists believed that knowledge is acquired thru experience alone, but the rationalists maintained that such knowledge is open to Cartesian doubt and that reason alone provides us with knowledge. Kant argues, however, that using reason without applying it to experience will only lead to illusions, while experience will be purely subjective without first being subsumed under pure reason. Kant’s thought was very influential in Germany during his lifetime, moving philosophy beyond the debate between the rationalists & empiricists. The philosophers Fichte, Schelling, Hegel and Schopenhauer saw themselves as correcting and expanding Kant's system, thus bringing about various forms of German Idealism. Kant continues to be a major influence on philosophy to this day, influencing both Analytic and Continental philosophy.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 19, 2015
This is Kant's oddest work because of its subject matter. Still, the offbeat claims of mediums, channellers and the like have long exercised a fascination for leading intellectuals such as Sigmund Freud, C.G. Jung, Wm James, Francis Crick etc.
Although a "pre-critical" work, written while Swedenborg was still alive, Dreams of a Spirit-Seer adduces Kant's signature claim that the first philosophy can only obtain within human limits, in other words that metaphysics is humanly impossible as a science. Consequently, Swedenborg's claims have the status of "dreams".
Although followers of the mystic scientist claim to see some positive appropriation of Swedenborg by Kant it is pretty clear that this is generally not the case unless one weighs the emotional aspect of Kant's ironic treatment. He was fascinated and Swedenborg was, on some authority, alleged to have made veridical claims which now would be cited as instances of ESP.
Ignoring the metaphysical conclusions drawn by Swedenborg, it seems clear that cases of ESP do occur and have been documented repeatedly under controlled laboratory conditions. The problem is that they do not afford investigators the repeatability that modern science requires and so remain phenomenological sports. The mystery continues and it is to Kant's credit that he tried to grapple with it, however, as ever, unsatisfactorily.
Although a "pre-critical" work, written while Swedenborg was still alive, Dreams of a Spirit-Seer adduces Kant's signature claim that the first philosophy can only obtain within human limits, in other words that metaphysics is humanly impossible as a science. Consequently, Swedenborg's claims have the status of "dreams".
Although followers of the mystic scientist claim to see some positive appropriation of Swedenborg by Kant it is pretty clear that this is generally not the case unless one weighs the emotional aspect of Kant's ironic treatment. He was fascinated and Swedenborg was, on some authority, alleged to have made veridical claims which now would be cited as instances of ESP.
Ignoring the metaphysical conclusions drawn by Swedenborg, it seems clear that cases of ESP do occur and have been documented repeatedly under controlled laboratory conditions. The problem is that they do not afford investigators the repeatability that modern science requires and so remain phenomenological sports. The mystery continues and it is to Kant's credit that he tried to grapple with it, however, as ever, unsatisfactorily.
April 6, 2024
"That the spirit of man after being loosed from the body is a man, and, in a similar form, has been proved to me by the daily experience of several years; for I have seen and heard them a thousand times, and I have spoken with them also on this subject, that men in the world do not believe them to be men, and that those who do believe, are reputed by the learned as simple. The spirits are grieved at heart that such ignorance should still continue in the world, and chiefly within the church."
"Spirits of all kinds perceive the very thoughts of man: angelic spirits the interiors of thought ; angels the causes and ends which are still more interior."
In Arcana
Emanuel Swedenborg
Kant here is mocking the world of the shadows and ultimately the spirit-world. He’s wondering about the soul’s essence and composition, but mainly his target is one Swede called Emanuel Swedenborg, a spirits-seer. I can hardly understand Kant after so much criticism, being eager to get Swedenborg’s book, about to be published.
Truly, here, the spirit of Swedenborg is laughing out loud. Of course, Kant will never, ever, hear it. Much less, see it.
👻
🦉I see.
January 18, 2008
Kant is supposed to be the one sane philosopher. But nobody mentions he was into visionary kabbalist craziness. He tries to debunk it in this book, but you can tell he secretly believed it.
May 30, 2020
Revisiting this strange and compelling text that prefigures the critical project (metaphysics as the investigation of the limits of reason, combined with an affirmation of deontology against the illusory construction of another life awaiting us after death) shows Kant's sensitivity to self-deception and being "duped by popular error". The error, in this case, was Kant's seduction by Swedenborg's community of spirits. Kant draws a distinction between delusions of reason, which can be repaired through subtler reasoning, and delusions of the senses which take previous experience and project it into the world. Kant explains the enigmatic feeling of influence through
"representations, which they awaken in him, clothe themselves, according to the law of his imagination, in images which are akin to them, and create the vision of objects corresponding to them, so that they present the appearance of existing externally to him. This deception can affect any of the senses."
These sensual delusions, to Kant's frustration, are the more difficult to shake, and he suggests that only a deflation of the chimeras they engender can persuade the deceived to change those practices which generate them.
Kant's ultimate goal, however, is not merely to criticize the fanaticism of certain visionaries or their enthusiastic disciples. The target of his polemic is the "exploitation-rights to that spirit-realm, having been legitimised by considerations of state-interest, [which] place themselves far beyond the reach of all the futile objections raised by pedantic scholars". Against this colonization of the mind, Kant imagines a future where "the philosophers will all inhabit a common world together at the same time, such as the mathematicians have long possessed."
"representations, which they awaken in him, clothe themselves, according to the law of his imagination, in images which are akin to them, and create the vision of objects corresponding to them, so that they present the appearance of existing externally to him. This deception can affect any of the senses."
These sensual delusions, to Kant's frustration, are the more difficult to shake, and he suggests that only a deflation of the chimeras they engender can persuade the deceived to change those practices which generate them.
Kant's ultimate goal, however, is not merely to criticize the fanaticism of certain visionaries or their enthusiastic disciples. The target of his polemic is the "exploitation-rights to that spirit-realm, having been legitimised by considerations of state-interest, [which] place themselves far beyond the reach of all the futile objections raised by pedantic scholars". Against this colonization of the mind, Kant imagines a future where "the philosophers will all inhabit a common world together at the same time, such as the mathematicians have long possessed."
November 15, 2023
Like a bird sucked into a jet’s engine, the Newtonian Kant tries to tackle reality and gets pulverized… The mechanistic materialism of Newton's clockwork universe with its arbitrary laws and puerile causation has no resemblance to the real quantum mechanical digital alegal finalistic preudoworld AKA this 💩ty PSW MMORPG. Yet this work is as brilliant as the fake Sun or at least the fake “big [cheesy] pizza pie” Moon when not being observed, in other words, completely non-existent. First it was Aristotle then Newton and now Darwin and Freud (Einstein has never taken root. except for his Minkowski spacetime error or his misplaced belief in reality). Those who are best at their catechisms go to the head of the class (of fools). Niels Bohr was right. “Nothing exists until it is measured.” In fact, the whole belief/disbelief dichotomous narrative is “impertinent* or idle” (p. 38) when one is only playing a LVG (lame video game i.e. Earth, version 2023).
*As in irrelevant, not insolent.
*As in irrelevant, not insolent.
February 28, 2014
The funny side of Kant. He reaches neither the wit of Voltaire or Montaigne nor the grandeur in argumentation present in the critiques. Nevertheless, it is an easy to read introduction to the main concerns that underly his philosophical system.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews