KANT'S EARLY METAPHYSICS AND

THE ORIGINS OF THE

CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY

ALISON LAYWINE

Volume3
North American Kant Society
Studies in Philosophy

Ridgeview Publishing Company

Atascadero, California

Copyright 0 1993
by North American Kant Society
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements

vi

Note on sources

vii

Introduction

I. Interpretation of Dreams

11

II. The System of Physical Influx

25

III. The Material Nature of Immaterial Things

43

IV. TheArcana ofSwedenborg

55

V. Dreams of a Spirit-Seer

72

VI. The Inaugural Dissertation

101

VII. Towards the Critical Philosophy

124

Notes

147

Bibliography

169

Index

173

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I owe many debts to many individuals and institutions. This study began as a
dissertation project when I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago. I
gratefully acknowledge the generous financial support of the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada. The Council awarded me a Doctoral
Fellowship to pursue my studies. I just as gratefully acknowledge the generous
financial assistance of the University of Chicago and the Mrs. Giles Whiting
Foundation. This support allowed me to finish writing my dissertation at leisure and
without distraction. I have also received much support since coming to McGill
University. I should like to thank the Graduate Faculty for a grant which helped me
to complete the revisions of my manuscript. I should also like to thank the Computer
Sub-Committee and the office of the Dean of the Faculty of Arts for assistance in the
purchase of computer equipment. Finally, I should like to thank James A.
McGilvray for the assistance he gave me in m.:'lking out my computer grant and for
doing what he could to teach me how to use the equipment once it arrived.
I profited very much from discussions about my work with Rae Langton, W. W.
Tait and Jonathan Vogel. I received very helpful comments and criticisms from
Michael Forster and Daniel Garber. I am most grateful for their assistance. Karl
Ameriks saw this manuscript in many different forms at all stages of its
development. I wish to thank him not only for his very kind hospitality in South
Bend. but also for all his encouragement and his very useful comments, questions
and critcisrns. They helped me clarify my ideas, correct certain oversights, set the
emphasis on certain points and pull the manuscript together as a whole. I am very
grateful to him for this assistance. I must also thank Manfred Kuehn for helping me
prepare the final manuscript.
I owe a very significant debt to Michael Friedman, which I should like to
acknowledge very gratefully indeed. When I first began work on this project, I had
all sorts of plans and ideas-some very inchoate and almost all rather too ambitious.
I was able to bring my ideas-and the project as a whole-into focus because of the
unstinting, encouraging and perceptive feedback which I received from Michael
Friedman. He helped me to see the importance of certain things for Kant's
development, which I had initially tended to play down, notably the importance of
Newton's natural philosophy and theory of universal gravitation. He helped me
sharpen my analysis as I went along, and he taught me to leave no stone unturned.
The project is a much better one for his assistance. I just hope that I might some day
make myself as helpful to a graduate student as he was to me. I owe another
significant debt to Stephen Menn, who never tired of discussing my work with me,
whose sharp, insightful comments kept me honest, whose broad. detailed knowledge
of philosophy suggested new avenues for me to explore and whose dear friendship
was a great support to me. I must also thank my colleagues in the Department of
Philosophy at McGill Univerity for their friendship and support in this project. In
this regard. I owe a special debt to Marguerite Deslauriers, Eric Lewis, David
Norton, and to Michael Hallett, who among other things, spent a rather frustrating
evening trying to print up a copy of my m.:'llluscript. Finally, I must thank Joan
McGilvray for shaming me into finishing this project and Meera Johri for helping
me with the final corrections.
This little book is for Stephen.

NOTE ON SOURCES

Unless otherwise indicated, all translations from the French, Gennan or Latin of
Christian August Crusius, Leonhard Euler, Immanuel Kant, Gottfried Wilhelm
Leibniz and Christian Wolff are my own, though I have consulted, and been
influenced by, the following translations of Kant's early works: Lewis White Becket
al., Kant's Latin Writings (New York: Peter Lang, 1986); F. E. England, Kant's
Concept of God (London: Allen and Unwin, 1932); William Hastie, Kant's
Cosmogony, ed. Willy Ley (New York: Greenwood Publishing Company, 1968);
Kerferd and Walford, Kant: Selected Pre-Critical Writings (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1968); Gordon Treash, The One Possible Basis for a
Demonstration ofthe Existence ofGod (New York: Abaris Books, 1979).
Following custom, citations from Kant's Critique of Pure Reason refer to the
pagination of the first edition of 1781 (A) and to that of the second edition of 1787
(B). All other citations from the works of Kant refer to Kants gesammelte Schriften,
herausgegeben von der Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften 29 volwnes
(Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1902-). I give the volwne nwnber, the page nwnber, and
(where useful and available) the line nwnber.
Except where otherwise mentioned, citations from the published works of
Leibniz, Swedenborg and Wolff refer to section nwnbers. References to Gottfried
Wilhelm Leibniz are from Die philosophische Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm
Leibniz, ed. C. J. Gerhardt (Berlin: Weidmann, 1875-1900). References to Christian
Wolff are from the Gesammelte Werke, ed. J. Ecole et al. (Hildesheim: Olrns,
1965-). Except where otherwise indicated, all quotations of Emanuel Swedenborg
are from the English-language edition of his works prepared by the Swedenborg
Foundation. I cite, in particular, Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and
Concerning Divine Wisdom, trans. J. A. Ager (New York: Swedenborg Foundation,
1969); Arcana coelestia, trans. Jolm Faulkner Potts, Fourth American Edition (New
York: Swedenborg Foundation, 1949); Heaven and Its Wonders, and Hell, trans. J.
A. Ager, (New York: Swedenborg Foundation, 1960).
All citations of Leonhard Euler are from the Opera omnia, ed. Andreas Speiser et
al. (ZUrich: Orell Fiissli, 1911-). I give the series nwnber, the volwne nwnber and
the page nwnber.
All citations of Christian August Crusius are from Die Phi/osophische
Hauptwerke, ed. Giorigio Tonelli, (Hildesheim: Olrns, 1962-).
Many of the titles of Kant's works are long and complicated. To make reference
to them easier in the body of my text, I have shortened them. I do not believe that my
abbreviations are especially idiosyncratic. But for the sake of clarity, I list them as
follows. I refer to the Principiorum primorum cognitionis metaphysicae nova
di/ucidatio of 1755 as the Nova dilucidatio. I refer to the Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels, oder Versuch von der Vetfassung und dem
mechanischen Ursprunge des ganzen Weltgebtiudes, nach Newtonischen
Grundstitzen abgehandelt of 1755 more simply as the Theory of the Heavens. I refer
to the Metaphysicae cum geometria iunctae usus in philosophia natura/i, 0JiUS
specimen I. continet monadologiam physicam of 1756 more simply as the Physical
Monadology. I refer to Der einzig m6gliche Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstration
des Daseins Gottes of 1763 as the Beweisgrund.l refer to the UntersuchungiJber die
Deutlichkeit der Grundstitze der natiJrlichen Theologie und der Moral of 1764 as
the Preisschrift. I refer to De mundi sensibilis atque intelligibilis fonna et principiis
of 1770 as the Inaugural Dissertation.

INTRODUCTION
1

In the two hundred and some years since the first Critique appeared for the first
time, we have made ourselves very familiar with Kant's ideas. But at the same
time, we have lost touch with them. All too often, the issue or philosopher Kant
is trying to address in any given passage is hard or impossible for us to
determine. Frequently enough, we do not even understand the meaning of his
technical terms.' No wonder that so many contradictory things have been said
about him. Kant has been variously depicted as the friend and foe of subjective
idealism; as philosopher of science and ordinary experience alike; as the
champion of faith over reason and the champion of reason over faith. We must
learn something about the history of Kant's development and the larger
philosophical context in which he produced his great work. Otherwise, Kant's
deceptively familiar philosophy will remain forever mysterious. An argument
or philosophical program is intelligible only on the terms it defines for itself. It
is intelligible only so far as we understand the problem it was meant to solve,
the debate it was meant to settle, the philosophers it was meant to sway or
scourge and the reason its proponent thought it worth any of the trouble in the
first place.
The purpose of my study is to reconstruct an important part of Kant's
philosophical history. I shall try to show why Kant came to the view that
sensibility and pure understanding are radically different faculties of knowledge
governed by different principles-a view of central importance to the Critique
of Pure Reason.
Kant was to argue in 1781 that all human knowledge springs from two
different sources: sensibility, a capacity to be affected by objects given to us
under the formal conditions of space and time; and understanding, a capacity to
think about objects through the "spontaneity of concepts." The Critique of Pure
Reason depends on the idea that these two sources of knowledge are different
and separate from each other. Kant insisted that, "[They] cannot exchange their
functions": the understanding can have no intuition of anything; nor can the
senses have any thought (A51/B76). We can have knowledge of objects only
when our two faculties conspire together in the appropriate way. "But that is no
reason for confounding the contribution of either with that of the other;" he
said, "rather is it a strong reason for carefully separating and distinguishing
[them]" (A51-52/B76). Kant also insisted that we can discover the origin of any
item of knowledge in either the one faculty or the other and that we must make
every effort to do so. He argued in other words that we must produce a
"Transcendental Topic,"" ... the decision as to the place which belongs to every
concept [in either sensibility or understanding] according to difference in the
use to which it is put, and the directions for determining this place for all
concepts according to rules ... " (A268/B324). Kant went so far as to say that the
Transcendental Topic is" ... a duty from which nobody who wishes to make any
a priori judgments about things can claim exemption" (A263/B319). His worry
was that we might make improper use of the understanding if we confused the
origin of any of our representations and that this would lead inevitably to great
mistakes in metaphysics! Kant hoped that the Transcendental Topic would" ...
provide a sure safeguard against the surreptitious employment of pure
understanding and the delusions that arise herefrom" (A268/B324).

Introduction

Now we can find the ancestor of these ideas in Kant's so-called Inaugural
Dissertation of 1770. The important insight of the Dissertation is that
sensibility and pure understanding are very different faculties, governed by
different principles. Already by 1770, Kant was arguing that we have pure
intuitions of space and time; that these pure intuitions are not the work of the
intellect, but the principles of human sensibility; that the intellect is not a
sensible faculty and that it must be governed by other principles, whatever these
principles might tum out to be. Kant insisted in 1770 that metaphysicians have
a responsibility to discover the origin of our knowledge in either the one faculty
or the other. He worried that neglect of this responsibility would lead to bastard
concepts and illusory metaphysics. In other words, Kant was already urging
metaphysicians to undertake some kind of Transcendental Topic, lest they
succumb to the delusions that arise from the surreptitious use of our faculties.
Any understanding of Kant's ideas in the first Critique on the relationship
between our faculties of knowledge must begin with an understanding of the
Inaugural Dissertation and its philosophical motivations.
I do not mean to suggest, however, that Kant had worked out his considered
views on either sensibility or pure understanding by 1770. It is clear that he had
not. Kant admitted in the famous letter to Marcus Herz of February 1772 that
he had neglected to say anything of substance in his Dissertation about the
understanding. (What he did have to say about it-namely that the concepts we
form by its means could yield knowledge of things as they are in themselves
(2.392.27-29)-he would later repudiate in the Critique of Pure Reason.) Nor
do I mean to suggest that the Kant of 1770 could have formulated the ideal of a
Transcendental Topic to the complete satisfaction of his later self. Notice, for
one thing, that the worry behind the Transcendental Topic in the first Critique
and the worry behind the "Transcendental Topic" in the Inaugural Dissertation
are not the same.
In the first Critique, the Topic is supposed to safeguard us from the
tempting thought that the pure concepts of the understanding are enough all on
their own to yield metaphysical knowledge of things as they are in themselves.
The Topic of the Inaugural Dissertation is supposed to inoculate the pure
concepts of the understanding from the "contagion" of sensibility: once
inoculated, these concepts should be able to yield the very "knowledge" later
denounced as an illusion by the Topic in the first Critique. The difference here
surely has to do with the fact that, by the time of the first Critique, Kant
thought that he had adequately worked out his conception of pure
understanding and that he now understood how this faculty and sensibility
work together. Kant thought that he could show in the Transcendental
Deduction and the System of Principles that the pure concepts of the
understanding yield knowledge only insofar as they apply to things as they
appear to us under the pure forms of human sensibility. He thought that the
Transcendental Deduction and the Transcendental Dialectic would rule out the
possibility of any knowledge of things in themselves, either by pure concepts of
the understanding or by the ideas of pure reason. These notions came to Kant
well after the defense of the Inaugural Dissertation in 1770. But notice that
they would not have been possible without the progress already made in the
"Topic" of this early work. If Kant had not recognized that sensibility and pure
understanding are different faculties, he would never have been faced with one
of the fundamental questions of the first Critique, namely how the two faculties
work together to yield knowledge.

Introduction

The difference between the Topic of the first Critique and that of the
Inaugural Dissertation is significant. But, as I say, any understanding of Kant's
later ideas about the relationship between our faculties of knowledge must at
least begin with an understanding of his earlier ideas on this matter and their
philosophical motivations.' Much of the work of this study will be to uncover
these motivations. I shall argue that Kant was first compelled in 1770 to
distinguish our faculties of knowledge in his effort to settle a debate that had
been raging in German universities since at least the 1730s over causes and the
"community" (commercium) ofbody and soul.
The question under debate was this. What produces natural change in the
world? The question arose in the specific terms of rational psychology-as a
question about whether body and soul can produce change in each other. But it
also arose in the broader terms of general cosmology-as a question about
which things can act and what causes what. Most philosophers of the time
believed that the answer to these questions lay among three rival systems of
causes: the system of occasional causes, the system of pre-established harmony
and the system of physical influx or real interaction. The occasionalists argued
that God is the author of all change in the world. Advocates of the other two
systems argued that change in the world is usually the effect of creatures. The
point in dispute among these people was whether one creature can ever be the
author of change in another. Advocates of pre-established harmony argued No;
advocates of real interaction argued Yes.
I shall try to show in what follows that the insights of Kant's Inaugural
Dissertation were the fruit of a sustained effort to lay the foundations of a
credible system of real interaction. The project of the early Kant was to answer
the critics of this system and to demonstrate conclusively that creatures have
the power to produce change in one another, if they have the power to produce
change at all. It was as an effort to make this point that Kant finally
distinguished the principles of sensibility from the principles of pure
understanding, for this distinction was supposed to help him remedy an
interesting and important problem in his early system of causes-as I shall
argue in due course. To the extent that transcendental idealism and the ideal of
a Transcendental Topic have their origin in the Inaugural Dissertation, we may
regard the Critical Philosophy as the result-in part, if not in whole-of Kant's
early efforts to defend the system of real interaction.
Before I say anything in detail about Kant's early system, its problems and
Kant's efforts to solve them, I must give a picture of Kant's development as I
understand it. I must do so in order to put the insights of the Inaugural
Dissertation in their proper perspective.
Kant first took interest in the debate about causes during the mid-1740s,
while he was a student at the University of KOnigsberg. By the end of this
decade and well into the next, he worked out the principles of his own system
of causes-the system he was counting on to end the debate once and for all. As
I shall argue in due course, Kant became unhappy with this system by the mid1760s. He had concluded by this time that he would have to investigate the
limits of our cognitive powers before he-or anyone else for that matter-could
contribute helpfully to the debate. It was not until the Dissertation of 1770 that
Kant undertook such an investigation systematically. As we shall see, then, the
Inaugural Dissertation is a step back and an effort to take stock. In the first
place, it is Kant's effort to take stock of his own metaphysics. But because Kant
had been so optimistic that his own system had the best chance of beating out

Introduction

its rivals, it is also Kant's effort to take stock of the ongoing debate as a whole
and to detennine the conditions under which one day it might finally be settled.
This is just to say that we must not expect to find a system of causes in the
Inaugural Dissertation. The Inaugural Dissertation on its own could not
resolve the debate about change in the world-nor was it meant to. At most, it
could disqualify unhappy experiments and offer a new point of departure, i.e., a
"propaedeutic"-the preliminary reflections necessary for constructing a
plausible and true system of causes. This it could offer, Kant hoped, because of
its rigorous distinction between the principles governing our different faculties
of knowledge.
I should also say this, before proceeding any further. Kant had not
abandoned hope in 1770 of one day vindicating real interaction over preestablished harmony. Having righted his own false steps, he continued
thereafter to investigate the limits of our cognitive faculties: he fleshed out his
conception of pure understanding and tried to explain how this faculty
conspires with sensibility to produce a priori knowledge of objects. One way or
another, these reflections of the so-called "silent" decade from 1770 to 1780
finally led to the mature doctrine of transcendental idealism in the Critique of
Pure Reason. With the principles of transcendental idealism in hand, Kant was
poised to try once again to set up a credible system of real interaction. The three
Analogies of Experience (together with the rest of the System of Principles)
were supposed to be the foundation of that system. I cannot reconstruct this
development in any detail during the course of my study. But I will try to sketch
it in broad outline in the final chapter. I shall argue that there are certain
inadequacies in the Inaugural Dissertation: Kant's account of the so-called
"sensible world" is radically incomplete, even on its own terms. I shall suggest
that Kant recast his early system of real interaction in the terms of
transcendental idealism by reflecting on these inadequacies and by trying to
remedy them. I shall suggest that the remedy consisted in an effort to
incorporate certain aspects of Kant's early general cosmology into his account
of our pure understanding. Just as the early Kant argued that God's will
legislates laws of universal interaction for creation, so the later Kant would
argue that our pure understanding legislates laws of universal interaction for
nature understood as the realm of appearances.
Let me now briefly describe Kant's early system of real interaction and its
shortcomings.
2
The system of real interaction, laid out in the Nova dilucidatio of I 755, rests on
two metaphysical principles. According to the first of these, the principle of
succession, "No change can occur to substances unless they are connected with
other substances; the reciprocal dependence of substances determines mutual
change of state" (1.410.18-20). This is just to say that no substance has the
power to effect change in itself; every change in a substance must be the effect
of another substance acting on it from without. If real interaction did not take
place in the world, the world would be immutable. Now the principle of
succcession has a peculiar relation to the law of inertia and Newton's
conception of an external force. I shall have more to say about this in Chapter
Two. It will be enough to say for the time being that we can think of the
principle of succession as a metaphysical statement of Newton's first and

Introduction

its rivals, it is also Kant's effort to take stock of the ongoing debate as a whole
and to detennine the conditions under which one day it might finally be settled.
This is just to say that we must not expect to find a system of causes in the
Inaugural Dissertation. The Inaugural Dissertation on its own could not
resolve the debate about change in the world-nor was it meant to. At most, it
could disqualify unhappy experiments and offer a new point of departure, i.e., a
"propaedeutic"-the preliminary reflections necessary for constructing a
plausible and true system of causes. This it could offer, Kant hoped, because of
its rigorous distinction between the principles governing our different faculties
of knowledge.
I should also say this, before proceeding any further. Kant had not
abandoned hope in 1770 of one day vindicating real interaction over preestablished harmony. Having righted his own false steps, he continued
thereafter to investigate the limits of our cognitive faculties: he fleshed out his
conception of pure understanding and tried to explain how this faculty
conspires with sensibility to produce a priori knowledge of objects. One way or
another, these reflections of the so-called "silent" decade from 1770 to 1780
finally led to the mature doctrine of transcendental idealism in the Critique of
Pure Reason. With the principles of transcendental idealism in hand, Kant was
poised to try once again to set up a credible system of real interaction. The three
Analogies of Experience (together with the rest of the System of Principles)
were supposed to be the foundation of that system. I cannot reconstruct this
development in any detail during the course of my study. But I will try to sketch
it in broad outline in the final chapter. I shall argue that there are certain
inadequacies in the Inaugural Dissertation: Kant's account of the so-called
"sensible world" is radically incomplete, even on its own terms. I shall suggest
that Kant recast his early system of real interaction in the terms of
transcendental idealism by reflecting on these inadequacies and by trying to
remedy them. I shall suggest that the remedy consisted in an effort to
incorporate certain aspects of Kant's early general cosmology into his account
of our pure understanding. Just as the early Kant argued that God's will
legislates laws of universal interaction for creation, so the later Kant would
argue that our pure understanding legislates laws of universal interaction for
nature understood as the realm of appearances.
Let me now briefly describe Kant's early system of real interaction and its
shortcomings.
2

The system of real interaction, laid out in the Nova dilucidatio of 1755, rests on
two metaphysical principles. According to the first of these, the principle of
succession, "No change can occur to substances unless they are connected with
other substances; the reciprocal dependence of substances determines mutual
change of state" (1.410.18-20). This is just to say that no substance has the
power to effect change in itself; every change in a substance must be the effect
of another substance acting on it from without. If real interaction did not take
place in the world, the world would be immutable. Now the principle of
succcession has a peculiar relation to the law of inertia and Newton's
conception of an external force. I shall have more to say about this in Chapter
Two. It will be enough to say for the time being that we can think of the
principle of succession as a metaphysical statement of Newton's first and

Introduction

second laws of motion. Newton's first law of motion states that no body can
ever produce acceleration in itself. The second law states that acceleration is
always the effect of a force impressed on one body by another. On the face of it,
the difference between Kant's principle and the laws of motion is this: the laws
of motion govern change of state in bodies; Kant's principle governs change of
state in any kind of substance whatsoever.' From the very statement of the
principle of succession, we can see that Kant conceives of all change-whether
in the objects of metaphysics or in the objects of natural philosophy-as
something like an acceleration. For Kant's principle tells us that change of
state-even in an immaterial substance-must always be the effect of an
external force.
The principle of succession is supposed to explain how change in the world
is possible, namely as the effect of real interaction among creatures. Now Kant
has to explain how real interaction itself is possible.
Inertia is the natural condition of every creature. So long as a creature
exists, it will tend to preserve its state, whatever that state might be. This is just
to say that the existence of creatures alone is not the sufficient reason of any
real interaction: creatures do not act on one another just because they happen to
exist. We learn from the principle of succession that interaction takes place
when creatures impress forces on one another. Kant argues in the Nova
dilucidatio that God is the reason of every community of impressed forces
among creatures and so the ultimate reason of all interaction in the world. The
second principle of his system-the principle of co-existence-makes precisely
this point. It states that, "Finite substances bear no relations by their existence
alone, and plainly they partake in no interaction unless they are sustained in an
arrangement of reciprocal relations by the common principle of their existence,
namely the divine intellect" (1.412.36-413.2). Creatures do not interact just
because they happen to exist, but only because God conceives of them as doing
so in the "schema" of his divine intellect (intel/ectus divini schema).
Kant had high hopes for the system of causes presented in the Nova
dilucidatio. He was confident that he could defend real interaction against the
chief objections of Wolff and Leibniz; he was confident that his system could
explain how spatio-temporal relations among creatures are possible; he was
confident that he could defend the idea of a universal gravitational force and
action at a distance. But for all the great promise of the Nova dilucidatio, Kant
was to lament eleven years later in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer that it had been his
"fate" to "fall in love" with metaphysics, even though he could " ... boast
scarcely any testimony of her favor" (2.367.21-23). What had gone wrong?
Kant's early system of real interaction rests in part on an idea borrowed
from Newton's natural philosophy-the idea of an external force, i.e., the
action that one thing impresses on another thing. Kant's system is original in
this respect at least: it supposes that all creatures must impress such forces on
one another to the extent that they undergo change-a// creatures, even
immaterial ones. The soul impresses some kind of force on the body every time
it overcomes the body's material inertia and willfully produces in it a new state
of either motion or rest. The body impresses some kind of force on the soul
every time it overcomes the soul's spiritual inertia and produces in it some new
perception or feeling of pleasure or pain. Now it follows as a corollary of the
principle of co-existence that spatial relations among creatures arise as a result
of the interplay of forces among them, as legislated by the schema of the divine
intellect. Creatures do not spatially relate to one another, just because they

Introduction

happen to exist. We can perfectly well conceive of two creatures without having
to conceive of the two creatures as having a position in space relative to one
another. But the two creatures must certainly have a position in space relative
to one another, if they engage in a divinely decreed community of external
forces. In other words, creatures are present in space if real interaction takes
place among them. This is as true of souls as it is true of all creatures in
general. The soul is present in space, says Kant, precisely insofar as it
impresses a force on the body. The tricky question is what kind of force is
involved here. Kant himself came to the conclusion that he could not answer
this question, except by saying that the soul is something very like the primitive
elements of matter.
Kant was enough of a follower of Wolff and Leibniz that he took certain
simple substances-the things he called "physical monads"-as the sufficient
reason of all bodies.' Kant emphasized above all else that these monads are
absolutely simple things. If they were not, he argued, no material composite
would be possible. The problem with these monads is that they are also
supposed to be extended. This is a problem, because one might very well
suppose that anything extended in space must be divisible. As Kant himself was
always so keen to point out, geometers have shown that space itself is divisible
as far as we like. So the challenge for Kant was to explain how an extended
thing could be simple, i.e., absolutely indivisible. Kant tried to solve this
problem first by denying that physical monads fill space by the multiplicity of
their parts. So he denied that the monads are a complex of parts that fill space
to the extent that their parts fill space. Next Kant argued that the monads fill
space through the "sphere of their activity." His idea was that the monads fill
space insofar as they impress certain forces-an original force of repulsion-on
things trying to make their way into a determinate region of space. As a
material particle approaches the center of a monad's sphere of activity, the
monad mounts greater and greater resistance, until finally it turns the particle
away by its original force of repulsion. A monad's sphere of activity is just that
region of space throughout which the monad resists penetration. Kant argued
that, though this sphere of activity might be divisible (and, indeed, infinitely
divisible), the monad itself is not. Indeed, he suggested that we might represent
the monad itself as a point particle ideally situated at the center of this sphere
of activity-the point from which the forces radiate outward and act upon
encroaching parts of matter. Thus the monads are extended and present in
space insofar as they have a sphere of activity, but, in and of themselves, they
are absolutely simple things.
As I say, Kant had no way of explaining how the soul is present in spaceexcept by way of his story about monads. Like the monads, souls are supposed
to be present in space and yet absolutely simple. The one way to solve the
problem about the soul was to call on the solution for monads. When pressed,
Kant could only say that the soul is present in space not by a multiplicity of
parts, but through the sphere of its activity-by the influence of the forces it
impresses on other things, notably the body. The problem here was the matter
of repulsive force. Nothing in the story so far committed Kant to the view that
the soul has an original force of repulsion, just as he said the physical monads
do. But given that the soul resembles a monad in everything else and given that
Kant was apparently committed to ascriJ>ing bodily forces of one kind or
another to the soul, it was natural to wonder-and Kant himself is on record as
wondering in the Preisschri.ft of 1764-how he could show that the soul is not

Introduction

in space through an original force of repulsion. Kant himself

worry as follows:

e~pressed

the

I admit that the proof we have-that the soul is not matter-is good. But take care not to
conclude therefrom that the soul is not of a material nature. For we do not simply mean
thereby that the soul is not matter, but rather also that it is not such a simple substance that
an element of matter could be. This requires a special proof, namely that this thinking being
is not in space through impenetrability, as a corporeal element is; and that it could not
constitute together with others a mass and an extended thing-whereoftruly no proof has yet
been given, which, if discovered would show the inconceivable way that a spirit is present in
space (2.293.8-18).

If the soul is present in space through a force of repulsion, it must have a

certain sensible quality, namely impenetrability. But an impenetrable soul

cannot be everywhere present in every part of the (impenetrable) body, contrary
to a fundamental assumption of Kant's rational psychology.
Kant was not especially interested in the nature of the soul as such-so little
interested that his rational psychology was very impoverished indeed. The only
thing that seemed to exercise Kant in this branch of special metaphysics was
the problem of the soul's presence in the body. Kant was extravagantly
optimistic that he could solve this problem by appeal to the notion of a force
and the principle of co-existence. But, as enticing as the solution might have
been, it raised new problems-the problem of showing that the soul is
absolutely simple, though present in the same space occupied by the body. In
the effort to solve this problem, Kant could not draw on the resources of
rational psychology, for his rational psychology had none to offer. He had to
depend on his story about the physical monads. This raised yet another
problem: how to show that the soul is not present in space by forces of
repulsion. Unless Kant could solve this problem, not only would he have to
deny that the soul is present in every part of the body during the course of its
natural existence, he would also have to admit that a soul can be an object of
sensation for us-even if it had passed out of this life and on to the next. We
could have immediate experience of separate souls, just as we have experience
of bodies and their motions. If departed spirits have an original force of
repulsion, we could crack a knuckle on them. Kant had re-created the realm of
immaterial things in the image of material nature.
3

No one so forcefully and so vividly pleaded the case for spirits and the
possibility of direct communication with them than Emanuel Swedenborg. At
the height of a distinguished career as scholar, statesman, engineer, geologist,
physiologist under the Swedish kings Charles XII and Frederick of Hesse,
Swedenborg began to have strange visions that convinced him he could
communicate at wiii with the spirits of the dead and the angels in heaven. He
took this as a sign that God had commissioned him to reveal the hidden
meaning of Scripture and to announce the Second Coming. After nine years of
intense labor, he published the Arcana coe/estia, a line-by-line commentary of
the first two Books of Moses with reports of some of the things he had seen on
his trips to Heaven and Hell.
Kant read this work some time in the mid-1760s, and it was of considerable
interest to him for a couple of reasons. First, Swedenborg's account ofthe order
that prevails in heaven is nothing less than a system of pre-established

Introduction

harmony, with angels substituting for monads. Swedenborg could criticize the
metaphysicians of his day whole-heartedly: he himself was no less a
metaphysician for all that. Second of all, Swedenborg unambiguously
represents heaven in the image of material nature. "When I have been
permitted to be in company with angels," he writes portentously in Heaven and
Its Wonders, and Hell, "the things about me appeared precisely the same as
those in the [material] world; and so plainly that I would not have known that I
was not in the world and in a king's palace" (174). Swedenborg has very
detailed descriptions of the gardens, the animal life and the buildings in
heaven, as well as the angels, their clothing and their manners. On
Swedenborg's account, heaven could be a street corner in Stockholm.
Kant discovered in the Arcana coelestia something like a caricature of his
own metaphysics. Given that Kant himself could not conceive of the soul except
perhaps as impenetrable, he could not justifiably dismiss Swedenborg's claims
to have experience of separate spirits; nor could he justifiably reproach
Swedenborg for recreating heaven in the image of the physical world. The only
significant difference between the two is that Swedenborg had a system of preestablished harmony; Kant, a system of real interaction. But Kant had as badly
corrupted his own system as Swedenborg had corrupted the system of Leibniz.
Metaphysics itself had gone as mad in the Nova di/ucidatio as it had in the
Arcana coelestia.
In 1766, Kant wrote a review of the Arcana coelestia under the title,
Dreams of a Spirit-Seer Explained Through Dreams of Metaphysics. An
important part of my study will be devoted to this satirical work and its relation
to the Inaugural Dissertation. I shall argue that Kant first takes stock of his
early metaphysics in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer; that the satire directed against
Swedenborg in this work is equally directed against Kant himself-and this, for
the following reason: Kant and the Swedish spirit-seer both treat immaterial
things as though they could be objects of human sensibility. Swedenborg stands
in for Kant here. As we shall see in due course, the Dreams is also a diagnosis
of Kant's early metaphysics. I shall argue that Kant finds especial fault with the
way he had been using the idea of an external force: it was in part the
unthinking use of this idea in his rational psychology that led to the sensuous
treatment of immaterial things. As a remedy to this problem, Kant calls for an
investigation into the limits of human understanding. So I shall argue that
Dreams of a Spirit-Seer and the Inaugural Dissertation bear an interesting
relation to each other: Kant carries out in the Inaugural Dissertation the
investigation he had been calling for in his review of the Arcana coelestia.
The relation between these two works deserves another word or two. I said
that Kant finds especial fault in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer with his early,
unthinking appeal to external forces. I shall argue that Kant is here adapting
some of the reflections on alleged powers in the soul that he found inHume's
Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Apparently taking Hume as his
example, Kant makes the following point in the Dreams against his earlier self:
reason discovers no necessary connection between cause and effect; nor does it
find any such connection between the content of the will and any motions of the
body. Kant concludes that, " ... the fundamental concepts of things as causes, of
forces and activities are altogether arbitrary and can neither be confirmed nor
refuted if they are not taken from experience" (2.370.21-22). Kant's idea is
something like this. So long as reason can find no evidence a priori of any
necessary connection between cause and effect, it must take care not to ascribe

Introduction

external forces to things. It must take care in particular not to ascribe external
forces to the soul, whether the soul be in its natural condition or fled from the
material world upon the death of the body. If one could find evidence of such
forces in experience, Kant says that he would be willing to grant them to the
soul. But the empirical evidence so far teaches us only that a certain motion of
the soul is usually followed by a certain motion in the body. Experience reveals
a constant conjunction, but no evidence of any spiritual forces at play.
Kant plays up Hume's critical reflections on alleged powers in the soul-or
what he takes to be the up-shot of these reflections-in order to frustrate the
line of thought in his early metaphysics that had produced all the strange
results. He had to admit that the soul has sensible qualities, because he
imagined that it has external forces. But Kant no longer has any good reason to
grant the soul such forces once he admits that the mind can find no necessary
connection between cause and effect. For then he must admit that all our
knowledge of forces comes from experience. But though he says that experience
reveals essential forces-forces of universal attraction-in bodies (2.371.2232), it so far reveals nothing of the kind in souls.
Kant was later to think of his early treatment of the soul as suffering from a
kind of "contagion." We can think of his appeal to Hume as a way of isolating
this contagion and as a way of putting his metaphysics in quarantine. But Kant
came to the conclusion that the disease in his system was only one strain in a
family of such ailments. A metaphysics suffering from one of these ailments
could be expected to represent any immaterial substance, i.e., any object of the
intellect, as though it were subject to the conditions of sensibility. The
metaphysician might offer a sensuous representation of the soul, as Kant had
and for the same reasons as Kant; or, he might offer such a representation of
the simple, constitutive elements of matter-or even of God. Kant decided that
metaphysicians needed a method for coping with all the strains of this
"contagion." This method would help us treat the contagion every time we
detected a case of it. The method presupposed, however, that we could
recognize the limits of sensibility. It presupposed that we would know how to
distinguish sensibility and the pure understanding-and indeed that these two
faculties are distinct from each other. The purpose of the Inaugural
Dissertation is precisely to draw the relevant distinction between our faculties
of knowledge and to offer a systematic method for treating contagion in
metaphysics-the so-called "metaphysical error of subreption."
The Critical Philosophy began with Kant's effort in the Inaugural
Dissertation to lay the boundary between human sensibility and pure
understanding. I shall try to argue in what follows that this effort was necessary
to remedy the problems I have just described as peculiar to Kant's early system
of real interaction. If I am right, Kant's early commitment to real interaction
was a first step towards the Criticial Philosophy. After I have discussed Kant's
strategy in the Inaugural Dissertation, I shall try to show that the Inaugural
Dissertation was inadequate on its own terms and that the next step towards the
Critical Philosophy must have involved an effort to make up for these
inadequacies. I shall argue, in the end, that Kant's new strategy was to fill in
his picture of pure understanding by calling on certain elements from his early
general cosmology. I shall argue that Kant based his new conception of pure
understanding on his early conception of God's providence. The basic idea was
apparently to assign to our understanding the task of legislating laws of
universal interaction for what Kant had been calling the "sensible world." Pure

10 Introduction
understanding was to be conceived as governing universal interaction among
appearances, just as God had earlier been conceived as governing universal
interaction among created substances. I would like to suggest that Kant arrived
at the Critical Philosophy by working out the details of his cosmological
conception of our understanding.
The program for my study is as follows. I take Dreams of a Spirit-Seer to be
a key moment in the story I have to tell. But Kant's satire is enigmatic. Like the
best enigmas, it has lent itself to multiple interpretations. I shall open my study
in the first Chapter with a critical review of some of the most important of these
interpretations. I shall argue that most of these interpretations have been
failures and that, if we understand the reason for their failure, we can find a
way to read the Dreams in a more fruitful way. In the second Chapter, I shall
discuss Kant's early system of real interaction. In Chapter Three, I shall discuss
the shortcomings of this system. Chapter Four will be about Swedenborg.
Chapter Five will be about Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer. The Inaugural Dissertation
will be the subject of the sixth Chapter. I shall conclude this study with a
seventh Chapter on the steps Kant must have taken after the Inaugural
Dissertation towards the Critical Philosophy.

CHAPTER ONE
INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS
1

A quick glance at the table of contents in the first two volwnes of Kant's works in
the Academy edition is enough to show that Kant's interests in the twenty-year
period from the mid-1740s to the mid-1760s were of very broad compass indeed.
The list of publications includes, among other things, an answer to the question
whether the Earth has physically aged, a theory of the wind, a disquisition on the
nature of fire, a Wliversal natural history and theory of the heavens, reflections on
physics and physical geography, reflections on mental illness, a piece on logic,
observations on the beautiful and the sublime, to say nothing of the various
monographs and dissertations on more obviously philosophical subjects. But for all
the variety, it takes no great insight to see that the early Kant was above all preoccupied by questions on special topics in metaphysics. The Nova dilucidatio of
1755 is an attempt, on the one hand, to undermine the system of pre-established
harmony favored by Wolff and Leibniz and, on the other, to lay the foundations of a
new system of real interaction. The Physical Monadology of 1756 is an attempt to
incorporate Newton's laws of motion and the theory of Wliversal attraction into a
Leibnizian-style monadology in order to explain the fundamental properties of
bodies on purely metaphysical grounds. These works, and others from the early
1760s, have one thing in common. They are all quite critical of the metaphysics
practiced in the school of Wolff and Leibniz, and they express the hope of
establishing an alternative, or at least of sketching a rough picture of what a viable
alternative might look like.
It was precisely this concern for the prospects of metaphysics that initially made
Kant's name in philosophical circles. Moses Mendelssolm published a review of
Kant's Beweisgrund in the Literaturbriefo in 1763, and though he had misgivings
about Kant's ideas, he urged the Magister of KOnigsberg to work out his new
metaphysical system.' Kant's name was still more closely linked to the problem
raised by the nature and status of metaphysics when his answer to the prize question
set by the Berlin Academy on the certainty of natural theology and morals received
an honorable mention and was published alongside Mendelssolm's winning
submission in 1764.' By tllis time, Kant had raised the expectation among his
contemporaries that he was preparing a new method and system of metaphysics.
This very expectation moved J. H. Lambert to write to him on November 13, 1765:
Professor Sulzer showed me your One Possible Basis of a Proof ofGod's Existence a year ago.
There I found my [own] thoughts and choice of materials and expression, and I inunediateiy
concluded that, if my Organon should be presented to you, Sir, you would likewise futd yourself
mirrored throughout most of my wOO.. I have prepared my Architectonik since then, and it has
been ready for the printer for a year. And now I see that you, Sir, will publish a Proper Method of
Metaphysics [eine eigentliche Methode der Metaphysic] next Easter. What could be more natural
than the desire to see \\hether my thoughts agree with the method that you propose? (10.48).

Lambert does not merely ex"pect Kant to publish a Proper Method of Metaphysics;
he is altogether excited at the prospect. He concludes his letter of 1765 with the
following wish:
... to oom:spond with you [on the subject of] coomology, metaphysics, physics, mathematics, the
sciences ofbeauty (die sch6nen Wissenschafien] and their rules, etc.; in a word, (to oom:spond with

12 Interpretation of Dreams
you on) every announcement for new projects(iede Ansch/age zu neuen Ausarbeitungun] and also
(on) every opportunity to oblige you ~ede An/abe zu Geflllligkeiten]. Until now, we have cbanced
on almost exactly the same investigations, without knowing il Would it not be easier to proceed if
we collaborated? How easy it is to agree on the consequences when we agree on the gr<lUll(k. and
how decisively then can we set the tone (I O.S I).

In Kant, Lambert thinks he has fowtd a partner who can help hlm to set metaphysics

on a new footing.
Kant hlmself further raised the expectations for hls work, at least in Lambert's
mind, when he wrote back to hls new correspondent on December 31, 1765. He
confirmed the rumor that he was indeed trying to work out a "proper method of
metaphysics," though he also e":plained that he would now have to postpone the
publication of hls new work "for a little whlle," so that he could prepare "a few little
pieces"-namely the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Philosophy and the
Metaphysical Foundations of Practical Philosophy-as a way to illustrate hls new
method in concreto (10.53).
None of these promised works were ready for the public within the next year;'
but, in the meantime, Kant put the finishlng touches on a casual piece, copies of
whlch he sent to Mendelssohn and Lambert. He described thls piece in hls coverletter to Mendelssohn as a collection of "reveries" (Trdumerey], as a"... casual
writing, so to speak fgleichsam abgedrungene &hrifl], (whlch] contains more of a
rapid sketch of the way one should judge of such questions [the questions raised by
reveries?] than a full development of the same" (10.65). The work in question,
whlch could not obviously be taken as an enquiry into the "proper method of
metaphysics," bore the enigmatic title, Trdume eines Geistersehers, erlduter( durch
Trtiume der Metaphysik, or Dreams of a Spirit-Seer Explained through Dreams of
Metaphysics.

We have no record of Lambert's reaction to the piece, and Mendelssolm's reply

to Kant on the subject seems to have been lost. But we can readily infer from Kant's
letter to Mendelssohn of April 8, 1766 that the venerable Wolffian was perplexed
and perhaps even outraged. For tlte tone ofthls letter is very apologetic. Kant writes:
The consterna1ion [die Befremdung) that you elqllllSS over the tone of the little writing is proofto me
of the good opinion that you have of the sincerity of my character, and your very WJwillingness to
see it equivocally e~ therein is at once prized and pleasing to me. In fact, you will never have
cause to change your opinion of me; for whatever faults there may be [in my character], much not

even the most resolute detennination can completely expWJge once and for al~ yet the capricious
frame of mind and the frame of mind given to illusion will always be forei~ to me, after having
learnt throughout the greater part of my life to despise and dispense with whatever serves to corrupt
the character; and thus the loss of that self respect, much springs from the consciousness of an open
and fortluight dil.position [unverstellten Gesinnung] would be tbe greale!.t misfortWJe that could
ever befall me, but rest assured a misfortWJe that never shall befall me. Though I believe many
things with the clearest possible conviction and to my great satisfaction [zu meiner groben
Zufriedenheit), much l shall never have the courage to say, yet I will never say something that I do
not believe (10.66).

Though this letter might have succeeded in reassuring Mendelssohn that Kant
would never compromise hls integrity, it is less clear that he had any better idea of
what Kant was actually up to. In a notice that appeared in the Allgemeine deutsche
Bibliothek in 1767, Mendelssohn was willing to concede that something important
might be going on in Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer. But he confessed that he could not be
sure whether Kant wished to subject metaphysics to ridicule or whether he wished
rather to plead the case for spirit-seers.

Interpretation of Dreams

13

Mendelssohn's perplexity may be excused. As I say, Dreams of a Spirit-Seer

cannot obviously be taken for Kant's expected "proper method in metaphysics," and
besides the work itself is rather bizarre at first glance.
It is preceded by a "Preliminary Report,"" ... that promises little for the execution
[of my project)" (2.317.2), while yet raising the question whether the philosopher
should take seriously the widely circulating tales of spirit-sightings or whether he
should rather pooh-pooh these stories as common superstition. Then, the work is
divided into two sections. The first section includes some critical reflections on our
concept of spirit, a theory of real interaction among the denizens of the spirit world,
a pronoWlcement that spirit-siglttings must be the effect of hallucination and mental
illness, and a pathology of such illness. In the second section, Kant suddenly reveals
that his intention all along has been to write a review of Emanuel Swedenborg's
Arcana coelestia-the eight-quarto volume work in which the famed spirit-seer of
Stockholm shares with us the hidden meaning of Scriptures, as revealed to him by
the angels, and stories of the things he saw and heard during his many sojourns in
heaven and the nether world of departed spirits. Kant concludes the second section
with some critical remarks about the status and future of metaphysics as a science.
Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer is indeed an odd work, but I must emphasize that Kant's
preoccupation with spirits does not in itself make it so. In 1605, Francis Bacon set
out to catalogue "the particular acts and works ... which have been embraced and
Wldertaken for the advancement of learning, and again what defects and
Wldervalues I find in such particular acts."' After having considered the object and
purpose of natural theology, one of the three special disciplines branching out of
phi/osophia prima, and after having lamented some of the excesses that occur in this
science when religion and philosophy are "commixed together," he goes on as
follows:
Otherwise it is of the nature of angels and spirits, much is an appendix of theology both divine and
natural, and is neither inscrutable nor interdicted; for although the Scripture saith, Let no man
deceive you in sublime discourse touching the worship ofangels, pressing into that he knoweth
not, etc. yet notwithstanding if you ob;erve well that precept, it may appear thereby that there be two
things only forbidden, adoration ofthem, and opinion fantastical ofthem; either to extol them further
than appertaineth to the degree of a creature, or to extol a man's knowledge of them further than he
hath ground. But the sober and grounded inquiry much may arise out of the passages of holy
Scriptures, or out ofthe gradations of nature, is not restrained.'

Bacon challenges the writings of many of his contemporaries on this arcane subject
matter as ''fabulous and fantastical," but he does not challenge the study of angels
and spirits itself. Nor is Bacon eccentric in this respect.
Any metaphysician, who thought he could prove the immortality of the hWllaD
soul, was committed to the belief in the existence of spirits. Some metaphysicians
were willing to indulge in more speculation about the state of the soul after the death
of the body than others.
Henry More, for instance, goes on at rather great length in the third book of his
The Immortality of the Soul about the life of separate spirits in the hereafter. He
argues that, at the moment of death, the soul passes out of its "Earthly Vehicle" into
an "Aerial" one; that separate souls have both sense and knowledge; and he tries to
explain how they hear and see at vast distances, etc. In Chapter Nine of Book Three,
he gives a general accoWlt of"the mutual entertains of the Genii in the other world,"
their "Philosophical and Political Conferences," their "Religious Exercises" and "the
innocent Pastimes and Recreations of the Better sort of them"; and he later goes on
to consider whether "the purer Daemons have their times of repast or no," how the
wicked Genii feed themselves, as well as the "food and feastings of the Better sort of

14 Interpretation of Dreams
Genii." More knows full well that he is treading on slippery ground. The more

particular and circumstantial his account of the hereafter, the more likely he is to
raise the jesters and scoffers against him. For, as he himself puts it, " ... overexquisiteness may seem to smell of art and fraud."' But he thinks the risk worth
taking, because he wants to answer those who argue, as Hobbes, that the possibility
of separate souls cannot even be properly conceived. So long as he gives a coherent
and probable account of the state of the soul after death, he can deflate the cavilling
of dogmatic corporealists.' Or such, anyway, is his claim.
Needless to say, one might very well admit that the human soul is incorporeal,
separable from the body after death and everlasting, without wishing to speculate so
freely on life in the hereafter. Christian Wolff takes this attitude in his Psycho/ogia
rationalis. The German metaphysician is confident he can demonstrate that the soul
survives the body after death, that it continues to have perceptions-indeed distinct
perceptions-in this state, and that it conserves its memory (744-746). This is
enough to prove, he says, that the human soul is immortal (747).' Wolff also thinks
he can demonstrate that life in the hereafter is "connected" (connexus) to life herebelow. In other words, he thinks he can demonstrate that our lot after the death of
the body depends on how well we lived during the course of our natural existence
(748). But this is as much as he will permit himself to say. He tells us that the
"light of reason" alone cannot show us what the connection between the life as we
live it now and the life to come will consist in. So, not surprisingly, he does not
indulge in any speculation about the pastimes and feasting of departed spirits, such
as we find in the works of Henry More.
My point in all this is just that, given the inunortality of the human soul, the
existence of separate spirits is a legitimate question for rational psychology. We
might very well fault the evidence a metaphysician uses to make his case one way or
the other, but we may not tax him with eccentricity just because he takes up the
question. Thus the oddity of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer cannot lie in Kant's apparent
pre-occupation with the question about spirits as such. Moreover, since Emanuel
Swedenborg claimed to have first-hand knowledge of the state of the soul after
death, it would have been natural for a metaphysician concerned with these issues to
take an interest in Swedenborg's Arcana coe/estia. Kant's work might be odd, but
not necessarily because it is supposed to pass for a review of Swedenborg's biblical
exegesis.
Now there is no doubt that Dreams of a Spirit-Seer is a distinctly strange
production; the question is why. Why should Moses Mendelssohn, who would later
go on himself to attempt a proof of the soul's inunortality in the Phadon, have found
Kant's work so perplexing? By way of an answer, we must bear at least two things
in mind. In the first place, Kant seems to associate the question of separate spirits
with the question concerning the status and future of metaphysics as a science. It is
not at all obvious on the face of it why these two questions should go hand in hand.
Perhaps one might have reasons to doubt that Henry More's tales of witch-craft,
demonic influences and ghostly apparitions can do anything to prove the existence
of separate spirits; and perhaps one might find it unseemly that a metaphysician
should devote so much of himself to collecting such tales. But even if these doubts
and queries are justified, the future of metaphysics hardly seems to stand or fall on
this ground. If we think that More's stories somehow reflect badly on metaphysics,
we have only to urge metaphysicians to be more circumspect in the future;
otherwise, let them go to it
The second thing to bear in mind is that Kant's stated position in Dreains of a
Spirit-Seer is highly equivocal. K.:'llll annow1ces eternal truths on one page with the

Interpretation of Dreams

15

greatest solemnity, only to laugh them off as patently absurd a few pages later. First

we are enjoined to beware the precepts of rational psychology; then it seems these
precepts are not only restored, but amplified; finally we are told that all was madness
from the outset What are we supposed to make of this? Does metaphysics have a
future or not; if so, under what conditions? Must we believe the spirit-seers or not;
either way, on what grounds? Ernst Cassirer expressed the quandary as follows:
But in this paradoxical mixture ofjest and earnestness, \Wtidl ~ the decisive factor? Which ~
the author's true face and \Wtidl the mask he had assumed? Was the book just a passing by-blow of
free hwnor, or ~ there concealed behind this satyr play of the mind something resembling a
tragedy of metaphysics? None of Kant's fiiends and cntics ~ ever able to amwer this question

with certainty."

Not surprisingly, readers of Kant continue to be puzzled, even to this day.

Let me now suggest that any adequate account of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer would
have to meet the following two criteria. In the first place, such an account would
have to explain why Kant associates the question of spirits and spirit-seeing with the
status and future of metaphysics. To meet the first criterion, this account would have
to do a number of different, but related things. It would have to show what Kant took
the failings of metaphysics to be; it would have to show precisely how Kant
formulated the question about spirits and spirit-seeing; and, it would also have to
explain Kant's attitude towards Swedenborg. In the second place, an adequate
account of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer would have to clarify the rhetorical ambiguities
of the work. To meet t11e second criterion, it would have to explain how passages
that support extravagant theories about spirits are compatible with other scornful
passages that dismiss such theories as errant nonsense. It would also have to explain
how passages in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer can be reconciled with related passages in
other works of Kant or in his correspondence. The principle of charity must
naturally serve as a guide in this respect. Though Kant admits in his letter to
Mendelssohn that his work was written very hastily and even haphazardly," we
cannot suppose Kant was in such a terrible muddle that he would allow any part of
the piece to be at total variance with his ideas on any matter. Short of concluding
that Kant held contradictory views on spirits and metaphysics, we must charitably
assume that we can somehow harmonize the apparently incompatible passages in
his work.
2
Dreams of a Spirit-Seer currently has four rival camps of readers. What chiefly

distinguishes readers in the different camps is the way t11ey understand Kant's
attitude on the one hand to Swedenborg and on t11e other hand to traditional
metaphysics. All apparently agree that traditional metaphysics was supposed to be a
science of supersensible tllings; all apparently agree that Kant's interest in this
peculiar science was bellind his interest in Swedenborg. Readers in the first camp
presuppose one way or another that Kant had some kind of enduring commitment to
metaphysics as a science of supersensible tllings. They argue that Kant himself was
a student of Swedenborg and tltat he incorporated some of Swedenborg's ideas into
his own metaphysics. Readers in the second camp argue, on the contrary, that Kant
was committed to traditional metaphysics on.ly in passing and that he renounced it
by the mid-1760s in the name of some kind of skeptical empiricism-a view
according to which knowledge begins, and even ends, with what the ordinary senses
have to teach us. These people say tltat Kant was never a student of Swedenborg.

16 Interpretation of Dreams
They say that Kant used Swedenborg in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer for sport-as a
caricature of the traditional metaphysician ludicrously claiming knowledge of things
no one can know. Readers in the third camp agree with those in the second on this
point at least: Swedenborg stands in the Dreams and in Kant's own mind for
something gone wrong in traditional metaphysics. But they distinguish themselves
in this respect: they deny that Kant ever had a taste for traditional metaphysics as
such. These people claim that Kant was committed to some kind of empiricism from
the beginning and that he tried to use this empiricism in order to reform traditional
metaphysics. Finally, readers in the fourth camp argue that Kant had a very peculiar
and evolving commitment to both empiricism and traditional metaphysics-and that
his attitude towards Swedenborg was ambivalent as a result.
I would like to discuss each of these accounts in turn. Each of them has
something going for it; each of them has influenced the way we think about Dreams
of a Spirit-Seer. Some continue to influence us, even though their original
proponents may have fallen into relative obscurity. But, as I shall argue, none of
them fully satisfies the two criteria I suggested earlier. I think it will be useful to
examine their various short-comings in light of the relevant texts, because this will
point us away from misinterpretations. But, more important, it will bring into
sharper focus what we should expect from a more successful reading of Kant's work.
I shall offer my own account of the work in the fifth chapter of my study.
Readers in the first camp include the eminent scholar, Hans Vaihinger, 13 as well
as an odd assortment of mystics, quacks and charlatans. These people claim that
Swedenborg exercised a positive influence on Kant, and they argue that we can find
firm traces of this influence in a letter Kant addressed to Charlotte von Knoblauch in
1763, in certain passages of Dremns of a Spirit-Seer, in the Inaugural Dissertation
and the lectures on metaphysics. Of the lot, Hans Vaihinger makes the most serious
case for this claim. He is especially struck by the fact that Kant seems to give a very
sympathetic account of Swedenborg's ideas in his lectures on mtional psychology as
transcribed by his student Politz some time in the 1770s. For Kant goes so fur as to
call these ideas "very sublime" (sehr erhaben) (28.298.37). This moves Vaihinger to
write, "But the wildly fermenting must of Swedenborg's mysticism was clarified by
Kant into the noble, mild, yet vigorous wine of Criticism."" Vaihinger seems to
think, in particular, that Swedenborg's ideas might have contributed positively to
Kant's distinction in the Inaugural Dissertation between the mundus sensibi/is and
the mundus intelligibi/is, and so ultimately to the Tmnscendental Aesthetic in the
Critique ofPure Reason.

Vaihinger's theory that Kant owed some kind of philosophical debt to

Swedenborg raises a number of difficult questions. First of all, it raises a question
about some very harsh pronouncements in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer. K.:wt describes
Swedenborg as "the arch-spirit-seer of all spirit-seers" (Erzgeisterseher unter allen
Geistersehem) (2.354.20). He writes savagely that, "If llk'UlY authors, now forgotten
or one day nameless, have gained no little profit from disregarding the cost of
understanding in the composition of great works, then without doubt the greatest
honor of them all falls to Mr. Swedenborg" (2.359.33-36). Kant seems to suggest in
this passage, and others like it, that Swedenborg is somehow a real menace to the
future of metaphysics. Moreover, he makes it very clear that he has not cribbed any
ideas from Swedenborg and that he thinks it folly to take the spirit-seer as a model
for his own works in metaphysics:
But I get straight to the point: I say that I do not take the object of such offem;ive comparisons as jest
and I declare once and for all that either Swedenborg's \Wiling-; must be suspected of greater wisdom
and truth than it appean; on fii'St glance; or it is a sheer coincidence that be concurs with my system,

Interpretation of Dreams

17

as poets sometimes make predictions while they rave--as it appears, or at least as they themselves
admit-predictions which now and then bear fruit (2.359.24-31).

Clearly, Kant would not have it said of him that he was ever a disciple of
Swedenborg, since he goes on to say that Swedenborg's work is "completely empty
of all reason" (2.360.3-4). IfKant really did owe some kind of philosophical debt to
Swedenborg, how are we to understand these protestations to the contrary?
Vaihinger and company have two options. Their first option is to declare these
hardhitting passages as disingenuous. John Manolesco does just that in the
introduction to his English-language translation of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer; he
argues that the extended passage I quoted above is a "glaringly puerile device"
adopted by Kant to hide his debt to "the great master of the occult." Now this is a
very serious charge, all the more serious in light of Kant's assurances to
Mendelssohn in the letter of 8 April 1766 that he would never say something he did
not really believe. If the charge is true, not only must we conclude that Kant was
insincere, but even that he was capable of perjuring himself to one of the minds he
most admired in Germany. Nothing in the testimonials on Kant's character suggests
that Kant could be guilty of deceit; nothing in Kant's 0\\11 writings from the period
suggests that his pronouncements in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer admit any
interpretation other than the literal and obvious one.
If Vaihinger and company acknowledge that Kant is sincere in Dreams of a
Spirit-Seer, and if they persist in thinking that Kant owed some kind of
philosophical debt to Swedenborg in such later works as the Inaugural Dissertation,
then they have only one option left open to them. They must conclude that Kant
changed his mind about Swedenborg over time. But this raises a further question. Is
it possible that, in the four short years between the publication of Dreams ofa SpiritSeer and the Inaugural Dissertation, Kant could have so changed his mind about
Swedenborg that he would incorporate Swedenborg's ideas in his first concrete
effort to trace the limits of hwnan understanding-even after all the diatribes in his
earlier work and the charge that Swedenborg was a menace to metaphysics? Let us
not forget that Kant already recommends an investigation of the limits of human
understanding in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, precisely as a cure for Swedenborg's
special kind of madness. So it would have been highly unreasonable for Kant to
make use ofSwedenborg's delusions in the Inaugural Dissertation, a work which is
supposed to serve as a course of therapy. To be sure, people are wont to change their
mind, and it would be absurd to think such change impossible for Kant. But it is
worth noting that Kant's assessment of Swedenborg and the like in the Critique of
Pure Reason, fifteen years after the publication of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, hardly
seems to have changed at all.
Though Kant does not mention Swedenborg by name in the Critique of
Reason, he clearly has him in mind in certain places. For, in a number of ...........LJI'
passages, Kant takes up once again the question about spirits and their;"'t.'"""'",..,.
a world apart from this. The picture he gives of those who indulge in spe:cul~<~~
about such things is not especially flattering. He describes their pJ.,,.,.h,r.~~ti,nnc~!"""""
giving rise to an "imaginary science" (eine eingebildete Wissenschajl) (A395) and
as "empty figments of the brain" (leere Himgespinste) (A770/B798). It is interesting
to note as well just how worked up about this Kant can get, even after fifteen years.
In the first-edition treatment of the Paralogisms, Kant exclaims that, only "the
sobriety of a critique, at once strict and just, can free us from this dogmatic delusion
[namely the imaginary science of the soul and spirits], which through the lure of an
imaginedfelicity keeps so many in bondage to theories and systemS' (A395)." And
again, he exclaims in the same passage that such a critique has the virtue of

18 Interpretation of Dreams

restricting "the voyage of reason" (die Fahrt unserer Vernunjl) to "the continuous
coastline of experience" (die stetig fort /aufended Kasten der Erfahrung), " ... a coast
we cannot leave without venturing upon a shoreless ocean which, after alluring us
with ever-deceptive prospects, compels us in the end to abandon as hopeless all this
vexatious and tedious endeavour" (A395). There is no mistaking Kant here. Those
who let their fancy run wild, in a vain attempt to show us that the soul continues to
think after death and even participates in a vast community of departed spirits, have
let themselves be seduced by a false promise of wisdom and happiness. They serve
as a sad example of reason gone amuck, and Swedenborg must be reckoned among
their number."
Now everything Kant says of Swedenborg and his kind in the Critique of Pure
Reason he either did say, or could have said, in the earlier Dreams of a Spirit-Seer.
lbis makes it all the less likely that Kant could have suddenly thought well enough
of Swedenborg in 1770 to make use of his ideas in the Inaugural Dissertation. At
any rate, it suggests a certain continuity in Kant's attitude towards Swedenborg over
a period of some fifteen important years.
Vaihinger and company misconstrue the relationship between Kant and
Swedenborg. They cannot reasonably argue either t11at Kant's harsh
pronouncements against the spirit-seer of Stockholm in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer are
disingenuous or a one-time episode in Kant's intellectual development, and thus
they cannot reasonably conclude tl1at Kant was somehow one of Swedenborg' s
pupils or followers. As a result, their reading of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer fails to
satisfy the first of our two criteria: it caimot explain Kant's attitude towards
Swedenborg; nor, then, can it ex"Piain how or why Kant associated Swedenborg's
visions of spirits with the status and future of metaphysics. But neither does tllis
reading satisfy our second criterion. It obviously fails to clarifY the rhetorical
ambiguities of the Dreams: it caiUlOt explain how passages that support extravagant
theories about spirits and spiritual intercourse are compatible with tlte scathing and
skeptical passages I quoted above."
There is no denying, however, that Vaihinger's account of the relationship
between Kant and Swedenborg has one important thing going for it: Kant seems to
be sympathetic to Swedenborg's ideas in the Politz lectures on rational psychology
(1770s). What are we to make of this? First, we must bear in mind that we do not
have the words of Kant himself in these lecture notes, but rather the transcriptions of
his student. Second, we must consider in what sense Kant might reasonably say of
Swedenborg's ideas that they are ''very sublime." From the context, it seems that
Kant is interpreting Swedenborg allegorically: talk of heaven and life in the
hereafter is useful, he says, as a way to describe the moral condition of the soul and
as a way to give us an ideal of moral perfection towards which we must always
strive. The section of the lectures devoted to Swedenborg ends on this note:
The chiefpoint is always morality: this is the holy and unblemished that we must defond, and this
is also the ground and the end ofall our speculations and investigations ... God and the other
world are the only aim of all our philosophical investigatit"lm, and if the concepts of God and the

other world did not hang together with morality, they would be worth nothing (28.30 1.1 5-22).

Kant's position here is very clear. Only in terms of morality do our concepts of God
and the other world make sense. Because morality is sublime, so are these concepts,
and so too the ideas of Swedenborg."'lbis is perfectly compatible on the other hand
with Kant's criticisms of Swedenborg in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer. As expressions of
morality, Swedenborg's ideas might very well be sublime; but, as a system of
speculative metaphysics, they are woefully inadequate.

Interpretation ofDreams 19
Those who fall into the second rival camp of readers argue that Kant himself was
never a secret believer in Swedenborg, that he used Swedenborg in Dreams of a
Spirit-Seer to paint a caricature of the traditional metaphysician and that this work
expresses a thoroughgoing skepticism about metaphysics as the science of
supersensible things. This is the view ofKWlo Fischer and Ernst Cassirer.
According to Fischer, for example, the early Kant was somehow tom between
two opposing interests: an interest in the "empirical sciences," on the one hand; and,
on the other, an interest in metaphysics as the science of supersensible things.
Fischer likens these two interests to the negative magnitudes Kant had studied in
1763, "... the more [empirical science] grows, the more [metaphysics]
diminishes ... "" Indeed, metaphysics diminishes Wltil the result=(), namely
skepticism.zz By 1766, argues Fischer, Kant was so much Wlder the sway of
empiricism and the skeptical works of David Hume that he could no longer take
seriously the dogmatic metaphysician's claim to know the nature of the
supersensibles. Thus, metaphysics could have no future, except as a science of the
limits of human Wlderstanding. Kant must have foWld the tales of Swedenborg
totally outlandish; and, in order to induce skepticism in his reader, he associated
Swedenborg'sArcana with the metaphysical systems of his contemporaries!'
Fischer's reading of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer initially seems more faithful to the
text than that of Vaihinger. It is clear from the text that Kant certainly has doubts
about Swedenborg and metaphysics; and he says quite explicitly that metaphysics
should trace the limits of human understanding, if it does anything at all (2.368.1-7).
Moreover, he does seem to give vent to a certain skepticism about the possibility of
our knowledge of supersensible tlungs in passages such as the following:
Before we floated in empty space like Democritus, aloft on the butterfly wings of metaphysics, and
we even engaged with spiritual fllllm Now, since the sobering force of self-knowledge has dra'Mt
together the silken~ we fmd ourselves once more on the hwnble ground of experience and the
common Wlderstanding. happy! if we regard it as our desifP31ed place from which we never depart
with impunity, and which also contains all that can content us so long as we stay with thing<; useful
(2.368.22-30).

But for all its attractions, Fischer's reading has some serious liabilities.
In the first place, it is not at all obvious that people like Fischer and Cassirer do a
better job than Vaihinger of explaining all the complexities of Kant's attitude
towards Swedenborg. Kant first developed his interest in Swedenborg in the early
1760s, the years during wluch Fischer makes him out to be falling more and more
Wlder the spell of empiricism. But, in this time, Kant never once described
Swedenborg's claim to have ilmnediate knowledge of angels and spirits as totally
preposterous: extraordinary and perplexing, yes; preposterous, no.
In the so-called Herder lectures on metaphysics, which were delivered at the
University of Konigsberg some time between 1761 and 1764, Kant argued that
philosophers have no way to prove that claims such as Swedenborg's are impossible:
The little knowledge [we have) of the soul prevents us from seeing how this could be impossible;
thus the possibility [is) to be wanted ...; he who rejects everything [not just ghost stories, but even
the remote possibility of spiritual intercourse as well) must deny the soul or the slate after deathGhosts have deceived us 99 times in a 100. Thus one is inclined not to believe, for the probabilities
are against it: but we must not dismiss everything once and for all! (28.114.11-19).

The very suggestion that Swedenborg's visions of life in the hereafter might be even
remotely possible, raised a philosophical problem for Kant. But this is not because
such visions are prima facie preposterous or offensive to the ordinary empiricist. The
problem was rather that, unless tlte pltilosopher can show that it is possible to

20 Interpretation of Dreams
explain these visions as the effect of natural laws of interaction, he must admit that
some events in the order of nature are miraculous. "Supernatural designs do not
belong in philosophy," Kant explained to his students, "we merely draw conclusions
according to the order of nature" (28.121.7-9). It was Kant's firm conviction that the
philosopher must resign his commission as soon as he calls on miracles to explain
anything that might be a naturally occurring event.
If it is true, as Fischer says, that Kant came more and more under the spell of
empiricism during the time that he delivered the Herder lectures, and if it is true that
a budding empiricist could not help but find the stories about Swedenborg's visions
prima facie absurd,"' one would expect Kant to have already upbraided the Swedish
spirit-seer in the Herder lectures for having imagined knowledge of supersensible
things is possible. But he does not. Unless we suppose that Kant's empiricism and
his concomitant skepticism only reached fever pitch in 1766, we must conclude that
his opinion of Swedenborg, whatever it might have been, was more complicated
than Fischer would have us believe. Indeed, it must be more complicated than this,
because it is not obvious how much of our alleged knowledge of supersensibles Kant
is really trying to banish in Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer.
Consider the following passage from Part Two, Chapter Three of Kant's work:
I recognize certain changes in me as 11 subject that lives, namely thoughts, volition [Willkilhr], etc.;
and because these determinations are all of another kind from what together constitutes my concept
ofthe body, I appropriately conceive 1111 incorporeal and abiding being (2.370.29-34).

As :fur as Kant is concerned, the concept of soul as the subject of my thoughts,

desires and volitions is altogether unproblematic. The soul is something
"incorporeal" and "abiding," an immaterial substance-and, to that extent, it is
supersensible. Knowledge of supersensible things is possible for us, if only because
we have a legitimate concept of our own soul.
From the context of this passage, we discover that Kant does not object to the
claim that we know something about the supersensibles; rather, he objects to the
claim that we have knowledge, independent of experience, of the effects one
supersensible thing produces in other supersensible things and in the ordinary
objects of the senses. Just before the passage I quoted above, Kant writes:
Thus the fundamental concepts of thing<; as causes and the fundamental concepts of forces and
actions are quite arl.litrmy and Cll11 neither be proved nor refuted, unless they are derived from
experience. I koow well that thought and will move my body, but I Cll11 never trace this
appearance-as 11 simple experience-through 1111alysis back to another; and thus I rerognize this
appearance, though I have no insight into it That my will moves my arm is no more comprehensible
to me than ifsomeone said that my will Cll11 also stop the moon in its orbit The difference is just this:
I experience the former, whereas the IaUer has never fallen under my senses (2.370.20-29).

Kant goes on to add that we can never know whether the soul acts on other souls by
means of "pneumatic" laws that do not require the intervention of matter, precisely
because neither the laws nor even their effects are given to us during the course of
ordinary experience (2.370.34-371.3).
Kant urges us to scorn all metaphysical theories of spiritual interaction, because
he thinks it most unlikely that we ever have experience of the spirit world and
because it is impossible to show a priori that one thing is the effect of another. But
even if the metaphysician follows Kant's example and rejects all these theories, he
need not close up shop altogether. There is more to rational psychology, as a quick
glance at Wolff will attest, than theories about spiritual interaction. The rational
psychologist can very well consider the nature and essence of the (embodied) soul,

Interpretation of Dreams

21

its faculties of sensation, imagination, memory and Wlderstanding without having to

suppose that spirits effect immediate change of state in one another. Even if that
were impossible and we were required to abandon all speculation about the soul,
Kant gives us no reason to renoWlce natural theology, the science of God. Neither
our concept of God's necessary existence, nor that of his eternity, omniscience or
omnipotence presupposes any theory of causal interaction among supersensible
things.
Not only does Fischer's accoWlt of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer leave unanswered
some important questions about the relationship between Kant and Swedenborg, it
also misjudges the scope of Kant's skepticism with respect to the viability of
metaphysics as a science of supersensible things. Thus Fischer cannot even begin to
formulate, much less answer, the interesting and obviously important question about
the basic philosophical motives of Kant's work: why is the problem of interactionmore particularly the problem of interaction in the spirit world-the bug-bear in
Dreams of a Spirit-Seer? In the Herder lectures, Kant was at least prepared to
entertain the possibility that Swedenborg could somehow interact with separate
spirits according to natural laws of interaction. Why did he decide in 1766 that such
speculation was arbitrary in the extreme? An adequate accoWlt of Dreams of a
Spirit-Seer would have to answer these questions. Insofar as we answer these
questions, we might hope to satisfy our first criterion. I shall try to answer these
questions in the following chapters of my study.
Those who fall into the third camp of readers argue that Kant was not so much
skeptical of metaphysics as h~ was critical. Kant recognized that metaphysics was in
crisis, they argue; and his concern was to plot the course it would have to take in
order to find its way out of the morass. This seems to be the view of Herman de
Vleeschauwer and also Lewis White Beck.
To make his case, de Vleeschauwer argues first that the task of metaphysics, as
presented in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, is to show that" ... its errors spring directly
from a vicious method."" The metaphysician has gone astray, because he has tried to
adapt the synthetic method of mathematics for his own use, and so he permits
himself to combine simple concepts arbitrarily. The metaphysician's speculations
about the state of the soul after death and its intercourse with other spirits can
neither be confirmed nor falsified, because we have no legitimate groWlds for
combining the concept of an immaterial substance with the concept of reason, with
the concept offorce and cause, or what-have-you. If we are to make any progress in
metaphysics at all, Kant seems to be saying on de Vleeschauwer's reading, we must
first reflect on the dangers of adapting the synthetic method, and then we must
resolve to use the analytic method of Newtonian physics-the only method
acceptable for the metaphysician." De Vleeschauwer concludes that, " ... it is not
metaphysics itself which is rejected, but a special type of metaphysics, namely that
which rests on the faulty methodology referred to (i.e., the synthetic method more
appropriate to the study of mathematics].""
On the assumption that tllis is the lesson Kant draws for metaphysics in 1766, de
Vleeschauwer also concludes that t11ere is nothing new in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer,
no sudden change of heart about the future and status of metaphysics. After all, Kant
had already cautioned the metaphysician to avoid the synthetic method in favor of
the analytic, in the Preisschri.ft of 1764." Moreover, he had already expressed
concern and dissatisfaction in tllis work over loose talk about spirits:
However, one will say that philosophern tOO sometimes explain [things] synthetically ... for example,
\\hen a philosopher thinks in an aroitrary way of subslance together with the faculty of reason and
calls this subslance a spirit [Geist). But I reply: such detetminations of a word--meaning are never

22 Interpretation of Dreams
philosophical defmitions, but if they must indeed be called explanations, they are purely
pnmatical. For it is not at all for the philosopher to say mw kind of word I wish to associate with
an arbitrary concept. (2.2TI.8-l S).

It would seem, then, that Kant was no more skeptical about the prospects of
metaphysics in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer than he was in the Preisschrifl. One can
perfectly well harbor doubts about our knowledge of spirits in the spirit world,
without having to abandon all hope that metaphysics will one day achieve the status
of a science in its own right.
De Vleeschauwer is quite right to deny that Dreams of a Spirit-Seer is shot
through with a radical skepticism about the viability of metaphysics. Moreover, he is
right to insist on the early Kant's opposition to Wolff and his inclination to take
Newton's natural philosophy as a model for the metaphysician. But de
Vleeschauwer' s interpretation of the Dreams is missing something.
Though it is certainly fair to say that some kind of continuity links Dreams of a
Spirit-Seer to the Preisschrifl, de Vleeschauwer misconstrues the earlier work and so
he overlooks an important new development in the later one. On de Vleeschauwer's
reading of the Preisschrifl, Kant's endorsement of a Newtonian-inspired analytic
method in metaphysics goes hand in hand with a kind of empiricism. When Kant
urges the metaphysician to take given complex concepts as his point of departure, he
really means to say-according to de Vleeschauwer-that metaphysics at least
begins with experience. As de Vleeschauwer puts it, "The only admissible point of
departure [for metaphysics, on Kant's view] is empirical determination and
inunediate judgment of the given.""'
The trouble is that there is no reason to suppose that the complex concepts,
analyzed by the metaphysician, have to be given to us in experience at all. Indeed,
the evidence suggests just the opposite, because Kant makes it very clear in the
Preisschrifl that the metaphysician can expect the greatest possible success in his
analysis of the concept of God's necessary existence-a concept framed by the
Wlderstanding independently of all experience (2.296-297). Whereas our concepts of
God's "moral" attributes-his justice, providence, beneficence---depend on our
having observed these things in ourselves and other human beings, the concept of
God's necessary existence requires no such analogy with human nature. It is an
absolutely unique concept that forces itself upon the Wlderstanding by its own selfevidence. Though our concepts of God's moral attributes might very well depend on
experience, our concept of God's necessary existence does not~ and thus it has the
highest possible clarity and distinctness.
Kant does not advocate an empirical point of departure for the metaphysician in
the Preisschrifr, but he certainly does so in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, where he argues
that all our knowledge of causal interaction must be groWlded in experience. This is
clear from passages I quoted above. When de Vleeschauwer says that some kind of
continuity links the Preisschrifl and Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, he means that we can
find Kant's appeal for the metaphysician to begin with eA-perience in both of these
works. But plainly de Vleeschauwer is mistaken in this, and thus he leaves
unanswered a very important question about the basic philosophical motivations of
the Dreams: why did Kant decide in 1766 that experience should be a concern for
the metaphysician? In his important book Early German Philosophy, Lewis White
Beck seems to follow de Vleeschauwer on the Preisschrifl and Dreams of a SpiritSeer. So the same questions raised by de Vleeschauwer's reading are also raised by
Beck's.30 Neither Beck nor de Vleeschauwer can satisfY our first criterion for an
adequate reading of Kant's satire. Because they do not understand that Kant's
appeal to empiricism in the Dreams is a new development, they do not understand

Interpretation of Dreams 23
precisely what problem this appeal is supposed to solve. Because they do not
understand what problem Kant is bying to solve in the Dreams, they cannot explain
why or how Kant associates the question of spirits and spirit-seeing with the status
and future of metaphysics. I shall tiy to explain why Kant now thinks that
experience should be a concern for metaphysicians in Chapter Five of this study.
That just leaves us with the fourth camp of Kant readers. This camp is occupied
exclusively by Robert Butts. Butts' reading of the Dreams in his Kant and the
Double Government Methodology sounds many of the themes already announced by
Kuno Fischer. To that extent, it can apparently make sense of Kant's harsh
pronouncements against Swedenborg in the Dreams. So we learn from Butts that
Kant was an avid student of the empirical sciences. He was eager to show that all
knowledge begins with what is given, i.e., with certain data accessible in principle to
all of us. He was also eager to determine the methods best suited to regulate these
data. So Kant considered Swedenborg something of an impostor, because
Swedenborg's data were far from publicly accessible. Worse yet, Swedenborg's
methods of organizing these data were best suited not for advancing scientific
knowledge, but for cultivating ignorance and fanaticism in his followers. Kant saw
in Swedenborg everything that was wrong with traditional metaphysics understood
as a science of supersensible things--a science of things for which data can be
collected only by frauds and lunatics.ll This is why Kant made Swedenborg the
object of satire in Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer.
So far, Butts seems to be sympathetic to Fischer. Unlike Fischer, though, Butts
recognizes full well that Kant's attitude towards both Swedenborg and traditional
metaphysics is not quite so simple. Butts points out quite rightly that Kant does not
have only harsh words for Swedenborg. He points out that Kant made a regular
practice of lecturing on Swedenborg at the University of Konigsberg and that the
transcripts of these lectures show Kant to be, on the whole, rather open-minded."
The reason for this ambivalence, says Butts, is that Kant had an enduring, but
evolving commitment to Leibniz' so-called "double government methodology." The
double government methodology prescribes mechanical explanation for physical
phenomena: we are to explain all physical phenomena as the result of the extension,
figure and motion of the material particles in bodies. Kant apparently interpreted
this prescription as raising the twin problems of evidence and method-the
problems that call for some kind of empiricism as their solution. But the double
government methodology prescribes another order of explanation. Leibniz
apparently denied that bodies are real things. For this reason, he insisted that the
ultimate explanation of the way the world runs must say something about
metaphysically real things never disclosed to our senses. Such an explanation must
take final causes into account. As Butts sees things, Kant was a student of this
double government methodology. Kant recognized that he had to make a place in
his philosophy for final causes and metaphysically real things. The question was
how to do this without suffusing scientific explanation with spiritual mumbo-jumbo.
Ultimately, the answer to this question lay in the Critical Philosophy. Thus Kant
denied in his later years tlmt we can have scientific knowledge of any but the objects
of possible experience, and he argued that our belief in the immortality of the soul
and in final causes is merely a regulative idea of pure reason. At the time of the
Dreams, however, Kant had not yet resolved the tension in the double government
methodology. So while dismissing talk of immaterial things and final causes, we
also find him bying to make room for it.
Unlike Fischer, Butts has something to say about the seeming ambivalence in
Kant's attitude towards Swedenborg. But Butts is very much in the spirit of Fischer.

24 Interpretation ofDreams

So Butts takes the philosophical imperative of Kant's career to be the development

of a vaccine for human reason against pseudo-scientific fanaticism. Whatever else

there is to say about Butts' story, it seems to be misguided as a reading of the
Dreams and the Inaugural Dissertation. As I see things, the problem for Kant in the
mid and late 1760s was to preserve traditional metaphysics from the taint of
sensibility. I leave the defense of this claim for Chapters Five and Six.11
In what follows, I shall tiy to offer an alternative reading of Dreams ofa SpiritSeer in order to answer some of the questions raised by current competitors. I hope
to shed some light on Kant's dissatisfaction with the state of metaphysics, his
reasons for associating the status of metaphysics with the question of separate spirits
and spirit-seeing, and his interest in theArcana coelestia ofSwedenborg. I also hope
to clear up the rhetorical ambiguities of the work; I shall tiy to show how the pages
devoted to strange theories of spiritual interaction fit in with the pages filled with
contempt for speculation on such matters. To that end, I propose to read Dreams ofa
Spirit-Seer in light of Kant's earlier work in metaphysics-in particular, his efforts
during the mid-1750s to lay the foundations of a credible system of real interaction
to supplant the system of pre-established harmony favored by Wolff and Leibniz. As
we shall see, the commitment to real interaction ultimately led Kant to represent
immaterial substances as though they were subject to the conditions of space and
time. We shall also see that this result was thoroughly unacceptable to Kant and that
he regarded it as a serious threat to metaphysics. I shall tiy to show that
Swedenborg's angelology presupposes an awful lot of standard metaphysical
baggage, that the Swedish visionary subjects inunaterial substances to the conditions
of space and time in much the same way that Kant did, and that this is the reason for
Kant's interest in the Arcana coelestia. Finally, I shall argue that Kant uses the
example of Swedenborg in Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer to warn metaphysicians against
the danger of subjecting inunaterial substances to spatio-temporal conditions and
that the call for an investigation of the limits of human understanding is supposed to
help secure metaphysics against tllis danger. Kant llimself was later to undertake
such an investigation in tl1e Inaugural Dissertation; and, as we shall see, it is
significant that the fruit of this investigation was a method for e~"JX>sing the
"metaphysical error of subreption," i.e., the tendency of metaphysicians to subject
objects of the intellect-inunaterial substances among tl1em-to the spatio-temporal
conditions of sensibility.

CHAPTER TWO
THE SYSTEM OF PHYSICAL INFLUX

In the "Discipline of Pure Reason," at the end of the first Critique, Kant declares
that, without the benefits of the Critical Philosophy, " ... reason is, as it were, in the
state of nature, and can establish and secure its assertions and claims only through
war" (A751/B779). For until we can determine the limits of reason, dogmatic
philosophers will have free reign to bicker amongst themselves. The one can defend
his position against the counterclaims of the other simply by exposing the cant of his
rival. He need not wony if he fails to establish the truth of his own position with
mathematical certainty, so long as he can detect near fatal weakness in the
alternatives (A739-740/B767-768). This picture of reason at war with itself aptly
describes the state of metaphysics in the mid-1740s, when Kant was a student at the
University of Ktinigsberg. A rather heated dispute had been raging over the system
of causes best suited to explain the community (commercium) of body and soul.
Wolff defined the terms of the debate for all parties in Section Three of his
Psychologia rationa/is.
Wolff tells us that a system of rational psychology is a conjecture about the
relationship between body and soul, and nothing more than a conjecture. No one
denies, he says, that perceptions of sensible things arise in the soul and voluntary
motions arise in the body as if body and soul could really act on each other (537).
The question is whether and how this is possible. Now Wolff despairs of finding a
proof to resolve the debate once and for all. He is as little hopeful of conclusively
establishing the system he favors most as he is of conclusively establishing the
system he favors least So he says that we must settle for "philosophical hypotheses"
(530). Even if we can never prove tl1at a given system of causes is true, at least we
can pick the most plausible one by exposing the infelicities of the alternatives or the
points on which they are incompatible with the laws of nature (532-533). Wolff
contends that there are three systems of community to choose from: the system of
occasional causes, the system of pre-established harmony and the system of physical
influx.
The competing claims of the tlll'ee rival systems of rational psychology can be
stated as follows. Either creatures can act, or tl1ey cannot. If they cannot, all change
in creation must be the effect of God and God alone. This is the fundamental claim
of anyone who defends the system of occasional causes. Now if creatures can act,
either they can act on one anotl1er, or tl1ey cannot. If they cannot, all change in any
given creature must be the effect of tl1e creature acting on itself by some kind of
inner force. The body acts on itself by its own special force and thereby produces all
of its motions. Likewise, the soul acts on itself by its own special force and thereby
produces all of its perceptions. God arranged things so that change in these two
substances-and indeed change in all substances-would always arise in concert.
These are the fundamental claims of anyone who defends the system of preestablished harmony. Finally, if creatures can act on one anot11er, all change in
creation is the effect of real interaction. Perceptions are tl1e effect of the body's
agency on the soul, and voluntary motion is the effect of the soul's agency on the
body. These are the fundamental claims of anyone who defends the system of
physical influx.
Following Leibniz, Wolff himself admits pre-established harmony as the least
implausible system of psychological community. He raises the standard Leibnizian
objections against both occasionalism and physical influx in order to make his case.

26 The System of Physical Influx

He complains in particular that the advocates of physical influx conceive interaction

as a current of "being" or "reality" flowing from one substance to another. A
substance acquires a new accident when it opens its window to let in some being
flowing from the open window of another substance. wours picture of the doctrine
is unfair, because a commitment to real interaction is not in itself a commitment to
streams of being in the world or to transfusions of accidents. But having erected his
man of straw, Wolff argues reasonably enough that the straw position is scarcely
intelligible (573).'
Now it is important to see that Kant's first philosophical project was at least in
part to put an end to the disputes in rational psychology. Kant was determined to
show that the system of physical influx does not presuppose any silly currents of
being flowing from substance to substance. He was supremely confident that he
could find a more plausible way to construe his favored system and that he could
defend it against the charge of incoherence. He even hoped to show conclusively that
substances of any kind have the power to act on one another, if they have the power
to act at all. Kant was eager to demonstrate that physical influx is the true system of
rational psychology and general cosmology alike. He earnestly believed that it could
explain not only the union oftxxly and soul, but also order in the world at large.
I must emphasize, before going any further, that physical influx is not just a
system of rational psychology. Like pre-established harmony and occasional causes,
it can also serve as a system of general cosmology! A general cosmology is a theory
of the world as a whole and everything in it. During the eighteenth century, the
purpose of a general cosmology was, among other things, to derive the laws of
motion from the nature of the simple substances-the elements or monads-that are
the sufficient reason of all bodies. A general cosmology might also give an account
of the place of the soul in the world, (although this is properly speaking a problem
for rational psychology). Thus it might raise the question whether the laws of motion
are deterministic or not. If one adopts physical influx as a system of general
cosmology, one will have to say, as Kant himself does, that real interaction takes
place among the elements or monads underlying all matter. The challenge will then
be to show that real interaction among the elements or monads is the sufficient
reason of the order that prevails among bodies. As I say, Kant was keen to establish
physical influx in rational psychology and general cosmology alike.
There are a number of reasons for favoring the system of physical influx. First of
all, it is the most consonant with ordinary experience. Most of us would be very
reluctant to deny real interaction of txxly and soul, just because we have the distinct
impression that it takes place all the time. Johann Christoph Gottsched, one of
Wolirs most devoted students and pre-eminent expositors, argued against his master
in the First Grounds of the Whole of Philosophy that this is reason enough to admit
physical influx, unless we can show conclusively that the system is false (1077).
Physical influx also finds support in natural religion. For unless the soul can produce
voluntary motions in the txxly, we cannot be held accountable for the sins we commit
in the flesh. In that case, God must be the author of all evil in the world, which is
contrary to our notion of God's justice. The Pietist theologians at the University of
Halle used arguments like these-among others-to persuade King Friedrich
Wilhelm I to censure Wolff and his abominable system of pre-established harmony!
But Kant commits himself to the system of physical influx because of neither the
strictures of natural religion nor the claims of ordinary experience. We can
understand Kant's commitment in light of the way he conceived the relationship
between metaphysics and natural philosophy. But first let us consider the views of

The System ofPhysical Influx 27

Leonhard Euler on this matter, for Euler seems to have had some kind of influence
on Kant.
1

We can find the best expression of Euler's view in Rejlexions sur I 'espace et le
temps of 1748. Euler begins by impressing on his reader that the principles of
mechanics are unshakable. Even if we cannot yet derive them from the general
principles of metaphysics, he says, it would be folly to renounce them-folly indeed,
because the principles of mechanics can be used to explain so many things: the
motion of solid and fluid bodies here at the earth's surface, as well as the motions of
the heavens. Euler concludes as follows:
These truths (namely that a body at rest will remain at rest and that a body in motion will tend to
move in the same direction with the same speed] are so indubitably established that they must
absolutely be founded in the nature of bodies; and since it is the task. of Metaphysics to investig;W:
the nature and the properties ofbodies, the knowledge of these truths will be able to setVe as a guide
in these thorny investig;llions. For one will have every right in this science to reject all reasoning and
all ideas-however well founded they might otherwise appear to be-that lead to conclusion;
contrary to these truths; and one will be authorized to admit only such principles that will be able to
subsist with them The fii'St ideas that we form of thing<; outside us are usually so obscure and so
little determined that it is extremely dangerous to derive consequences from them of which we may
be sure. It is always a great step, therefore, wben one already know.; from elsewhere some
conclusions that the principles of Metaphysics must end up with; and it will be on these conclusions
that we shall have to align [reg/er] and de1ermine the fii'St ideas of Metaphysics (3.2.376-377).

According to Euler, the task of metaphysics is to teach us something about the

fundamental properties of things; in particular, the fundamental properties of bodies.
This is no easy thing to accomplish, so Euler reconunends that the metaphysician
take the principles of mechanics as a guide. There can be no disputing these
principles; in any case, the cost of giving them up would be too great. Euler takes
this as a sign that they must somehow be grounded in the fundamental properties of
bodies. If so, the metaphysician can use the principles of mechanics to set his
agenda-or some part of his agenda. He can make it his goal to derive the principles
of mechanics from the principles of metaphysics. This means that the principles of
mechanics can serve as a criterion for the metaphysician to judge his own results: if
accepted principles of metaphysics cannot be used to derive the principles of
mechanics, or if the results we derive from them are contrary to the principles of
mechanics, our metaphysical principles must be rejected. On Euler's account, not
only do the principles of mechanics set an agenda for metaphysics, they also set
certain constraints on it.
Now Euler himself had an interest in the metaphysical debate raging in the mid1740s over the three rival systems of causes. He was interested in the lessons the
debate might have for rational psychology and general cosmology alike. In other
words, Euler was interested in the cause of change in all sorts of things: body, soul
and the constitutive elements of matter (if any such there be). Euler figured that the
best way to help settle the debate was to adopt his own reconunendations in
Rejlexions sur I 'espace et le temps. So he was determined to use the laws of
mechanics as a guide. One of the things he hoped to demonstrate from these laws is
that pre-established harmony calll1ot prevail among bodies.
Euler's idea was something like this. The principles of mechanics are grounded
in the very nature of bodies. The law of inertia is the most fundamental of these
principles, for it specifies the essence of all matter (3.2.354). The law of inertia states
that a body at rest will tend to remain at rest, while a body in motion will tend to

28 The System of Physical Influx

move in the same direction with uniform speed. To say that inertia is the very
essence of matter is to raise an interesting question-a question that seems to have
exercised Euler throughout the course of his career. We observe change of state in
the physical world all the time. But how is this change possible, given that the nature
of bodies is to preserve their state, whether of motion or rest? It would be
unreasonable to conclude that every body has some kind of native force which
produces all its change of state, he argued, because this seems to be incompatible
with the law of inertia. So we C3lll10t but conclude that change of state in a body is
always the effect of an external force. Such is Euler's claim, in any case (2.11.161).
The question we must now consider is where external forces come from. Euler was
unwilling to suppose that they proceed from separate spirits or minds, so he
concluded that all change of state in a body is the effect of an external force
impressed on the body by another body. He put it best in his letters to the German
Princess Friederike Charlotte ofBrandeburg Schwedt:
Without wanting to say that the forces which change the stale of bodies come from some mind
(esprit). I willingly agree that the forces, \\hereby the stale of each body is changed, sub;ist in the
bodies, but ofcourse in other bodies, and never in the one that wxlergoes the change of stale. For this
body has rather a contrary quality, which is to oonserve itself in the same stale. Therefore, insofar as
these forces also sub;ist in bodies, one should say that bodies can provide forces \\hereby the stale of
another body is changed, imofar as they are engaged in certain relations with one another
(2.11.165).

Given that the law of inertia expresses a truth about the very nature of bodies, and
given that external forces do not proceed from minds, we must conclude that all
change of state among bodies is the effect of real interaction. In other words, Euler
claims that the system of physical influx is true at least of the visible or material
world.
Euler was convinced that these insights spelled trouble for pre-established
harmony. But one C3lll10t help wondering just what kind of case Euler had against
the advocates of this system, even as far as mechanics is concerned-never mind
metaphysics. In the first place, Wolff and Leibniz were both perfectly willing to
admit the law of inertia. In the second place, neither philosopher was especially keen
to argue that pre-established harmony prevails among bodies. I shall discuss each of
these points in turn. The second point is the more significant, because it raises a key
question for Euler. Euler himself apparently took the lesson of his own Rejlexions
sur l'espace et le temps to be that the laws of mechanics should tyrannically dictate
the content-{)r some part of the content-{)f our metaphysics. The question is just
how seriously the metaphysician should take this lesson.
Let me begin by addressing the first point. As I say, Wolff and Leibniz were both
perfectly willing to admit the law of inertia. But Euler assailed them for this. He
argued that it is a plain contradiction to say, on the one hand, that every body has a
natural tendency to preserve its state and to say, on the other hand, that every body
has a natural tendency to change its state (2.11.159). But it is not clear whether the
charge of inconsistency is fair, even if Wolff and Leibniz insist-as Euler apparently
supposes--that every body is the cause of its own acceleration.
Leibniz can say-as he says so often-that creatures are perfect insofar as they
are active. Thus he could say that a body is perfect insofar as it constantly strives to
change its state. But Leibniz can presumably go on to say with equanimity that every
creature is imperfect, just because it is a creature. The imperfections of a creature
reveal themselves in a certain passive resistance. Bodies are imperfect insofar as they
have matter. Precisely because they have matter, they resist change of state.' So
Leibniz can say that every body strives at once to change and to preserve its state as

The System of Physical Influx

29

consistently as he can say that every creature is perfect in one respect and imperfect
in another.
One has to wonder why Euler does not see that his charge of inconsistency
against Leibniz is not especially fair. Surely the thing to bear in mind here is the way
that Euler himself conceives of inertia. As far as Euler is concerned, inertia is a
fundamental impotence of matter, i.e., the inability of a body to produce change of
state in itself under any condition. To commit oneself to the law of inertia, as Euler
understands it, is to say that a body cannot possibly change its state, either of motion
or rest Hence Euler would say that Leibniz contradicts himself just to the extent that
Leibniz commits himself to the law of inertia. From Euler's point of view, Leibniz
apparently wants to say, on the one hand, that a body cannot possibly change its
state, and, on the other hand, that a body can very well change its state.
It is not so important for our purposes to figure out whether Euler's conception of
inertia is better than that of Leibniz. So let us grant Euler his case. Let us suppose,
for the sake of argument, that inertia is indeed a fundamental impotence of matter.
This will permit us now to take up the second point that I mentioned earlier: neither
Wolff nor Leibniz was especially keen to argue that pre-established harmony
prevails among bodies.
Whatever one is to make of Wolff, Leibniz himself can be very accommodating
in natural philosophy. Though he espouses pre-established harmony as the true
system of causes in metaphysics properly speaking, his own mechanics can take
different twists and turns. In Part Two of the Specimen dynamicum, he seems to
suggest that pnxstablished harmony does indeed prevail among bodies. Given the
relativity of motion, he says, every "passion" in a body under impact can be
understood as the effect of the body's own inner force. At the very least, Leibniz is
arguing in the Specimen dynamicum that we can account for the effects of collision
without having to suppose that bodies really act on one another." In the
correspondence with de Voider, by contrast, he quite cheerfully admits that bodies
really act on one another under impact, while emphasizing that they are nothing but
well founded phenomena. "Properly speaking, I don't admit the action of substances
on one another ... ," he explains, "But who would deny impact and impulse in the
appearances of aggregates, which are certainly only phenomena (though grounded
and regulated)?''
So long as Leibniz is willing to say that change of direction and speed is the effect
of real interaction among colliding bodies, even Euler has to grant him title to the
law of inertia. But notice how slight tlte cost in metaphysical terms. Leibniz can still
keep allegiance to pre-established harmony when it counts most. He can perfectly
well say that pre-established harmony governs the wtion of body and soul as well as
the complicated relations among the true, simple substances underlying all matter.
Euler's insight about the law of inertia will tell against Leibniz just in case the
mathematician can show that it is relevant within the boundaries of metaphysics
proper. In other words, Euler will have to demonstrate that the law of inertia can
teach us something about the causality of simple substances and rational souls. Now
Euler thinks he can do just that His unwavering confidence is apparent in what he
has to say about these simple substances--the constitutive elements of matter-and
their place in wours system of the world.
Like the other two systems of rational psychology, the system of Wolff and
Leibniz can be reformulated to yield a general cosmology. This general cosmology
presupposes that the world is a complex material thing and that consequently the
world is an aggregate of true, simple substances--the monads or elements. These
elements no more produce change of state in one anotlter than do body and soul. But

30 The System ofPhysical Influx

every creature must undergo constant change of state, precisely insofar as it is
created. So every element must have a special force. This special force must be the
reason of all change in the element; it produces a constant succession of inner states.
Since God is infinitely wise, he regulated the special force of all the elements so that
change of state in one would always arise in concert with change of state in every
other. The changes of state we observe in the material world are just the net effect of
concerted changes of state arising in the elements." This is a crude picture of Wolff's
crude system of cosmology."
Euler tries to undennine this cosmology by calling on the law of inertia. Suppose
it is true, he says, that simple things are the sufficient reason of all bodies. In that
case, the nature of bodies can be explained by the nature of the elements. Since
inertia is a fundamental property of bodies, and since the fundamental properties of
bodies are grounded in the elements, he figures that the elements have inertia too. So
it is unreasonable to say, on Euler's view, that every element has a native tendency to
change its state; on the contrary, it tends to preserve its state, whatever that state
might be. Change of state in the elements, if it occurs at all, must be caused by the
action of one element on another. If the law of inertia governs simple as well as
complex things, real interaction must take place at both levels, the microscopic as
well as at the macroscopic.
Needless to say, neither Wolff nor Leibniz would be much impressed by an
argument such as this. The argument turns again on Euler's claim that we cannot
consistently ascribe inertia to a thing that produces change in itself. I have already
suggested that Euler's claim might be called into question. But this consideration
would be less important in the eyes of metaphysicians than the question whether the
elements have inertia, as Euler says they must. Though simple things are indeed the
sufficient reason of all composite things, they need not have the same properties in
conunon. Composite things are extended, for example, but simple things are not.
Nevertheless, simple things are supposed to be the sufficient reason of extension in
composite things. Wolff and Leibniz would argue that we can very well explain the
inertia of bodies by appeal to the nature of simple things, without having to suppose
that simple things have inertia. 13
Euler's polemic against the system of pre-established harmony cannot get off the
ground, because Euler takes for granted that some of the special objects of
metaphysics are governed by the laws of mechanics. But why should that be true?
Isn't it just as likely that the objects of metaphysics are governed by special laws
quite unlike the ones that govern bodies? That was certainly the position of Wolff
and Leibniz.
Euler himself recognized that not all of the objects of metaphysics could be
subject to the law of inertia and the other laws of motion. He figured tlmt physical
influx must be as true in rational psychology as he presumed it must be in any other
branch of special metaphy~ics. He figured, in other words, that real interaction must
as readily take place between body and soul as among the constitutive elements of
matter." But Euler did not suppose that the law of inertia governs the objects of
rational psychology. On the contrary, he argued, experience teaches us that the soul
is exempt from this law. For we apparently discover that the soul constantly strives to
change its state. Euler goes so far as to say in the Gedancken von den Elementen der
Corper of 1746 that this exemption from the law of inertia is precisely what makes
the difference between the soul and the body (2.2.360). Indeed, he claims to have
scored a victory over materialists who say that God could have given matter the
power to think. Since the power to think somehow presupposes a power of self-

The System of Physical Influx

31

change, Euler argues that thinking matter is im)Xlssible. If God gave matter the
power to think, it would cease to be matter: it would become a mind (2.2.360).
While there might be something very valuable in Euler's injunction that we use
the laws of mechanics at once to set the agenda for metaphysics (or at least for some
branch of metaphysics) and to constrain the principles of this science, his own
campaign against the system of pre-established hannony could not come to good
end. For Euler failed to take into account the thought that the objects of mechanics
and the objects of metaphysics are not the same-or at any rate that they are not
necessarily governed by the same laws. Though Euler is happy enough to concede
that souls and spirits are exempt from the law of inertia, he will not grant such an
exemption to the true, simple substances underlying all matter. On the face of it, this
is unreasonable.
Kant was apparently impressed by Euler's call for metaphysicians to take into
account the principles of natural philosophy. Kant seemed to think it quite fitting
that the principles of natural philosophy should somehow serve as a guide for
metaphysics. To the extent that the principles of natural philosophy are firmly
established, he would have argued, they set certain constraints on what a
metaphysician can reasonably say: at the very least, his system must yield results
compatible with geometry and the principles of mechanics." Kant also followed
Euler in SUPJXIsing that the law of inertia was somehow especially significant for the
metaphysician. .. But Kant and Euler make an interesting contrast-a contrast as
instructive as it is ironic.
Kant did not so blithely assume that the same laws govern the objects of
metaphysics and the objects of natural philosophy alike. To be sure, he would argue
in the Physical Monadology that the constitutive elements of matter have volume,
mass and original forces of attraction and repulsion, just as bodies do. To be sure, he
would argue, as Euler does, that mass, volume and so forth in the elements are the
sufficient reason of the same in bodies. But Kant would also give Wolff and Leibniz
their due. He would argue that the constitutive elements of matter are "true
substantial unities"; to that end, he would argue from principles of metaphysics that
the elements have certain "inner determinations." These inner determinations, as it
would tum out, are altogether unlike any property in bodies and so exempt from the
laws of motion." To boot, Kant never once imagined that he could unsettle the
system of pre-established hannony simply by calling on the law of inertia. He would
try to establish the system of physical influx in the Nova dilucidatio on grounds
independent of the law of inertia In this respect, at least, Kant was philosophically
much less naive than Euler. This makes part of the contrast between Kant and the
German mathematician. But there is something else; herein lies the irony. As I noted
earlier, Euler makes a )Xlint of exempting rational souls from the laws of mechanics.
I shall argue in the next chapter of tllis book that Kant unwittingly revoked this
exemption. I shall argue that, as a consequence of Kant's early views, the rational
soul is subject to the laws of mechanics at least insofar as it engages in a community
of certain Newtonian forces with the body." I shall argue, moreover, that this was
unacceptable on the terms of Kant's own metaphysics." Though less naive than
Euler, Kant let the laws of mechanics dictate tlte content of rational psychology.
Euler himself would have found this scandalous.
2
Precisely because Kant recognized that the law of inertia all on its own would not
unsettle the system of pre-established harmony, he had to modify Euler's strategy.

32 The System ofPhysical Influx

He tried to show that the law of inertia is a specific instance of a much more general,
purely metaphysical law (the so-called principle of succession); he tried to establish
this new law on growuls independent of natural philosophy; and, he tried to use it to
show systematically that physical influx prevails throughout all of creation-even
among the proper objects of metaphysics.
Whereas Euler makes the law of inertia his main line of attack against preestablished hannony, Kant calls upon his new law of metaphysics, the principle of
succession. The principle of succession states that, "No change can occur to
substances unless they are connected to other substances; the reciprocal dependence
of substances detennines mutual change of state" (1.410.18-20). According to the
principle of succession, a substance will undergo no change at all unless it externally
relates to other substances. Furthermore, substances will remain unchanged, even if
they externally relate to one another, so long as their external relations remain
unchanged. Kant imagines a world in which everything is at rest in order to make
his point. Motion, he says, is change of position or the "phenomenon of change of
connection" (phaenomenon pennutati nexus). When a body moves, a change occurs
in the external relation that body bears to other bodies. Thus no change can take
place in a world in which everything is at rest. For though the substances in this
world externally relate to one another, their external relations are always the same.
Consequently, their inner states must also remain the same. Kant concludes that no
succession of any kind whatsoever can take place in such a world. He also argues
that time would be absent, given that time is the order of succession.
Kant offers several different demonstrations of the principle of succession. Here is
the first of them. Suppose that some simple substance exists unto itself, bearing ilo
relation to any other substance in tlte universe. Though Kant himself does not say so,
we might just as well inlagine that nothing at all exists besides this one substance.
Now the problem is to detennine whether this substance has the power to effect
change in itself. Kant argues, of course, that the inner state of this substance cannot
change at all. For this inner state must have a sufficient reason. By hypothesis, this
reason must lie within the substance itself. Kant seems to think that the presence of
this reason in the substance will prevent the substance from assuming any other
inner state. So he concludes that no change can take place in the substance as long as
no change takes place in this reason. This leads him to conclude that the substance
has no power of its own to effect change in itself. For the sufficient reason of the
inner state of the substance cannot change unless change is imposed on it from
without (1.410.30-35).
The second demonstration of the principle of succession seems to turn on the
following idea. lfwe deny real interaction among substances, we must conclude that
every substance has within itself the sufficient reason of every change it will ever
undergo. Kant's point is that these changes will unfold instantaneously unless there
is some sufficient reason to delay them. The sufficient reason of this delay has to lie
outside of the substance. For so long as the substance has within itself the sufficient
reason of all its future changes, it will not be reluctant-as it were-to bring them
about. But if the substance presents all of its future states all at once, it would not
really undergo any change. So Kant concludes that something must act on the
substance from without, otherwise no real change will take place in it (1.411.1-9).
Kant offers a third demonstration for his new principle. Let us suppose for the
sake of argument that the instantaneous succession of states in a solitary substance
can count as real change. Kant says that a substance can have incompatible inner
states over the course of time: it is impossible for a substance to be red and not to be
red at the same time, but it can perfectly well assume first one color and then another

The System of Physical Influx 33

at diffirent times. So it would be impossible to conceive of a substance whose inner

states succeed one another instantaneously, because such a substance would have
incompatible inner states at one and the same time. Since the iru;tantaneous
succession of inner states in a substance is absolutely inconceivable, no change is
possible in a substance alone in all the universe. Change can take place in a
substance-if at all-only insofar as something acts on the substance from without
(1.411.10.14).
These are rather strange arguments. At best, they seem contrived; questionbegging, at worst. Each of the three proofs is designed to show that a substance
which bears no relation to any other substance cannot undergo change. But each of
the proofs turns on the question whether change is conceivable in such a substance.
Kant answers No, but as often as not he seems to beg the question Why?
Nonetheless, I have come to think that something quite interesting is going on in
these proofs, especially in the second of the three.
The question seems to be how we can explain the possibility of any kind of
temporal order in the world. Like Wolff and Leibniz, Kant rejects the Newtonian
conception of absolute space and time. He denies that time is a real thing really
distinct from things that undergo change. Time is nothing but the order of
succession-the order in which the states of things succeed one after the next. Kant's
idea is that the order of succession will be impossible unless change in things occurs
at a certain rate: if change takes place instantaneously, we cannot say that one state
of a thing has followed another. Kant seems to think, moreover, that whatever this
rate of change may be, it must have a sufficient reason. Then he tries to argue that,
even if a creature is itself the sufficient reason of all the change it will ever undergo,
it cannot be the sufficient reason for the rate at which this change will take place. For
the effect of this sufficient reason will be to delay the changes occurring in the
creature. Kant claims that the creature itself cannot be the cause of this delay: if the
creature has everything it will need to bring about all the change it will ever
undergo, why would it hesitate to do its business? So the conclusion apparently has
to be that creatures really act on one another. A creature will not instantaneously
pass from one state to the next, because it has to wait for another creature to effect
change in it. The rates of change in creation are determined by real interaction.
In a nutshell, Kant's argument against pre-established harmony is that the
favored system of Wolff and Leibniz cannot explain how the order of succession is
possible. This, I think, is a very interesting line of argument, though it has some
obvious limitations. For one thing, the challenge to Wolff and Leibniz in the Nova
di/ucidatio depends on a very strong commitment to the principle of sufficient
reason. But what Kant has to say about this principle in 1755 is very murky indeed.
To evaluate thoroughly the merits and limitations of Kant's challenge to Wolff
and Leibniz, we would have to investigate his account of the principle of sufficient
reason. But it is not my intention to do that here. I reserve such an investigation for
future work. The thing of concern for now is the relation between the principle of
succession and the law of inertia. What I have said so far should be enough to
establish that Kant's principle of metaphysics is independent of the laws of
mechanics. Unlike Euler, in other words, Kant does not have to appeal to the laws of
mechanics to mount his challenge to Wolff and Leibniz. But now I would like to
show that the principle of succession and the law of inertia have something in
common. even if the first is independent of the second in the order of reasons. We
would not go so far wrong to say tlk'lt the two principles describe realities of the same
kind. The principle of succession states that all creatures have some kind of inertia
and some kind of Newtonian force, even if not all creatures are subject to Newton's

34 The System ofPhysical Influx

laws of motion." It is important to see this, because, by the end of the game, Kant
cannot avoid ascribing bodily forces to immaterial things such as the rational soulor so I shall argue in the next chapter.
Kant already makes it clear in his first publication, the True Estimation ofLiving
Forces of 1747, that he thinks the law of inertia has special significance for the
metaphysician. He begins by observing in I that Leibniz was the first to teach that
every body has an essential force, a force prior even to extension. He tells us in 2
that metaphysicians later tried to spell out Leibniz's ideas more precisely; and this, it
seems, led to a fundamental mistake. For these metaphysicians were of the opinion
that bodies can do nothing more than produce motion. They could not help then but
conclude that Leibniz's essential force of bodies is a moving force, a force through
which a body causes motion in itself or in some other body. Why does a body move?
It has the power to do so. Kant argues that this device is worthy of the Scholastics,
who would not hesitate to call upon a vis calorifica in order to explain heat or a vis
.frigifaciens in order to e"'Plain the cold (1.18.2-16).
According to Kant, the error of the metaphysicians following Leibniz was to
suppose that motion is an action (eine Wirkung). Only because they conceive of
motion in this way do they conclude that it presupposes a force as its cause. A body
that encounters very little resistance, for example, moves freely. Such a body does
not act at all, says Kant; it simply preserves its state of motion with respect both to
speed and direction. As fur as Kant is concerned. it makes no sense to say that a
force causes the motion of this body (1.18.18-36).
Some metaphysicians would argue against Kant from the example of a weight
suspended on a string or from the example of a weight resting on a table. The weight
suspended on the string remains at rest so long as the string remains intact; likewise,
the weight resting on the table remains at rest so long as the table holds it up. But
once the string is cut or the table removed, the weights will fall to the ground. Now
neither the action of cutting the string, nor the action of removing the table, is
enough to produce motion in the weights. So the metaphysician would conclude that
the weights fall by a force which is inscribed in their very nature. Kant would
presumably say that gravity causes the fall of the weights. But gravity is either the
effect of a subtle matter, or it is the effect of the Earth's attractive force. In the first
case, the weights fali-OOviously-by no force of their own; likewise in the second
case. For then the weights fall by a force impressed on them by t11e Earth. Though
the weights have motion when they fall to the ground, it is not right to say that they
act. At any rate, it is not right to say that they act upon themselves; rather they are
acted upon by other bodies. Since tl1e bodies do not act, they surely exert no force
upon themselves; so we may not conclude that a force inscribed in the very nature of
the weights is the cause of their fall to the ground.
Plainly the law of inertia underlies tl1e Kantian criticisms of moving force in the
True Estimation. A body has no special iru1er force t11at produces its motion. For
bodies are fundamentally inactive. We do not call upon forces to explain motion as
such, but rather the change from one state to another. Change of state in bodies
presupposes a community of forces; bodies would w1dergo no change of state if they
did not really interact (1.140.10-15). The law of inertia may be understood, then, as
ascribing to bodies a natural and fundamental impotence, at least witl1 respect to the
possibility of self-inflicted change of state. To that e"1ent, Kant argues in the True
Estimation that it serves to correct the errors of metaphysicians who attributed
essential moving forces to bodies. Here Kant is arguing very much in the spirit of
Euler.

The System of Physical Influx 35

Now we can think of the principle of succession in the Nova dilucidatio as stating
the lesson I just rehearsed from the True Estimation in purely metaphysical tenns.
Kant's point in the Nova di/ucidatio is that substances of whatever kind they may be
are as fundamentally inactive as bodies. All substances have a natural and
fundamental impotence with respect to self-inflicted change of state. They tend to
preserve their state, whatever that state might be, so long as nothing acts on them
from without Change of state in a substance--be it a soul or what have you-is
always the effect of real interaction. As I say, the principle of succession tells us that
all creatures have some kind of inertia. even if the law of inertia as such only governs
bodies."'
It is worth pointing out that the principle of succession seems to be three distinct
principles in one. Kant's principle states that: 1) no substance has the power to effect
change in itself; 2) all change in a substance must be the effect of a connection
(commercium) with, or the action of, some other substance;"' 3) change of state in
substances is "mutual," i.e., equal and opposite. Thus the principle of succession
seems to stand in a peculiar relation not only to the law of inertia (as in 1), but to the
other two laws of motion as well (as in 2 and 3). We can think of Kant as making
the claim in 2 that all change in any given substance is the effect of some kind of
external force impressed on the substance by another substance. The force will be a
bodily force governed in the first instance by the laws of motion if it is impressed by
one body on another body; otherwise, it must be some kind of spiritual force, for lack
of a better word. As Kant himself puts it, "if one wished to know how, then,
changes ... arise, since they do not proceed from the internal state of any substance
considered in isolation, I would have him direct his mind to that which results from
the connection of things, i.e., their mutual dependence in detenninationi' ( 1.411.2428)." By "dependence in determinations" Kant just means "force." As expressed in
2, then, the principle of succession recalls Newton's second law of motion. It also
recalls Newton's third law, insofar as Kant claims-as in 3-that this "dependence
of determinations" among substances is mutual. In other words, the external forces
substances impress on one another are equal and opposite."
As I say, the principle of succession states that all substances have some kind of
inertia and exercise some kind of external force, even if not all substances are subject
to the laws of motion. It is important to emphasize, however, that the three principles
included in the principle of succession are meant to be principles of metaphysics.
They are at once more primitive and more fundamental than any of the laws of
mechanics."' This becomes clear in light of the following consideration.
The laws of motion govern the behavior of things under the conditions of space
and time. According to the law of inertia. for instance, a body at rest will remain at
rest, and a body in motion will move in a straight line with uniform speed, so long as
they do not suffer the effects of an external force. The body at rest will undergo no
change of place, while the body in motion will pass through equal distances in equal
times-always in the same direction. In other words, the law of inertia presupposes
the concepts of place, direction, time-interval and temporal ordering.'ZI This is true of
the other two laws of motion as well. But it is certainly not true of the principle of
succession, however we might construe it. The principle of succession states very
simply that change in a substance is always produced by the agency of another
substance; time, place and the rest of it do not yet enter the picture. Indeed, far from
presupposing spatio-temporal conditions, the principle of succession-together with
the principle of co-existence-lays the ground of their very possibility. Kant makes
this perfectly clear. As a corollary of the principle of succession, he states that,
"Hence, if the connection of substances is completely abolished, succession and time

36 The System ofPhysical Influx

too disappear'' (1.410.27-28). Moreover, as a corollruy of the principle of coexistence, he says that the spatial conditions of substances are detennined by their
real interaction as conceived in the schema of the divine intellect (1.414.10-20).

Precisely because the principles of succession and co-existence do not presuppose the
conditions of space and time, but rather lay the ground of their possibility, they are
both more fundamental than any of the laws of motion. No doubt, Kant would say
that they are in fact the foundation of these laws and indeed the whole of mechanics.
It should be noted accordingly that Kant's metaphysical concept of force is very
peculiar. Newton himself defines "impressed force'' (vis impressa) in rather abstract
terms as just the "action exerted upon a body in order to change its state, either of
rest, or of uniform motion in a right line."'" Now Kant's concept offorce seems to be
very much in the spirit of Newton's. For Kant, a force is just a "dependence in
detenninations," i.e., the agency of one substance at work in another substance. But
Kant takes the concept of force to a level. of abstraction even higher than Newton
does. Since Newton defines a force as whatever changes a body's state either of rest
or motion in a right line, the Newtonian concept of force presupposes-if nothing
else-the concept of place, direction and change of either place or direction over
time. Since Kant holds that these concepts are themselves possible only by reason of
the principles of succession and co-existence, they do not figure in his concept at all.
Thus Kant would surely say that his own concept of force is not only more abstract
than that of Newton, but also more fundamental. On Kant's view, the conditions of
space and time are possible only because substances interact by external forces
understood as a mutual "dependence in detenninations." Since Newton's concept of
force presupposes the conditions of space and time, Kant would presumably argue
that it must ultimately come to rest on his own metaphysical concept of force."
Precisely because Kant's concept offorce is more fundamental than Newton's, it
applies in spheres other than that of bodies. In Kant's picture of things, forces are in
play every time change takes place. Change of perception in a soul is as much the
work of an impressed force as change of speed and direction in a moving body. As
Kant himself puts it, " ... it follows immediately from the demonstration [of the
principle of succession] that the human soul would certainly be incapable of any
change of inner state if it were denied real connection with external things"
(1.412.6-10). "Real connection" here is to be understood as a dependence of
determinations, i.e., as some kind of force impressed on the soul by something else,
presumably the body.'"' Moreover, Kant seems to think that no creature suffers the
effect of an external force without impressing the same on another creature. So if the
soul suffers the effect of a force impressed on it by the body, the body will suffer the
effects of a force impressed on it by the soul. Kant had already suggested something
ofthe kind in the True Estimation ofLiving Forces (1.19.34-20.21).
If the principle of succession is true, Kant's case against the system of preestablished harmony is obviously more secure than that of Euler. Once again, Euler
assumes that some of the proper objects of metaphysics-the constitutive elements of
matter, for instance-are governed by the laws of mechanics. Wolff and Leibniz
could always deny that this is so. Though bodies obey the law of inertia, we need not
conclude that their constitutive elements do too-even though the nature of the
elements is the sufficient reason of the fundamental properties of bodies. Again,
Wolff and Leibniz both argue that the sufficient reason of ex1ension in material
things lies in the elements, while denying extension to the elements themselves. But
if the principle of succession is true, it is true of all created things: no substance-of
any kind whatsoever-has the power to effect change in itself; all substances tend to
preserve their state, whatever that state might be. This must hold not only of bodies

The System of Physical Influx

37

or composite things. but of simple things as well. And yet, if simple things do not
have any power to effect change in themselves, it makes no sense to say that they
strive constantly to change their inner state. By the principle of succession, we must
deny that simple things have essential forces in the sense of Wolff. Kant makes this
perfectly clear in the Nova dilucidatio when he writes:
They do not thus admit this truth [the principle of successioo and its corollaries] \\00 give a name to
the Wolffian phila;ophy, although it depen&; thus oo an easy and reliable chain of reasons; so that
they rather contend a simple substance to be exposed to continual changes by an internal principle of
adivity. Certainly their argwnents are known [to me]; but that they are trivial, I wn hardly less
coovinced (1.411.16-20).

If true, the principle of succession undennines pre-established harmony as a system

of general cosmology or theory of the world. So long as the constitutive elements of

matter undergo change, they must really act on one another by some kind of external
force.
But if Kant's case against pre-established harmony is perhaps more secure in
general cosmology than that of Euler, it raises certain questions about the nature of
the rational soul. According to the principle of succession, the soul has as little
power to change its state as the body. Euler would contest this on the grounds that
experience teaches us otherwise. Even if certain representations arise in the soul
against its will, the soul apparently has the power to change some of its inner states
all by itself It can spontaneously imagine whatever it likes. It can flit from one idea
to another without any external prompting. Moreover, it can change its mind about
something upon a whim. The phenomena suggest that the soul has the power to
produce change in itself-at least some of the time. 31 Euler insists on this, because
this is what apparently makes the important difference between the soul and the
body. As we shall see in due course, this important difference becomes blurred in
Kant's metaphysics, even though Kant tries to make his metaphysics independent of
the laws of mechanics.
3

The principle of succession is supposed to explain how change in the world is

possible, namely through real interaction among created substances. Now Kant has
to explain how real interaction is possible. He does so by calling on the second
special principle of his system, the SO<alled principle of co-existence.
We know that every creature tends to preserve its state, whatever that state might
be. This is the natural condition of a creature-tile condition in which we shall find
the creature so long as it exists. But it surely follows that the existence of creatures
alone is not enough to explain the possibility of real interaction among them. For we
can conceive of creatures in existence witllout having to conceive of tllem as having
any effect on one another. Now interaction takes place when one creature impresses
some kind of Newtonian force on another creature. Kant argues that God is the
reason of every community of impressed forces and tllus the ultimate reason of all
interaction in the world. So he formulates the principle of co-existence as follows.
"Finite substances bear no relations by their existence alone," he says, "and plainly
they partake in no interaction unless they are sustained in an arrangement of
reciprocal relations by the common principle of their existence, namely the divine
intellect" (1.412.36-413.2). Created substances interact, not just because tlley happen
to exist, but because God conceives of tllem as doing so (1.414.1-8). God has a
certain rational plan for tl1e world {tl1e "schema of the divine intellect"), and the

38 The System of Physical Influx

world submits to this plan. The plan requires that creatures really interact with one
another according to certain laws, and so they do. Kant himself puts it as follows at
the end of the demonstration of the principle of co-existence:
But thenceforth it is aysta1 clear that, if the same schema of the divine intellect, \Wich besto..w
existence on (a-eatures), established relations [among them) insofar as it conceives their existences as
carelated, the Wliversal commercium Of all ~ is canied offby the conceiving of the divine idea
alone. For if God established simply their existence, mutual relation among them would not also
follow (1.413.15-20).

Just in case the basic point was not clear the first time, Kant adds a clarifying note to
make the point once again:
And so the reason of their mutual dependence [the commwlity of substaoo:s) exisls by necessity in
the mamer of their common dependence [the dependence of a-eated substaoo:s) on God. And the
way in \Wich this is effected is readily Wlderstood. The schema of the divine intellect, origin of all
that exisls, is an endwing act (they call it "comervation"), in \Wich, if any substaoo:s are conceived
by God as alone and without relation of detenninations, neither connection nor any mutual relation
would arise among them; but if they are conceived in his intelligence as being related, then hereafter
the detenninations always relate to one another in the continuation of their existence, according to
this idea, i.e., they act and they react, and there is a certain eldema.l Wile of single ~ \Wich could
not be through their existence alone, if you were to depart from this principle (1.413.38-414.7).

Kant concludes from all this that any interaction among creatures must have been
instituted by God.
The principle of co-existence is a concession to Wolff and Leibniz. Wolff and
Leibniz were quite right to object that physical influx is scarcely intelligible if we
imagine it as a current of being "flowing" from one substance into another. So part
of the challenge for Kant is to expose the failings of this vulgar conception of
physical influx and to show us the right way to conceive of real interaction. The
principle of co-existence is designed to meet this vel)' challenge.
As Kant sees things, his own system is superior to the vulgar in that the principle
of co-existence reveals the ground of all interaction among creatures:
But the system of Wliversal interaction of substaoo:s so oonslrued [as grounded on the principle of
co-existence) is certamly more perl'ect than that conunonly held system of physical influx, namely
by discovering the very origin of the mutual connection of thins-; \Wich is to be sought outside the
principle of substaoo:s considered alone, Wlto themselves, in \Wich that well familiar system of
efficient causes strayed very far from the truth (1.41 5.40-416.4).

In the Inaugural Dissertation, Kant will later write in precisely the same spirit:
This is indeed the proton pseudos of physical influx a=>rding to the vulgar Wlderslanding of the
system: it assumes heedlessly that the interaction of substaoo:s and transeunt forces are sufficiently
intelligible through their existence alone; and for this reason, it is not so much some system as rather
the neglect of all philosophical system as superfluous to this argument. If we free this concept of the
blemish, we have the kind of interaction that alone dese!ves to be called real and by reason of\Wich
the whole ofthe world dese!ves to be called real, not ideal or imaginary (2.407.23-30).

Kant rightly points out that we have no reason to suppose that substances will really
interact just because they happen to exist. A viable system of physical influx must
produce the reason of all community or interaction among substances. The mistake
of the vulgar influxionists is precisely to take for granted that existence alone is
enough to explain how being can flow from one substance to another: once two
substances are brought into existence tl1ey mutually fuel each other with being." Real
interaction is possible, argues Kant from the principle of co-existence, because
substances impress forces on one another according to a certain plan conceived in

The System of Physical Influx

39

the divine intellect (1.413 .38-414. 7). Whatever we may think of the specific claims
that Kant apparently makes about God's rational plan for the world, it is clear that
he is making a serious attempt to answer to a very serious challenge raised by the
advocates of pre-established harmony.
Indeed, it might even be argued that Kant borrowed the principle of co-existence
directly from Leibniz in order to meet this challenge. Granted, Leibniz himself
denies all possibility of real interaction among creatures. But he says in the
Monado/ogy that true substances have, as it were, an ideal influence on one another;
and he goes on to say that this is possible only through God's universal concursus,
" ... insofar as, in God's ideas, one monad asks with reason that God show concern
for it in regulating the others from the beginning of things" (51). Thus the actions
and passions of all substances are mutual, "For God, comparing two simple
substances, finds in each reasons that oblige him to accommodate the other to it;
and, consequently, what is active in certain respects, is passive from another point of
consideration" (52). We might put it this way. The actions and passions of
substances are mutual not because substances just happen to exist, but because they
are conceived appropriately in the schema of the divine intellect. This is Kant's
principle of co-existence to all intents and purposes. Later, in the Critique of Pure
Reason, Kant would credit Leibniz with the principle of co-existence as he himself
had more or less stated it in the Nova di/ucidatio. "Leibniz," says Kant, "in
attributing to the substances of tl1e world, as thought through the understanding
alone, a community, had therefore to resort to the mediating intervention of a Deity.
For, as he justly recognized, a community of substances is utterly inconceivable as
arising from their existence" (B293).
There are two things to note about this. First, Kant's statement of the principle of
co-existence in the Nova di/ucidatio is different from that ofLeibniz in an important
respect. For Kant, the principle of co-existence explains the possibility of real
interaction among creatures. But Leibniz denies any kind of physical influx. So, for
Leibniz, the principle of co-existence can do no more than explain how the actions
and passions of substances are mutual. Though Kant apparently borrows something
like the principle of co-existence from Leibniz, his own system does not collapse into
pre-established harmony. Nor can it, because it rests as squarely on the principle of
succession as it does on the principle of co-existence. But for all that, Kant's debt to
Leibniz is clear enough. As far as Kant is concerned, Leibniz was right to say that
the actions and passions of substances are mutual. If the principle of succession is
true, however, this must be the result of real interaction. The challenge, then, is not
so much to explain how the actions and passions of substances are mutual, as it is to
explain how mutual interaction is possible. Kant uses Leibniz's account of the
former to account for the latter. Thus he argues that mutual interaction is possible by
reason of God's universal concursus.
The second thing to observe is that there is a double-edged element of reproach in
Kant's remarks in the Critique of Pure Reason about Leibniz's formulation of the
principle of co-existence. Kant says Leibniz had to presuppose God's universal
concursus in order to explain how community is possible, because he-Leibniz---did
not have the doctrine of transcendental idealism. If Leibniz had understood that
space and time are the pure forms of hUOlan sensibility, says Kant, he would not
have had to call upon God. But note that Kant also says in tl1e section on the
amphiboly of the concepts of reflection that, insofar as Leibniz did compare all
concepts through the understanding alone, he was right to propound the system of
pre-established harmony (A274-275/B330-331). I say that the reproach is doubleedged, because Kant seems to think in retrospect that he himself could not possibly

40 The System of Physical Influx

have grounded a viable system of physical inflwc on the principle of co-existence as

he had stated it in the Nova dilucidatio. For he had not yet formulated the doctrine of
transcendental idealism. From the standpoint of the Critical Philosophy, physical
inflwc is inconceivable unless we recognize that space and time are the pure forms of
hwnan sensibility and accept the conclusion that we can have knowledge only of
things given to us under these forms. So, at the time of writing the Critique of Pure
Reason, Kant must have figured that the Nova dilucidatio could not do any better
than provide a new gloss on pre-established harmony.
If it is reasonably certain that Kant's appeal to the principle of co-existence does
not threaten to reduce his system to some kind of pre-established harmony, it is less
certain that Kant has any argument ready to hand to prevent the collapse of his
system into occasionalism. Kant says over and over again that God is the ultimate
reason of all interaction among creatures. This is as good as to say that God himself
inunediately produces the change of state in creatures that we regard as the effect of
their interaction-or so one might conceivably argue. Kant can ward off such a
conclusion if he can do something to show that creatures have some kind of active
power. But so far as I know, Kant takes agency in creatures for granted. Karl
Ameriks notes that Kant apparently makes an appeal in the Herder lectures on
metaphysics to passive powers in creatures, precisely in order to "restrain" God's
activity.D Thus Kant argues that God can produce thought in us only because we
have a prior disposition to receive thought So this thought is the effect of God's
active power concurring with a passive power in us. But even if Kant can establish
that creatures must have such passive powers in order for God's agency to take effect
in them, he must do more to show that creatures really have active powers of their
own. Otherwise, he will not have succeeded in showing that creatures themselves
really act on one another.
I have no doubt that Kant would have been very sympathetic to points that
Leibniz tries to score against occasionalism in "On Nature Itself," a little article that
appeared in the Acta Eruditorum in 1698. Leibniz argues in effect tlmt occasionalists
adopt a position at odds with itself. The occasionalists want to say first of all that
God and God alone has causal powers. But they also want to say that God does not
have to renew or multiply his decrees in order to keep the world running. Leibniz
claims that the occasionalists cannot have it both ways. He argues that, unless we
suppose that God's will leaves a lasting impression on creatures, God will have to
intervene in the world at every instant. So Leibniz concludes that the wisest, most
simple thing for God to do is to make his decrees effective once and for all by
communicating a certain power to creatures--a power to carry out God's will.
Leibniz tries to turn occasionalism on its head: the occasionalists can purchase God's
wisdom and economy of decrees only by acknowledging that creatures can act. Like
Leibniz, Kant thinks that the wisest course for God is to issue a very few number of
decrees to the greatest possible effect. Tllis is clear in different passages in the
Theory of the Heavens, a work written in t11e same year as tl1e Nova dilucidatio. In
the Nova dilucidatio itself, Kant says, by way of an explicit criticism of Malebranche
in a tone reminiscent ofLeibniz, that the virtue of his (Kant's) system is precisely to
obviate the need " ... of God's action to be variously determined for various
circumstances" (1.415.31-32). Like Leibniz, Kant draws the conclusion that
supreme wisdom moves God to grant creatures a power to act. T11e only difference is
that this is supposed to be a power in creatures to act on one another.
For all that, however, Kant lags behind Leibniz in the campaign against
occasionalism. Leibniz tries to argue in "On Nature Itself' that t11e occasionalists
sacrifice God's wisdom. But then he also tries to summon evidence that creatures

The System of Physical Influx

41

really do act. Thus he appeals to his discovery that bodies have a certain force, or
entelechy overlooked by Cartesian philosophers such as Malebranche. Kant produces
no such evidence. He seems to have taken for granted-for whatever reason-that
occasionalism was no longer a live possibility. I'm not really sure why. If he were all
that impressed by Leibniz's discovery of force or entelechy in bodies, it would have
been more natural for him to adopt pre-established harmony. After all, Leibniz
famously argues that this "living force" is conserved in creation and that real
interaction between body and soul would violate this conservation principle.
There is one more thing to say before I bring this chapter to conclusion. Kant's
use of the principle of co-existence to reform the system of real interaction is
intended to vindicate not only the intelligibility of real interaction as such, but even
that of universal gravitation as through empty space. Now, as far as Kant is
concerned, the "mathematicians" had demonstrated rigorously that every particle of
matter in the universe really does attract every other particle of matter. So the object
of the Nova dilucidatio is not to set out once again any of the proofs we find in
Newton's Principia; the point is rather to show that Newton's critics have no
metaphysical claim against the idea of action at a distance."'
The idea is roughly this. Given that substances do not interact just because they
happen to exist, we have no reason to suppose that they can act only where they are
present.
Real interaction can only take place when substances engage in a certain
community of forces instituted by God. So Kant argues that a community of forces
must come into play even for bodies to act on one another under impact. To put it
another way, he argues that contact is not the ground but the consequence of real
interaction among bodies. Bodies do not act on one another, because they touch; they
touch, because they act on one anotlter: they impress forces of repulsion on one
another according to a plan conceived by God. If bodies did not have such a force,
they could never collide, because nothing would prevent one body from passing
through another. A body is impenetrable, not because it just happens to exist, but
rather because it has a certain sphere of activity-a certain region in space
throughout which its original repulsive force can have effect on other bodies
according to a divinely decreed inverse-cube law (1.484.30-33). Kant makes this
point time and time again. He argues in the Physical Monadology, for example, that
the simple elements out of which bodies are composed do not fill space by virtue of
their existence alone, but because they impress forces of impenetrability on one
another (1.482.4-483.7). Indeed, he defines "contact" as " ... the effected and
reciprocal application of the forces of impenetrability of many elements" ( 1. 483.1112). Again, Kant writes in the Preisschrifl:
Whence I reco~ that a space is filled~ something is there ~ch resists the effort of a moving
body to penetrate that space. But this resistance is impenetrability. Thus bodies fill space through
impenetrability. But impenetrability is a force. For it gives rise to a resistance, i.e., an action opposed
to an external force (2.287.12-18).

Unless God institutes a community of repulsive forces, bodies will neither fill space,
nor resist the effort of other bodies to penetrate them. In the final analysis, then,
action by contact is the effect of contact only insofar as contact itself is the effect of
interaction among bodies by the force of their repulsion.
Kant's point against the critics of universal gravitation is just that we have no
reason to think that a body's sphere of activity can extend only through very short
distances. Universal gravitation is an impressed force just like the repulsive force
that constitutes a body's impenetrability. The one force is no less intelligible-

42 The System of Physical Influx

because of the same kind-than the other. God could have instituted a commwlity of
attractive forces as easily as he instituted the commwlity of repulsive forces which is
the groWld of all action by contact. If he did so, a material particle's sphere of
activity must extend throughout all of space so that every other particle in the
universe suffers its influence. Here is another way to say the same thing. Contact is
not the groWld, but the consequence of real interaction among bodies. But what
reason is there for thinking it must be the only such consequence? If it is not the only
consequence of real interaction among bodies, we may not conclude dogmatically
that bodies can act only where they are present. If God instituted a commwlity of
attractive forces, bodies could act as readily at a distance as they do by contact. Kant
makes this point in the Physical Monadology (1.483.13-30) and again in the
Preisschrift:
In this manner, if I say that a body acts inunediately in liiKlther at a distance, I just mean that it acts
on this other inunediately, but not by impenetrability. But this does not show at all why it should be
impossible; for one would have to prove either that inlpelldrability is the only force of a body, or that
a body camot act immediately on any other body except through inlpelldrability. But since this has
never been proved and since it would be difficult to prove ~ule saving the appearances, metaphysics
has no good reason at all to resist immediate attraction at a distance (2.288.17-26).

The point is very simple. Since the mere existence of matter is not enough to explain
how interaction among bodies is possible, it is at least as difficult to ex'}Jiain action by
contact as it is to explain action at a distance. The ground of any kind of interaction,
among any kind of creature, is a certain plan or "schema" devised by God. It would
have been at least as difficult for God to conceive a community of repulsive forces as
it would have been to conceive a commwlity of attractive forces.,
The early Kant had every reason to be hopeful for the system he had expounded
in the Nova di/ucidatio. He had found some purely metaphysical principles that he
thought would Wldennine the system of pre-established harmony; he had foWld a
way to make the system of physical influx intelligible; and, he had fonnulated a
reply to those who resist wliversal gravitation through empty space. Moreover, Kant
could even claim to have foWld a way to ex'}Jlain the possibility of a temporal order in
the world.
Like Leibniz, the early Kant seems to think that time is nothing real in itself, but
a system of relations. Unless there is change in the world, says Kant, the passage
from one moment to the next will not take place. If it is true that interaction among
substances is the reason of all change, interaction must be the ground of time
Wlderstood as the order of succession. In other words, substances must really act on
one another for it to be possible to determine "before" and "after"-the order of
events. Moreover, interaction must also be the ground of simultaneity. By the
principle of co-existence, it is possible to conceive a substance that exists without
interacting with anything in our world. If that substance interacts with other
substances, together they will fonn a world apart from our own. None of the things
in that other world will interact with any of the things here in this one. By reason of
the principle of succession, the passage of time from one moment to the next would
take place in both worlds. But it would constitute two separate temporal streams,
because nothing in the one world could act on anything in the other. Consequently, it
would be impossible to determine if events in both worlds take place at the same
moment. Thus simultaneous co-existence depends on the interaction of substances.

CHAPTER THREE
THE MATERIAL NATURE OF IMMATERIAL THINGS

For all its great promise, Kant's system of physical influx in the Nova dilucidatio
goes awry in at least one important respect It presents a very peculiar and untenable
picture of the soul. On Kant's account in the mid-1750s, the soul must occupy a
place. So far this is not such a strange thing to say, because the soul must obviously
occupy a place so long as it has a body. But I shall argue that Kant unwittingly
commits himself to an especially problematic picture of things-problematic in the
terms of his own metaphysics. In order to appreciate the full eccentricity of this
picture, we must begin by reflecting on the early Kant's general theory of space.
1

Kant argues from the principle of co-existence that creatures have spatial
relations only so long as God conceives of them in the schema of his intellect as
having some kind of reciprocal influence on one another. "Seeing that place,
position and space are relations of substances whereby substances regard other
substances really distinct from themselves through their mutual determinations," he
says, "they are bound together in an e:\temal union [nexu extemo) through this
reason [namely through their mutual determinations or reciprocal influence)"
(1.414.10-12). Kant reminds his reader that creatures do not relate to one another in
any way just because they happen to exist. So though we might conceive of certain
creatures as existing, something else is needed to justifY the conclusion that these
creatures have place or position relative to one another. Something else is needed to
justifY the conclusion that space is in any way "determined." as Kant himself puts it:
But since the mutual union of substances [nexus substantiarum mutuus] requires that there be a
fixed design in the efficacious representation ofthe divine intellect (a representation which is surely
quite arbitnuy to God and can therefore be equally well admitted or omitted by him at his pleasure),
it follows that substances can exist according to this law without having any place nor any relation
with respect to the~ in our universe (1.414.15-20).

God could yery well have created substances that bear no relation at all to one
another or to any other substances. Substances relate to one another so long as
mutual interaction takes place among them in accordance with some law God has
legislated for the world in the schema of his intellect. Kant concludes that divinely
ordained mutual interaction must be the ground of all spatial relations among
created substances. He makes this very clear. "Besides," he says, "since the
determinations of substances mutually relate to one another, i.e., since different
substances mutually act on one another (to be sure, the one determines something in
the other), the notion of space is released from [abso/vitur] the connected actions of
substances-with which actions reaction is always and necessarily conjoined"
(1.415.5-8). Kant even goes so far as to speculate that the possibility of spatial
relations in the world depends on a very peculiar kind of interaction among
creatures, namely interaction by Newtonian forces of universal attraction.'
Kant had already insisted that space depends on some kind of Newtonian
interaction in the first section of his earliest work, the True Estimation of Living
Forces of 1747:

44 The Material Nature ofImmaterial Things

It is easy to prove that no space and no extension would exist if substances had no force for acting
externally [on one another]. For without this foroe, there is no connection; without connection, no
order; and finally without this, no space (1.23.5-9).

Kant went so far as to claim that Newtonian tmiversal attraction is the reason that
space extends in three dimensions (1.24.1-36). The idea is interesting, because it
suggests that different kinds of space are possible. Had he wished, God could have
legislated laws of interaction that would have produced a non-Euclidean space
extending in four dimensions. This idea never resurfaced in Kant's later work. But it
is clear that the basic idea-namely that the possibility of spatial relations in the
world depends on some kind of real interaction among creatures-was central to
Kant's cosmology in the 1750s. Not only was this idea to resurface in the Nova
dilucidatio of 1755, it was also to figure prominently in the central argument of the
so-called Physical Monadology of 1756.' Now the significance of this idea, as far as
I am concerned in the present chapter, is tltat it has implications not only for bodies,
but also for immaterial things such as the human soul and the constitutive elements
of matter. For example, if body and soul impress external forces on one another, the
soul as well as the body must occupy a place.
It might seem a little strange to think of the soul as engaging in a commtmity of
Newtonian-type external forces with the body. But as strange as it might seem, this
is clearly Kant's view. As I argued in the previous chapter, the principle of
succession commits Kant to something like the notion of spiritual inertia. According
to the principle of succession, "No change can take place in substances unless they
are connected with other substances; the reciprocal dependence of substances
determines mutual change of state" (1.410.18-20). The soul no more has the power
to change its representations than the body has the power to change its state of either
motion or rest. Indeed, the soul naturally tends to preseJVe its current representations
until something acts on it from without. Evety cltange of representation is a spiritual
acceleration-the result of some external force impressed on the soul by the body.'
By reason of the principle of succession, we ntay think oftl1e body's action on the
soul as a capacity for overcoming spiritual inertia, i.e., as a capacity for producing
change of will and representations in the soul. Likewise, we ntay think of the soul's
action on the body as a capacity for overcoming ntaterial inertia, i.e., as a capacity
for willfully producing change of speed and direction in the body in order to achieve
some desired effect. So long as the soul suffers the effects of forces impressed on it
by the body, and so long as the body suffers the effects of forces willfully impressed
on it by the soul, the soul as well as the body will occupy a place. Kant makes this
vety clear in the True Estimation. Indeed, he eli.1Jlains that," ... tl1e soul must be able
to act [on things] outside it, because it has a place. For if we analyze the concept that
we call place, one finds that he means the effects [produced] by sUbstances in one
another" (1.20.36-21.3).
No metaphysician of Kant's time or earlier would deny that the soul has a place
so long as it is joined to the body. For body and soul occupy the same place
throughout the course of our natural existence. Even Descartes has to admit
something of the kind. Granted, Descartes argues in the Sill.1h Meditation that body
and soul are really distinct. Granted, Descartes' argument depends on the premiss
that the nature of the soul is thought rather than ell.1ension. But because Descartes
denies that the human soul is angelic, he also denies that the soul is present in the
body the way a sailor is present in a ship. He claims in other words tlmt his soul is
intimately joined with his body and" ... mingled, as it were, together with my body
so that, together with my body, I constitute one thing" (AT VII, 81). If his soul were
not, as it were, mingled with his body, it would not feel pain as a result of bodily

The Material Nature ofImmaterial Things

45

indispositions," ... but would perceive the woWld by the intellect alone as the sailor
perceives through vision if something is amiss in his vessel ... " (AT VII, 81).
Though the soul is not itself extended, Descartes argues in effect that it is somehow
evei)Where present in the body. This is as good as to say-improperly speakingthat the soul has a place. The soul has a place so long as it is embodied. Now Kant
himself would not have it otherwise, but his claim in the True Estimation is much
bolder than that of his contemporaries or predecessors. He claims, in effect, that the
soul occupies a place not primarily because it is embodied, but because it can
produce change of state in things other than itself. In short, the soul has a place by
reason of its outwardly directed activity. On Kant's view, the soul can occupy a place
even after it has departed from the body-just so long as it continues to act on
something. This is his view not only in the True Estimation, but also in the Nova
dilucidatio. In the Nova dilucidatio, the view follows as a consequence of the
principle of co-existence.
Now the nature of the soul's presence in space raises one of the thorniest
metaphysical problems for Kant's system of physical influx. One might imagine that
Kant has somehow abolished the distinction between body and soul. It would seem
that these two substances must both be made of matter, because they both fill space
and they both have Newtonian e"ternal forces, i.e., forces for producing change of
state in things other than themselves. But Kant is apparently persuaded that the
distinction between body and soul is perfectly safe in his system. He certainly denies
in the Nova dilucidatio that the principle of succession offers any kind of comfort to
materialists:
Perllaps the principle [of succession] might seem to some to be suspect of depravity, because of the
indissoluble connection by which the human soul is bound in this way to matter in the internal
functions of thought, which seems not so distant from the pernicious opinion ofthe materialists. But
I do not thereby abolish the representational slale of the soul ... And should someone strive perhaps
to force a quarrel on me, l shall refer him to recent works [in rational psychology] that form a
consensus to proclaim, as with one voice, a certain necessary union of the soul with the body
(1.412.18-26).

On Kant's view, we can be sure that the soul is not made of matter so long as we
grant that it thinks. I suspect that Kant is following the example of a famous
argument in Wolff's Psychologia rationalis.' Wolff argues against materialism from
the nature of matter and thought. All matter is composite. But Wolff claims that a
thinking thing must be absolutely simple. The soul has to be simple, precisely
because it is a thinking thing. Because the soul is simple, it cannot consist of matter
(47-48). However we judge the merits of tllis argument, Kant seems to think itor something rather like it-all that he needs to answer the charge of materialism.
But even if Kant does manage to uphold the real distinction between body and soul,
his theoty is problematic, because it seems to do away with the distinction between
souls and the elements or monads, i.e., the simple substances constitutive of all
matter. To see that this is so and that it raises a significant problem for Kant, we
must pause to consider the basic premisses of Kant's physical monadology.'

2
In 1756, a year after the defense of tl1e Nova dilucidatio, Kant wrote a short treatise
with the long title, Metaphysicae cum geometria inctae usus in philosophia naturali,
cuius specimen I. continet monadologiam physicam. He proposed to demonstrate,
on the one hand, that tl1e elements of bodies admit geometrical description, and, on
tlle other hand, that we can e"-plain the nature of bodies, or at least certain features

46 The Material Nature ofImmaterial Things

of bodies, if we can learn something about the fundamental properties of their

constitutive elements. He hoped to explain how differences of density among bodies
of the same volume are possible, without appeal to the hypothesis of atoms and the
void. If we suppose on this hypothesis that the elements have all the same mass and
all the same volume, and if we are asked to explain the differences of density among
bodies of the same volume, we shall have to suppose that pockets of empty space lie
between or enclosed in the elements. We shall also have to suppose that these
pockets of empty space are smaller in bodies of greater density and greater in bodies
of lesser density (1.485.39-486.4). As fur as Kant is concerned, such an hypothesis
raises problems on several counts.
Kant rejects the hypothesis of atoms and the void, because its champions assume
that the elements are all alike not only in volume, but also in mass or inertia. On
Kant's view, this assumption is altogether unwarranted. Kant himself argues that
though the volume of all the elements is the same, inertia can vary from one element
to another.' Now the volume and the inertia of any body are respectively the sum of
the volume and the sum of the "inertial forces" (vires inertiae) of the body's
constitutive elements.' It follows, then, that two bodies can have the same volume if
they contain the same number of elements. But two bodies of the same volume can
differ in density just in case the constitutive elements of the one body differ in inertia
from the constitutive elements of the other body. A body made of gold, having the
same volume as a body made of tin, is greater in density just because its constitutive
elements have greater inertia than the constitutive elements of the body made of
gold.
As I say, the purpose of the Physical Monadology is to derive the volume and the
inertia of bodies from the volume and the inertia of their constitutive elements. For
Kant hopes that this derivation will help him explain how density can vary among
bodies of the same volume. But notice that the hoped for explanation has to deny
that bodies are infinitely divisible. If bodies were infinitely divisible, they would have
no constitutive elements. Kant himself makes this perfectly clear in Proposition
Four, which states that, "An infinitely divisible composite thing does not consist of
primitive or simple parts" (1.479.14-15)! Every part of an infinitely divisible
composite thing is itself divisible as far as we like. No part of such a thing is smaller
than any other. Kant takes this to mean that no part of an infinitely divisible
composite thing is ultimate-a base unit, so to speak, which can produce, in
combination with other b.:'lSe mlits, a composite thing of determinate size, shape,
mass and volume. Since bodies have determinate size and so on, it follows that they
cannot be infinitely divisible. It follows that they must have ultimate constitutive
elements: these elements must be simple things (true substantial unities), and they
themselves must have determinate size and so on. It follows, moreover, that every
body must have a definite number of such elements (1.479.35-36). Thus the inertia
and the volume of a body are respectively the sum of the volume and the sum of the
inertial forces of all the body's constitutive elements. To deny that a body has a
definite number of simple elements is to deny the body and its fundamental
properties a sufficient reason. This is to deny the body any detenninate volume or
force of inertia. This is, in turn, to treat the body as though it were an illusion. Kant
himself puts it as follows. Imagine per impossibile that the elements of bodies are
not simple substances; imagine that they themselves are infinitely divisible. Even if
one infinitely small element were joined to a thousand other such elements, even if it
were joined to a million of them or a nlillion millions, that element, together with all
the rest, says Kant, would not constitute the smallest portion of a material tiling. As
a consequence, Kant claims that we would have to deny that tl1ere can be such a

The Material Nature ofimmaterial Things

47

thing as a corporeal substance, i.e., a well-founded material phenomenon (1.479.3034).

But though the elements must be perfectly simple, indivisible substances, they
must also have volume, because Kant argues that the volume of a body is just the
sum of the volume of its simplest parts. If an element has volume, it must extend
through space; and this seems to raise a problem for Kant. After all, the geometers
have shown that space is infinitely divisible, and this proves that space is no
substance. As Kant himself puts it, "... space is not a substance, but a phenomenon
of a certain external relation of substances ... " (1.480.27-28). But surely the elements
themselves must be infinitely divisible, precisely because they ex1end through space.
If the elements are infinitely divisible, they are no more true substances than space
itself is-in which case Kant will have to conclude that bodies are some kind of
illusion. Kant can address this problem, but in order to see how, we must first
consider the way that he accounts for volume in the elements.
Kant's theocy of volume depends on the assumption that the elements can effect
change in one another by forces of attraction and repulsion. Kant argues that, in
addition to the force of repulsion or impenetrability, all the constitutive elements of
matter must have the power to attract one another. Otherwise, evecy particle of
matter would repel evecy other particle; all matter would disperse, and, as a
consequence, there would be nothing in the universe with any volume (1.483.31484.12). It is precisely by the interplay of these attractive and repulsive forces that
volume is possible in the elements and therefore in bodies as well. Kant suggests the
following scheme as a way to determine the law governing the volume of an element
through its forces.
Kant supposes that the forces of attraction and repulsion are "really opposed" to
one another. In the language of the Attempt to Introduce Negative Magnitudes into
Philosophy, a work of 1763, the effects of the one force cancel the effects of the other
force. Both of these forces are real, and so are their effects, but the net result of their
interaction is zero when we add them together. The picture is something like this.
Suppose that one body attracts another body. The first body will move towards the
second body until the two of them meet. They would pass through each other were it
not for the fact that both have forces of repulsion. Each body resists penetration by
the other. Thus the force of repulsion prevents the force of attraction from having
full effect. Kant's strategy in the Physical Monadology is to determine what values
these forces must have so that their sum is equal to zero. For that way he thinks he
can determine the volume of the elements.
We know from Newton's Principia that attractive forces are governed by an
inverse-square law. Now the effects of attraction will not be overcome by the effects
of repulsion if the two forces diminish at the same rate. But it is reasonable to
suppose that repulsive forces diminish at a far greater rate than the forces of
attraction. Whereas attraction extends throughout the universe, repulsion has effect
at vecy short distances. We might just as well take the force of repulsion to be
governed by an inverse-cube law. So the repulsive force of an element would
diminish as the cube of the radius of its sphere of activity increases. Since evecy
element has at once a force of attraction and a force of repulsion, and since the force
of repulsion diminishes at a greater rate than the force of attraction, it follows that
there must be some place on the diameter of an element's sphere of activity where
these two forces are equal. At this place, the sum of the forces of attraction and
repulsion is zero. This is the limit of the element's impenetrability, for the element
cannot extend anywhere beyond. Consequently, the real opposition between the
forces of attraction and repulsion defines tl1e volume of an element (1.484.13-485.4).

48 The Material Nature ofImmaterial Things

Kant can consistently claim both that the elements have volume and that they are
absolutely simple substances, precisely because their volume is just the effect of their
interaction through forces of repulsion and attraction. Volume is the outward
appearance of an element; it does not constitute the element's inner being, as it were.
Kant takes the position that every element has two different aspects: every
element has a "sphere of activity" (sphaera activitatis) and a core of inner
determinations. According to Proposition Seven of the Physical Monadology, " ...
besides external presence, i.e., the determinations of relation of a substance, there are
other internal determinations, without which the determinations of relation would
not be, because there would be no subject in which they inhered" (1.481.27-29). An
element has volume insofar as it extends through space. It extends through space not
by virtue of its inner determinations, but only because it acts on other elements by
forces of attraction and repulsion. The volume of an element depends on the
element's so-called sphere of activity. Though an element's sphere of activity is
infinitely divisible, the element itself or its inner core is not Kant tells us that," ...
this space itself [the element's sphere of activity] is the expanse of an element's
external presence. Consequently, one who divides space, divides the extensive
quantity of its presence" (1.481.25-27). But the inner determinations of an element
have no part in the sphere of its activity, for they belong to substances independently
of all outward relations. Indeed, these inner determinations must be somehow more
fundamental than the relations elements outwardly bear to one another, because
otherwise the element would not be a real substance. The element itself is therefore
preserved from divisibility, because the core of its inner determinations cannot
extend through space. "But the inner determinations of an element are not in space,"
says Kant, "because they are internal. Therefore, neitl1er the internal determinations
themselves are divided by the division of external determinations, nor even the
subject itself-i.e., the substan~is divided in tltis way'' (1.481.29-32).
The distinction between an element's sphere of activity and the core of its inner
determinations ntight seem contrived on the face of it-invoked simply for the sake
of squaring the basic prentisses of the physical monadology. But, in fact, it is
perfectly reasonable and intelligible, so far as it goes. The distinction surely follows
as a consequence of the principle of co-existence, as formulated in the Nova
dilucidatio. As Kant points out over and over again in the Nova dilucidatio,
creatures do not act on one another, nor do they externally relate to one another with
respect to place or position, just because they happen to exist. They do so, if at all,
only by virtue of a special law of community laid down by God in the schema of his
intellect. God could have just as easily designed his work so that creatures exist
without bearing any kind of relation to one another. One ntight well wonder what
Kant has in ntind in the Physical Monadology when he speaks of the core of an
element's "inner determinations." But surely Kant's idea is that these inner
determinations are just the fundamental properties that the element would have had
under the hypothesis that God had created it in isolation from all other elements.
Under tltis hypothesis, the element would have no sphere of activity at all, but it
would still have to have certain non-relational properties. These non-relational
properties-whatever they ntight happen to be-are what constitute the core of the
element's inner determinations. Now, as it happens, God legislated certain laws
governing the community of original forces of attraction and repulsion in creatures.
The elements subntit to these laws, and so they bear external relations to each other.
In addition to the core of its inner determinations, every element also has certain
relational properties. These relational properties constitute the sphere of its activity.

The Material Nature ofImmaterial Things

49

So long as Kant is entitled to the principle of CXH:xistence, he is entitled to

distinguish between the core of an element's iimer determinations and the sphere of
its activity. So long as Kant is entitled to make this distinction, he is entitled to say
that an element has volume by reason of the latter and the status of a true, simple
substance by reason of the former. An element is spatially extended, only because it
has a sphere of activity. Though the element makes itself present in space through
the influence it has on other elements, it is a simple substance nevertheless.
3

The Physical Monadology teaches us two important things about the constitutive
elements of matter. First, the elements are spatially extended only because they
really act on one another. Second, they have inner determinations distinct from their
presence in space. Consequently, the elements are genuine substances, i.e., they are
absolutely simple things, at least with respect to the core of their iimer
determinations if not with respect to the sphere of their activity.
Now it is striking to see that Kant's rational psychology is very impoverished.
Kant is not especially interested in the nature of the soul as such. His primary
concern-indeed, his only concern-is to e:\."Plain the possibility of physical influx
between the soul and the body. As a result, Kant's rational psychology has two,
maybe three, fundamental tenets. First, the soul is a genuine substance, because it is
absolutely simple. Second, the soul and the body really act on one another. Third,
the soul is present in space, just because it acts on the body. This is very interesting,
because it shows that almost everything we can say about the constitutive elements
of matter we can also say about souls. In fact, if one were to enquire how a soul can
be perfectly simple and yet occupy space, Kant would have to appeal to some kind of
analogy with the elements. He would have to say that the soul is present in space by
the sphere of its activity and that, though this sphere of activity is divisible, the soul
itself is not. u
This is problematic, because Kant argues that the elements can be present in
space only by forces of repulsion. "The force by which a simple element of body
occupies its space," he writes in the Physical Monadology, "is the same as that
which others call impenetrability, nor can there be a place for the element if you
depart from that force" (1.482.4-6). An element fills space by resisting every effort of
every other element to penetrate the sphere of its activity. Thus elements fill space by
making themselves impenetrable to one another. Unless we can show that the force
whereby a soul is present in space is different from an element's force of repulsion,
Kant is faced with the odd conclusion that the soul too is impenetrable. He himself
explicitly acknowledges the problem in the Preisschrifl:
I admit that the proof we have, that the soul is not matter, is good But take care not to conclude
therefrom that the soul is not of a material nature. For we do not only mean thereby that the soul is
no matter, but rather also that it is not such a simple substance that an element of matter could be.
This requires a special proof; namely that this thinking being is not in space through impenetrability,
as a corporeal element is; and that it could not constitute together with others a mass and an extended
thing---\\bereof truly no proof has yet been given, which, if discovered would show the
inconceivable way that a spirit is present in space (2.293.8-18).

The elements have a material nature, precisely because they fill space by the force of
their repulsion: they are impenetrable. But the soul is not made of matter as such.
Kant thinks that we can demonstrate this conclusively. Again, I suppose that he has
Wolff's proof in mind: matter is composite, but the soul is not, because it thinks; a
thinking thing must be absolutely simple; so the soul cannot be made of matter.

50 The Material Nature ofImmaterial Things

Nevertheless, Kant's rational psychology is so impoverished that it cannot produce a

criterion by which to distinguish souls from elements. Unless Kant can find such a
criterion, his rational psychology raises in us the expectation that the soul has a
material nature, even though it is not made of matter as such. In other words, it
makes it all too easy for us to conceive the presence of souls in space on the model of
Kant's physical monadology-all the easier still, because, without the physical
monadology, it seems to be almost completely vacuous. But if we fall back on this
monadology, we must conclude that souls are impenetrable.
The remarks in the Preisschrijl about the impenetrability of the soul are not off
the cuff; they express a deep and abiding concern for the early Kant. We find further
reflections on this matter in the transcriptions of Kant's lectures on metaphysicsu
and in Part One, Chapter One of Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer. Kant points out time and
time again that the simplicity of the soul does not exclude the possibility that the soul
is impenetrable and has thus a material nature. For what tells us that the soul is not
something like the constitutive elements of matter? Kant frequently makes his point
by conducting a very peculiar thought experiment. He invites us to imagine a cubic
foot of space filled with a determinate number of material elements; each of these
elements resists penetration by all other elements. Now suppose that we introduce
the same number of disembodied spirits into this space. The question is whether we
would have to remove the material elements in order to make room for them. If the
answer is yes, spirits must be impenetrable, because they cannot co-exist with the
elements in one and the same space. If we had to remove all the material elements in
order to fill a cubic foot with spirits, the spirits would together form an extended,
impenetrable mass-a body, in short (2.320.12-321.15; 28.145.25-36; 28.272.8-29).
Kant clearly wants to ward off the conclusion that the spirits would form a body, but
the question is always how he can do that.
I noted in the previous chapter that Kant and Euler make an instructive contrast.
I noted that Euler is naive, because he imagines that the science of mechanics should
tyrannically dictate the content of some part of our metaphysics. I argued, moreover,
that Kant was less naive on this score. Though Kant agreed with Euler that we can
use progress in mechanics to correct errors in metaphysics and though he also
agreed with Euler that the law of inertia was somehow especially significant to the
then current debate in metaphysics about the three rival systems of causes, he
recognized that he would have to establish the basic metaphysical principles of his
own system independently of the laws of mechanics. In short, Kant recognized that
it is wrreasonable to assume that the laws of mechanics govern the objects of
metaphysics." But though Euler was philosophically naive about the significance
mechanics might have for metaphysicians, he was very careful to exempt the object
of rational psychology-the human soul-from the laws of motion. Kant, however,
made it all too natural for us to think of tl1e soul as governed by these laws. At any
rate, he made it all too natural for us to tllink of the soul as governed by those laws
which govern any community of repulsive forces. For what Kant has to say about the
human soul has little content unless he draws on his physical monadology.
We may think of Kant's problem concerning spiritual impenetrability as arising
from something like an extension of Newton's "analogy of Nature." Newton appeals
to his second Rule of Reasoning to prove that the Moon is held in its orbit about the
Earth by the same force that causes the fall of heavy bodies at the planet's surface.
He admits, in other words, " ... no more causes of natural things than such as are
both true and sufficient to explain tl1eir appearances,"" and he assigns the same
causes to "the same natural effects."" Since Nature "affects not tl1e pomp of
superfluous causes," we may assume, for example, tlmt the reason stones fall in

The Material Nature ofImmaterial Things

51

Europe is the same as the reason stones fall in America. Now both the Moon's orbit
and the fall of heavy bodies at the surface of the Earth are governed by the inversesquare law. Newton concludes that the same force must be the cause of both these
phenomena. Thus Newton puts into practice the counsel he gives at the begiruting of
Book Three of the Principia. On the one hand, he says, we must never abandon
experiment, for it is only through experiment that the properties of bodies are
disclosed to us. But, on the other hand, he urges us never to " ... recede from the
Analogy of Nature, which is wont to be simple, and always consonant with itself.""
Against his better judgement, Kant seems to have extended Newton's analogy of
Nature from the physical world to the realm of immaterial substances. In other
words, he makes it all too easy for us to think that Nature's wlifonnity is perfect and
that the same regularities prevail not only among bodies, but among souls and
monads as well. Bodies, souls and monads alike fill space to the extent that they
resist penetration by other things. Just as Newton brought the Moon down to Earth,
so Kant brought the realm of immaterial things down to the physical world. The
question, of course, is whether this was a reasonable thing to do.
Christian August Crusius thought nothing of attributing impenetrability to the
soul. Indeed, he made this a virtue of his rational psychology, precisely because he
thought that he might use it to show that physical influx is possible. He argued, for
instance, that the soul is perfectly capable of producing motion in the body, because
it is a finite substance; and all finite substances are impenetrable. Because the soul is
impenetrable, it can move the body by impressing certain forces on it." We can tell
from the passage of the Preisschrifl I just cited, however, that Kant is much less
sanguine about the idea. He is much less willing than Crusius to admit that the soul
has a material nature, even if he can show conclusively that the soul is perfectly
simple and thus not made of matter per se. The question is why.
The question is a very tricky one, partly because Kant never states his case in
explicit terms. For now, let me make the following suggestions.
The problem about the immaterial nature of the human soul excited much debate
in the eighteenth century. Those who argued that the human soul is not made of
matter believed that their proof could be used to show that the soul is incorruptible.
We find one of the classic accounts of this argument in Wolff's Psychologia
rationalis. Wolff argues first of all that the human soul is a simple substance. The
soul, he says, is conscious of itself and of other things outside it; this is not possible
for bodies. So body and soul must be different kinds of things. Since the body is
material, it must be composed of parts; since the soul is unlike the body, it cannot be
made of matter-which is just to say that the soul is a simple substance (47-48).
The argument then proceeds as follows. Since the soul is a simple substance, it
cannot be dissolved into parts. If it could be dissolved into parts, it would cease to
exist. But it can't, so it won't. Hence the soul must be incorruptible (729), and
hence it must survive the death of the body (730).
Following Wolff, Kant seems to think it uncontroversial that the soul is a simple
thing. If he thinks that the Wolffian argument proves what it is supposed to prove;
he can be sure that the soul is incorruptible. But the soul will turn out to be no more
corruptible if it also turns out to be impenetrable. Kant's physical monadology
proves, if nothing else, that simple things can impress forces of repulsion on one
another. If we are swayed by Wolff's argument in the Psychologia rationalis, we
must conclude that physical monads are incorruptible, just because they are perfectly
simple substances. So Kant could not have been concerned about proving the
incorruptibility of the soul when he discovered to his dismay that the soul might very
well be impenetrable on his account. For an impenetrable soul cannot be dissolved

52 The Material Nature ofImmaterial Things

into parts if it is just like a physical monad."' Kant's unwillingness to accept spiritual
impenetrability must therefore be based on other grounds. But what might they be?
If body and soul are impenetrable, they cannot both occupy the same place at the
same time. If the soul itself is impenetrable, it must be lodged somewhere in the
body-just as a kidney stone. So long as the soul occupies this place, no other part of
the body can co-exist with it there. Such a view is highly problematic if one
argues-as Kant himself does in the Herder lectures on metaphysic~that the soul
is everywhere present in every part ofthe body.
Kant makes his point in these terms, "The place of the (whole] body is in
universo the place of the soul; and the soul has no place in the body [i.e., the soul
has no particular place in any one part of the body]" (28.146.16-18). Again, he
explains that, "[The soul] is in all parts of the body without being extended"
(28.147.23-24). What are Kant's reasons for taking this position? He bids his
students imagine that the soul has its place or its seat somewhere in the brain. If this
is so, the soul can be present to the other parts of the body only mediately through a
network of filaments (Fasem) or nerves that radiate out of the brain to the very tips
of one's fingers and toes. Thus the soul is immediately present only to the parts of
the brain in which it is in close proximity; the effects of its presence there are then
transmitted throughout the rest of the body by the nervous system (28.147.8-10).
Kant finds this picture problematic, because he seems to think that it is somehow
false to the phenomena.
The question is how this account of the soul's relation to the body can explain
sensation. To put it more precisely, the question seems to be where we e:-.:perience a
sensation of one kind or another. Kant's line of reasoning is very obscure, but the
general idea seems to be something like tllis. All our sensations are affections of the
soul rather than the body. When my body is distwbed in one way or another, I feel
pain. But the pain itself is not an affection of the body as such: it is a state of the
soul. Nonetheless, I am as likely to feel pain as occurring in one part of the body as
in another. Kant apparently asswnes that it would be impossible to feel pain as
occurring in any given part of the body, unless the soul happened to be present there.
Unless my soul is present in my finger, I can never feel pain as occurring in that part
of my body. If that's the case, and if it's also the case that the soul is lodged
somewhere in the cerebellwn, I could experience pain only as occurring in my brain.
In other words, headaches would be the only kind of indisposition that I could ever
experience!' The effect of distwbances in my finger would be conveyed through the
nerves in the finger to the brain, and tl1ere in the brain my soul would suddenly have
an unpleasant sensation as occurring in my brain (28.147.10-19)."
From these considerations, Kant concludes that, "[The soul] has no (particular]
place in the body. Its presence is nothing more titan a sphaera activitatis ... It is in
all places of the body without being ex1ended" (28.147.21-24)."' Now obviously the
soul cannot be in all places of t11e body if it is impenetrable. The soul may very well
be present throughout the whole body by a sphaera activitatis, and perhaps we may
very well conceive this sphaera activitatis on the model of Kant's physical
monadology. But then it is clear tltat the soul must not have a force of repulsion: its
sphaera activitatis must be the effect of some ot11er kind of force. Indeed, this is
precisely what moves Kant to say that, ''The corporeal elements externally act on
one another through forces of repulsion (ZuruchtojJung] etc. etc. relatione ex1ema
then;-Now since the soul is not present (in t11e body] by the force of impenetrability
[ Undurchdringlichkeit], the body cannot act on t11e soul by tl1e same forces whereby
it acts on (other] bodies" (28.146.27.33). But of course t11ese claims raise another
question: if not by forces of repulsion, how is the soul present in space at all? Here

The Material Nature ofImmaterial Things

53

Kant has to plead ignorance: "What kind of law ofpresence is this? This difficulty is
completely mysterious, because one has not understood a spirit, much less the union
with the body" (28.147.3-7).
Precisely because Kant is committed to the idea that the soul is evel)Where
present in every part of the body, he must resist the conclusion that the soul has an
original force of repulsion just as the physical monads do. If he also insists on using
the physical monads with their spheres of activity as some kind of analogy for
understanding the soul, he has no choice but to say that the forces exercised by the
soul are unlike any other known to us. As a price for this, however, Kant must give
up the almost extravagant optimism of his first publication. In the True Estimation
of Living Forces of 1747, Kant went so far as to say that real interaction between
body and soul is as little mysterious as real interaction between one body and another
(1.20.23-21.25). He argued that, in first case as in the second, external forces are at
play. But now it turns out that the external forces at play in any real interaction
between body and soul must be unlike any that have hitherto been revealed to us in
the course of ordinary experience. Though it might be possible to work our way up
from the phenomena to the general law governing a physical monad's presence in
space, the law of a soul's presence in space can be at best the object of speculation.
Moreover, even if we suppose that the soul does impress certain unknown forces
on the body, it is not at all clear that the body can act on the soul. This much is clear
at any rate: the body cannot act on the soul by forces of either attraction or repulsion.
Newtonian-type external forces are always equal and opposite. The body can impress
forces of attraction and repulsion on the soul just in case the soul impresses like
forces on the body and in the same degree of intensity, though oppositely directed.
But, again, if the soul did impress such forces on the body, it would be
impenetrabl~and heavy to boot. Unless the body can impress some kind of
spiritual forces on the soul, it is not clear that it can act on the soul at all. Indeed,
Kant himself draws this inference in the Herder lectures:
Thus the soul can act on the body from within, but not the body on the soul:-The soul knows the
imer state of each and evety element; and [if] it acts on evety imer state, it is present to the bodyThe corporeal elements act externally on one another by forces of repulsion [Zunlckstq'Jung] ...
Now since the soul is not present by the force of impenetrability [Undurchdringlichkeit], the body
camot act on the soul at all by the same forces OOereby it acts on [other] bodies: -{The soul] does
not resist the quivering nerves [den bebenden Ne/Wn], the ne.vous fluids [dem NeiWnsafi]:-[It

acts on the body] only insofar as it is aware of the inner state of all the corporeal elements: it is the
divinity [die Gottheit] of the body without \\hich bodies do not act (28.146.22-38).

Perhaps the soul impresses a purely spiritual power on the body. But neither reason
unaided nor experience suggests for now that this is the case. We conclude that this
is the case only because the difficulties in Kant's system lead us to it. It is much
more difficult to make sense of real interaction between body and soul than Kant
himself had supposed in the True Estimation of Living Forces. Kant quite rightly
remarked in the Herder lectures that, "[The] difficulty is completely mysterious,
because one has not understood a spirit, much less its union with the body ... "
(28.147.5-7). In this, he came round to Euler's point of view. As Euler pointed out to
his German princess, "However we might conceive tlmt inti01ate union between
body and soul, which constitutes the essence of a living man, that union always
remains an inexplicable mystery in Philosophy; and Philosophers have always
troubled themselves as much as possible to make it more mysterious still"
(3.11.186).
In conclusion, Kant is unwilling to ascribe a material nature to the soul for fear of
compromising a fundamental conunitment of his ratimlal psychology. He is

54 The Material Nature ofImmaterial Things

apparently afraid of falsely representing souls--by some kind of extension of

Newton's analogy of Nature-as though they were subject to the conditions of space
and time in precisely the same way that bodies and physical monads are. If souls fill
space the way either bodies or physical monads do, they must be impenetrable.
Indeed, they must sometimes fall under the senses: we could collide with a soul even
if that soul had long since passed out of natural existence. This is unacceptable to
Kant, precisely because he is conunitted to the view that the soul is everywhere
present in every part of the body. The soul cannot co-exist with the body in the same
place at the same time if it makes every effort to resist penetration. Perhaps the soul
exercises special spiritual forces unlike any of the usual kind in bodies or physical
monads. But so far, we have no evidence--empirical or otherwise-that such forces
ever come into play. This is not to deny dogmatically that we will ever find any such
evidence, but it certainly is to say that the hypothesis of spiritual forces is more of a
symptom of problems than any kind of solution.
Thus the attempt to preserve the soul from impenetrability, and to remove it from
the ordinary sensible conditions of space and time which determine bodies, presents
Kant with a dilemma. If he remains faithful to his idea that the soul is an immaterial
substance capable of real interaction with the body, yet immune to ordinary sensible
spatio-temporal conditions," he must admit that neither experience nor reason can so
far teach us much at all-if anything-about the soul and its active powers. The
investigation of real interaction between the soul and the body-or rather its
impasse-suggests that reason and hwnan sensibility both have certain limitations.
Indeed, we can apparently make no progress in this investigation before we have
determined precisely where these limitations lie and what they consist in.
I shall argue in what follows that this very dilemma presented in the effort to
reclaim the soul from the ordinary sensible conditions of space and time is what
moved Kant to write his Dreams of a Spirit-Seer-on the occasion, that is, of
reading Swedenborg's Arcana coelestia. I shall argue that Swedenborg himself
subjects the soul to the ordinary sensible conditions of space and time; that Kant
recognized this and calls Swedenborg to task on precisely these grounds; that Kant
uses the example of Swedenborg to formulate a diagnosis for his own metaphysical
project; and that the ultimate lesson of Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer is that no progress is
possible in metaphysics unless we first investigate the limits of reason and
sensibility.

CHAPTER FOUR
THE ARCANA OF SWEDENBORG

The name Emanuel Swedenborg has the ring of Hallowe'en to it. It conjures up in
the mind images of angels and ghostly apparitions, extra-terrestrials and demons in
hell. Swedenborg was the man who boasted he could explain every allusion to the
gnashing of teeth in Holy Scripture, because he paid visits to the danmed and saw
them do it. One might doubt whether Swedenborg's work can shed any light on
Kant's development. To be sure, Dreams of a Spirit-Seer is a review of
Swedenborg's Arcana coe/estia. But one might expect Kant to be above all
concerned here to argue that fantastic visions of life in the hereafter are not the stuff
of true philosophy. Since anyone might reasonably hold such a thesis, without either
committing himself to transcendental idealism or growing in the direction of that
doctrine, it might seem wllikely that the Swedenborg saga can do much to explain
how Kant came to grips with all the implications of his early metaphysics.
Nonetheless, I believe that Dreams of a Spirit-Seer is more than a glancing blow
against hysteria and enthusiasm in philosophy. It is, on the contrary, a key episode
in Kant's on-going efforts to renovate the system of physical influx; and Swedenborg
is a central figure in this drama. For, by 1766, I think Kant must have come to the
conclusion that his system of reformed physical influx could easily lead to the
extravagances of Swedenborg's arcana, wlless checked by a thorough investigation
of the limits of human understanding. But what could the visions of Swedenborg
possibly teach Kant?-everything about the dangers and follies of subjecting
immaterial substances in metaphysics to the ordinary spatio-temporal conditions
under which bodies are given to the senses.
One does not immediately associate metaphysics with Emanuel Swedenborg.
Swedenborg's ambition in later life was not to construct a rational system of God,
the world, the human soul and all things in general following the example of
Christian Wolff, but rather to share with us the hidden secrets of the Holy Word as
they had been revealed to him by the angels above. But it seems less odd on the face
of it to think of Swedenborg as keeping company with metaphysicians when we
consider how naturally the vocation of prophecy comes to metaphysicians-or,
anyway, to those metaphysicians in the school ofLeibniz.
Leibniz argues tlmt every living being has a representation of the whole
universe-past, present and future-from a certain point of view. According to its
station in the hierarchy of perfection, however, a living being is more or less
conscious of its representations. The most primitive thing of all, the bare monad, is
conscious of none of its perceptions. A higher living being, such as an animal soul,
is conscious of some of its perceptions; it is especially conscious of those perceptions
which correspond to the motions of its body. Rational souls are presumably
conscious of an even greater number of perceptions. Now it is surely conceivable
that a rational soul could be incomparably more perfect than any other. We can
imagine a rational soul who is conscious of almost all of its perceptions, who is
conscious of just about everything in the entire universe, past, present and future.
Such a soul would come closer to omniscience than any other creature; we would
call this soul a prophet. Leibniz himself acknowledges that the system of preestablished harmony is quite open to the possibility, though he points out that true
prophets are very rare indeed. In a letter to Pierre Coste, he writes:
If it were true, sir, that your Cevemois were prophets, this circumstance would not be contrary to my
hypothesis of pre-established harmony, indeed, it would strongly agree with it I have always said

56 The Arcana ofSwedenborg

that the present is pregnant with the future, and that there is a perfect interconnection between ~
no matter how distant they are from one another, so that someone who is sufficiently acute could
read the one from the other. I would not even oppose someone who maintains that there are spheres
in the universe in much prophecies are more conunon than in ours, just as there might be a world in
much ~ have noses sufficiently acute to smell their g;une at 1,000 leagues; perhaps there may
also he spheres in much genii have greater leave than they have here below to inletfere with the
actions of rational animals. But when it is a question of reasoning about \\ohat actually happens here,
our presumptive judgement must be based on \\ohat is usual in our sphere, \Were these kind of
prophetic views are extremely rnre. We cannot swear that there are no such prophets, but, it seems to
me, it is a good bet that those in question are not 1

Since prophets are an uncommon breed among us, Leibniz implies here that the vast
majority of claimants to the title must be either frauds, madmen or both. Still, this is
no argument against prophecy as such. Who would dare say there has never been a
prophet among us; who would dare say there are no prophets elsewhere in the
universe?
Now Swedenborg was no orrunruy prophet; he was a prophet of the Leibnizian
persuasion. His angelology is nothing less than a system of universal pre-established
hannony. One of the most important clifferences between Leibniz and Swedenborg is
that what Leibniz claims to have deduced from the principle of contraruction and the
principle of sufficient reason, Swedenborg claims to have seen with his own eyes. If
we are to take the man at his word, Swedenborg was one of those uncommon souls
who are conscious of all things in the world, even those things-spirits, angels and
demons-to which orrunruy mortals are completely insensible. Since the time of the
ancient Hebrew prophets, a special form of sensibility in human beings has been
stopped up. But it seems that God opened the inner sight of Emanuel Swedenborg.
Swedenborg's angelic monadology is qllite remarkable, because it
unambiguously represents immaterial substances under the sensible conrutions of
material things. Swedenborg is perfectly unruffled in the preface to Apocalypse
Revealed when he annmmces that the Day of Judgment took place in the intelligible
world some time during the year 1757--by our reckoning here among the sensibles.
Thus we can think of Swedenborg's very peculiar adaptation of pre-established
hannony as representing everything that went wrong with Kant's universal system
of physical influx. I have argued that Kant comes close in spite of himself to
ascribing a material nature to the human soul in his effort to explain how the soul
and the body act on one another. As he himself admits in the Preisschrifl of 1764, he
unwittingly makes it easiest of all to understand the interaction of body and soul and
thus the soul's presence in space as the effect of interplay between original forces of
repulsion. To say that the soul impresses an original force of repulsion on the body is
just to say that it fills space by resisting penetration; tllis is just to say that the soul is
impenetrable. If Kant is consistent with himself, he must follow the example of
Swedenborg and admit the possibility of rurect communication-of a very
peculiar kind-with the spirits of the dead. Whereas Swedenborg claims that he can
chat with departed spirits, Kant would have to admit that we can collide with them.
Kant and Swedenborg both represent immaterial substances as subject to the spatiotemporal conrutions ofboilies and therefore subject to the conrutions of sensibility.
Why, then, was Swedenborg of interest to Kant? Apparently Kant thought he had
something in common with the spirit-seer of Stockholm. He recognized, in the first
place, that Swedenborg had reappropriated a whole system of metaphysics to support
his angelology. Like Kant, Swedenborg was a metaphysician in some sense of the
word. One would think that the affinity between the two was attenuated by the fact
that Kant espoused the system of physical influx while Swedenborg was closer to
Leibniz and the system of pre-established harmony. But the affi1lity is stronger than

The Arcana ofSwedenborg

57

one might think, precisely because Swedenborg claims that the spirits of the dead
can fall wtder the senses in an almost wtexceptional way. An advocate of preestablished hannony need not suppose that the monads are ever objects of sensation.
Indeed, Kant himself would later argue that Leibniz' s system must be true of a realm
ofPlatonic things---immWle to the conditions ofsensibility-ifthe system is true at
all.' But if one is committed to Kant's system of physical influx, the challenge is to
explain how souls as such could never fall Wlder the senses. Thus Swedenborg has
more in common with Kant than he does with Leibniz just to the extent that his
reports of heaven and hell presuppose that immaterial substances can be objects of
sensation.
I shall argue in the next chapter that this is how Kant himself wtderstood his
relation to Swedenborg. I shall argue that Kant was moved on the occasion of
reading the Arcana coe/estia to write Dreams of a Spirit-Seer as a diagnosis of the
problems in his own metaphysics and as a general warning to all of the dangers of
subjecting immaterial things to the conditions of sensibility.' As we shall see in due
course, the lesson of Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer is that the only way to correct the error
of sensualising immaterial things is by conducting an enquiry into the limits of
human wtderstanding. Thus Dreams of a Spirit-Seer serves as a kind of
prolegomenon to the Inaugural Dissertation.
Before I wtdertake my analysis of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, however, I think it
will be useful to examine carefully the doctrines of Swedenborg. Tltis exercise will
help us wtderstand the objections that Kant raises in his review. There are striking
parallels in the Arcana of Swedenborg and the early metaphysics of Kant
Sometimes this is noted by scholars, but either they prefer not to dwell on it, or they
draw the ludicrous conclusion that Kant was \Ulconsciously drawn to the ideas of
Swedenborg in spite of himself. I hope to show that the sympathetic hannony which
resonates in the works of the two men is not an accident, but I am far from thinking
that Kant was a closet Swedenborgian. On the contrary, the emerging parallels come
as a result of Kant's commitment to physical influx. I think that Kant himself
wtderstood this. Kant was intellectually put off by Swedenborg, because he fowtd in
Swedenborg's prophetic visions a sign that something was fimdamentally wrong
with his own system. I take it, then, that Kant's own ideas are Wlder attack in the
venomous critique of Swedenborg which we find in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer. But to
see this, we must first try to wtderstand Swedenborg himself; then we must try to
determine precisely what Kant fom1d so distmbing in the Arcana coe/estia.
1

Emanuel Swedenborg was born in Stockholm in 1688, the son of a prominent

Lutheran cleric who was later to become Bishop of Skara. At the age of eleven,
Swedenborg entered the University of Upsala where he excelled in the study of
mathematics and natural philosophy. In 1710, after receiving his degree,
Swedenborg set out for England. Tl1ere he infonnally pursued his studies in
mathematics and mechanics. One of Ius great ambitions at the time was to perfect
and retail his method of finding longitude at sea by the position of the moon.
Edmwtd Halley, he boasted in a letter home, had given him some encouragement in
this project. Meanwhile, Swedenborg took room and board with London tradesmen
not only to save money on rent, but also to learn their crafts. He took up engraving,
lens-grinding and instrument-making. It was during tltis stay in England that
Swedenborg had the idea to set up a Scientific Society in Sweden, apparently on the
model of the Royal Society of London. Sweden was suffering the ill effects of

58 The Arcana ofSwedenborg

Charles XII's military ambitions. Almost thirty years of campaign had brought the
COWlby to ruin. Swedenborg hoped that progress in mechanics and technology
would stimulate trade and production. The Scientific Society would have an
important part to play in this renewal of the COWlby. In a letter to his brother-in-law,
Eric Benzelius, librarian at the University of Upsala, Swedenborg wrote that the
Scientific Society would " ... heal our land ... both in the establishment of
manufacturier and in connection with mines, navigation, etc.... "
Swedenborg returned home in 1715 detennined to make himself useful to his
COWlby. He already had an imposing list of projects. As he explained in another
letter to Benzelius, he planned"... the construction of a ship which, with its one-man
crew, could go Wlder the sea, in any desired direction, and could inflict much uywy
on enemy ships;" he hoped to build certain"... constructions even in places where
there is no flow of water, whereby a whole ship with its cargo can be raised to a
given height in one or two hours;" he would design "a drawbridge which can be
closed and opened from within the gates a.nd walls" and also "a flying carriage.'"'
The first thing Swedenborg did upon his arrival was to make the acquaintance of
Christopher Polhem, a noted Swedish inventor who had earned the nickname
"Archimedes of the North.'' At his own expense, Swedenborg foWlded the first
Swedish scientific journal, which he called Dredelus hyperboreus. The inaugural
issue was devoted to one of Polhem's inventions, an ear-trumpet. For the second
issue, Polhem contributed a short treatise on arithmetic Wlder the title, "Glorious in
Youth, Useful in ManhClOd, Pleasant in Old Age." On Polhem's recommendation in
1716, Charles XII made Swedenborg an honorary appointment as Assessor
Extraordinary on the Swedish Board of Mines. Since mining was the pillar of the
Swedish economy, the Board was a very powerful body. It was directly responsible to
the king, and it controlled every facet of production. Swedenborg distinguished
himself as Assessor for many years, striving to make the industry more efficient and
to develop better techniques in production. He rose from a non-salaried position of
little influence to Assessor Ordinary, in which capacity he served tlte king Wltil
1747.
In the years that followed his appointment, Swedenborg busied himself with all
sorts of projects. In 1718, he accomplished a singular feat of engineering at the siege
of Fredericshall, where he devised a way to haul two galleys, five boats and a sloop
sixteen miles overland to the relief of Swedish troops in the war against Norway. He
travelled all over Europe when he could take leave from the Board of Mines. During
his travels, he continued his studies in ma.tltema.tics, physics, optics, astronomy,
chemistry, physiology and anatomy; he published many volumes on these subjects.
He is said to be the first to have inferred from the geological evidence that Sweden
was once immersed in the sea. He is said to be the first to have discovered that the
processing of sense data and the motor fimctions of the human body a.re located in
the cerebral cortex. He is also credited with having fonnulated a nebular hypothesis
of the origin of the heavens. Swedenborg was no charlatan. He was a very
distinguished, very accomplished man of considerable leanting.
In 1743, Swedenborg was at the University of Leyden, studying anatomy and
preparing his Regnum animale for publication. Tltis was a time of anxiety for him.
He was disturbed by very peculiar dreams at night. During tlte day, ltis frame of
mind would swing alarmingly from one extreme to the other. First Swedenborg was
in raptures, then he would sink into the blackest melancholy. Sometimes he would
have waking visions; sometimes, at night, he would find himself tossed about his
rooms as by supernatural forces. Swedenborg's Wlease persisted Wltil 1744, the year
of his great vision. Three N.B. 's appear next to the entry for April6 in Swedeborg's

The Arcana of Swedenborg

59

private journal. Swedenborg went to bed at 10:00 o'clock that night, after an
evening of disturbing reflections. A half an hour later, he fmmd himself trembling
from head to foot. After this experience had repeated itself several times,
Swedenborg felt the presence of something divine before him. He soon fell asleep,
but later around 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning he woke with the noise of something
like a wind storm in his ears. He was shuddering so violently from head to foot that
he was thrown prostrate. Now, Swedenborg says, he was completely awake. He
found himself on the floor, praying aloud with words somebody else put into his
mouth, ''Oh all-powerful Jesus Christ, You who deign approach such a great sinner
with such great grace, make me worthy of this grace!" Swedenborg put his hands
together to pray, but then he felt the hand of another grasping his own. He
immediately continued his prayer. As Swedenborg reports, "At that moment, I found
myself in his bosom and I saw him face to face. It was a face of holy bearing, with
indescribable traits, and smiling, as I imagined his face looked while he was living.
He spoke to me and asked me if I had a certificate of health. I answered, 'Lord, You
know better than I."" The holy presence replied, "Well then, act!" Swedenborg
understood this to mean that he should love Christ with sincerity. Swedenborg found
he did not then have the strength to comply. He roused himself, shivering, and found
that he was all absorbed in thought, neither sleeping nor waking. Swedenborg came
to the conclusion that he had been in the presence of the Son of God.
April 6 1744 was a turning point in the life and career of Emanuel Swedenborg.
According to the traditional stocy reported by Carl Robsalun, a friend of
Swedenborg's old age, the Assessor was commissioned by God at this time to
undertake a new project, the most ambitious project of his whole career. Swedenborg
was to explain the inner meaning of Scripture to people. To win Swedenborg's
confidence, God opened up the world of spirits to him. When Swedenborg
recognized the souls of departed friends and colleagues, he immediately offered
himself to God's service.
In August 1745, Swedenborg returned to his work on the Board of Mines with
nary a word about his otherworldly experiences. However, the visions persisted. In
The Word Explained, after a year of communion witl1 spirits and angels,
Swedenborg reports that:
... in company with other men, I spoke just as any other man, so that no one was able to distinguish
me either from myself as I had been fonnerly, or from any other man; and, nevertheless, in the midst
of company with other men, I sometimes spoke with spirits and with those 00<> were around me;
and perllaps they might have g;llhered something from this circumstance. However, I do not know
mJdher anyone noticed anything from the filet that the internal semes were sometimes withdrawn
from the external, though not in any such way that anyone could make a judgement from it; for at
such times, they could judge no other than that I was ocwpied with thoughts.'"

Apparently, no one detected the reason for Swedenborg's occasional preoccupation,

because it was so far business as usual for the Assessor. Indeed, so impressed were
his colleagues with his work that they unanimously recommended him to be named
in 1747 to the highest position on the Board, that of Councilor of Mines.
Swedenborg, however, requested that the King release him from the appointment;
he asked that he might retire with half-pay after nearly thirty years of service. As
soon as he was released from his duties, Swedenborg set down to work. He devoted
himself to the study of Hebrew and the Holy Scriptures. He undertook a mammoth
project of Biblical exegesis that was to culminate nine years later in the Arcana
coelestia, a line-by-line commental)' of the first two Books of Moses. The work was
published anonymously in London at the author's expense.

60 The Arcana ofSwedenborg

Swedenborg revealed nothing about his mission or his strange prophetic powers
untill756. After a long voyage to England, Swedenborg disembarked in Gotenborg
on July 19 of that year. Swedenborg went immediately to the home of a certain
William Castle, where he was to have di1mer. He excused himself from the company
around 6:00 in the evening. When he returned, he was visibly agitated. He
arutounced that a mpidly spreading fire had just broken out in Stockholm on the
Sudermalm, fifty miles from Gotenborg. Worried, Swedenborg left the room and
returned several times during the evening. He reported that the house of a friend,
whom he identified by name, had burned to the ground and that his own estate in
Stockholm was at risk. Again at 8:00, he excused himself from the company. When
next he returned, he arutounced triumphantly that the fire had just been put out and
that it had reached the third gate from his home.
The story ofSwedenborg's vision spread as mpidly through Gotenborg as the fire
had spread through Stockholm. That very evening, the Governor in the city had
already heard the news. The Governor swnmoned Swedenborg the following day-a
Sunday-to question him. Swedenborg described the course of the fire in very great
detail. All the city now knew the story, and many were naturally very concerned
about friends, relatives and property in Stockholm. The merchants' guild dispatched
a messenger to the stricken capital on Monday. He returned to Gotenborg the same
evening. His report exactly confirmed Swedenborg's vision. The Royal Courier
arrived at the Governor's residence on Tuesday with further confirmation in every
detail.
News of Swedenborg and his extmordinary powers spread far and wide." Though
the stories often stmined credulity, it seemed impossible to dismiss them lightly.
They were always iron-clad, and there were always witnesses of, it seemed,
unimpeachable character. Besides the Gotenborg-fire incident. two other stories
made an impression on the public-and piqued the curiosity oflmmanuel Kant.
The first story took place at the Swedish Court. Swedenborg paid a visit to Queen
Louisa Ulrika one day; he begged leave to make her a gift of some of his books. The
Queen happily obliged; and, eager to put her guest's celebmted talents to the test.
she asked Swedenborg to greet her late brotl1er, Frederick the Great. and to bring
back word of him, should Swedenborg encounter tl1e royal shade on one of his trips
to the land of the dead. Two or three weeks later, Swedenborg returned to Court with
the promised books. The Queen honored his request for a private audience, but she
soon reappeared pale and distraught. Dignitaries at Court later let it be known that
Swedenborg had blandly passed on two messages to her from Frederick: an apology
for neglecting the last letter Louisa Ulrika had sent him and an answer to the letter,
something that only brother, sister and God could have known-a state secret of
some delicacy, it seems, considering that Sweden and Prussia had been at war while
Frederick was still alive.
There is another famous story told about Swedenborg's stmnge powers. Shortly
after the death of her husband, the Dutch Envoy at Stockholm, Madame Harteville
received a staggering bill from Mr.Croon, a goldsmith, for a silver service that her
husband had ordered. Madame Harteville knew tllc'lt her husband was too
punctilious to neglect the bill, but she could not produce the receipt. She must have
known of Swedenborg through her husband, who was at the Swedish Court the day
Swedenborg conveyed the bomb-shell message of Frederick the Great to Louisa
Ulrika. In despemtion, Madame Harteville turned to Swedenborg, hoping that he
might speak to her husband's spirit to learn the state of the family accounts. Within
three days, Swedenborg appeared at the widow's home while she was entertaining
guests. He mildly informed her that he had spoken with her husband, and that she

The Arcana ofSwedenborg

61

could rest easy, for the debt had been paid. The receipt, he added, was in a bureau in
one of the upper rooms of the house. Madame Harteville protested that the bureau
had been emptied and that the receipt had not been found among the papers. Then
Swedenborg told her about a secret compartment in the bureau. One had to pull the
knob of a left-hand drawer to discover a wooden board which could be removed,
giving access to the secret compartment. The company immediately removed to the
upper room. Madame Harteville searched the bureau according to Swedenborg's
instructions. There was the secret compartment, and there in the secret compartment
was the missing receipt. u
2

Swedenborg is usually thought of either as a lunatic or as a mystic concerned

foremost with individual spirituality-a man who found his path through vety
intimate, personal revelations. But neither way of thinking gets to the heart of the
matter. It is more than likely that Swedenborg was unbalanced; but even if so, that
cannot be the whole stoty, since Swedenborg's project was too well conceived to be
the fruit of lunacy alone. There is no doubt, on the other hand, that Swedenborg's
visions were intensely personal: Swedenborg saw what no one else can see. But it is
simply wrong to think that Swedenborg's first concern was individual spiritualityto find his own path. Swedenborg had much grander ambitions. He sought full-scale
reform of the Church. The Church, he believed, had failed in its mission, because its
ministers neglected the spiritual meaning of Scripture, all too happy to make out
with the letter of the Word. For that reason, men of the Church could not see that
divine things lie behind evety part of the natural world. How, then, could they be
expected to guide their flocks? Since Swedenborg had been granted the privilege of
seeing divine things first-hand, he thought it was his duty to renew Biblical exegesis
so that the special meaning of the Revelation would not be lost and to instruct the
people about the divine so that they could find a place in heaven. Swedenborg's
intentions are vety clear in the Introduction to Heaven and Its Wonders, and Hell.
For he writes:
The man of the church at this day knows scarcely anything about heaven and hell or about his life
after death, although these are set forth and described in the Word; and many of those born within
the church even refuse to believe in them, saying in their hearts, "Who has come from that world and
told us?" Lest, therefore, such a spirit of denial, which especially prevails with those who have much
worldly wisdom, should also infect and conupt the simple in heart and the simple in faith, it has been
granted me to associate with angels and to talk with them as man with man, also to see what is in the
heavens and what is in the hells, and this for thirteen years; also from what I have thus heard and
seen, I am now pennitted to describe these, in the hope that ignorance may thus he enlightened and
WJbelief dissipated Such immediate revelation is granted at this day, because this is what is meant
by the Coming ofthe Lord. 13

Swedenborg's mission was to rouse the Christian world from its lethargy and to win
new souls for the church. To that end, he believed he would have to make Christian
faith somehow real and tangible. He figured that the faithless could be converted to
Christianity if only they could be convinced that the religion is true. And what better
way to do that than to tell them all about what he, Swedenborg, had seen of life in
the hereafter?
Thus Swedenborg had set himself up in the business of both prophet and church
reformer. In 1757, he watched as the proverbial goats were separated from the sheep
on the Day of Judgement. A New Church-the New Jerusalem-had been instituted
in heaven, and it would descend to Earth. Now was the time that the invisible
church would make itself manifest among men. And Swedenborg himself had a key

62 The Arcana ofSwedenborg

role to play in all this, for God had commissioned him to reveal the hidden meaning
of Scripture. Indeed, we are to regard Swedenoorg's Biblical exegesis as the Second
Coming. Though God dwelt among us in natural form through the incarnation, it
was not until Swedenoorg had unlocked the hidden meaning of Scripture-known
hitherto only to the angels-that God could dwell among us in spiritual form.
Swedenoorg' s given name was not Emanuel for nothing.
.
Swedenoorg's project of religious reform is peculiar in one other very important
respect. Not only did Swedenoorg take up the vocation of prophecy and announce
the Second Coming, he also made very liberal use of Leibnizian metaphysics.
Indeed, Swedenoorg would have it that something like pre-established harmony
governs the society of angels in heaven. This is not to say that Swedenoorg admits
Leibniz's metaphysics uncritically: Swedenoorg certainly had his doubts aoout it.
According to Swedenoorg, all metaphysics-including that of Leibniz-is a shortchange of the truth, because it rests on mere hypotheses. Consequently, metaphysics
can never rise above pedantic quibbling, sacrificing the true doctrines of God and the
soul to fustian pure and simple.
There is no question that metaphysics in Swedenoorg's time was a game of
hypothetical conjecture. In the Psychologia rationalis, Wolff supposes that we must
choose from three different systems or hypotheses in order to explain the union of
soul and OOdy: the system of physical influx, the system of occasional causes and the
system of pre-established harmony. Bilfinger, a student of Wolff who went on to
teach at the University ofTiibingen, added the further refinement that there are three
and only three systems of rational psychology. According to Wolff and Bilfinger,
reason cannot demonstrate which of the systems is true; at best, it can demonstrate
that two of the three have some sort of internal inconsistency or that they violate the
laws of nature. Therefore, we are to adopt the hypothesis which seems the least
implausible to us. For the rest of the eighteenth century, metaphysicians posed the
question about the union of soul and OOdy as a probabilistic choice to be made
among these three different hypotheses. Now Swedenoorg's little work entitled, The
Intercourse between the Soul and the Body, defers to tlte current way of thinking
about the question-at least for the first few pages. It begins thus:
There are three opinions and traditions--three hypotheses-about the interaction of soul and body,
or the way one works in the other and with the other. The fii'St is called "physical influx," the second
"spiritual influx" (occasionalism), and the third "pre-established harmony." There can be no fowth
opinion about the relationship of soul and body beyond these three. Either the soul will operate into
the body, or the body into the sou~ or the two will oonstantly be working in parallel (I)."

But it rapidly becomes clear that Swedenoorg's arguntents for his own favored
system are anything but hypothetical. conjecture. For Swedenoorg claims to have
seen the truth of the matter with his own prophetic eyes. Though Swedenoorg is
apparently playing the same game as Wolff and Bilfinger at the beginning of The
Intercourse between the Body and the Soul, it is obvious that he has changed the
rules by the end.
Swedenoorg is in fact openly critical of hypotheses in metaphysics. Indeed, he
makes fantastic efforts in The Intercourse between the Body and the Soul to put an
end once and for all to the strife of metaphysical systems, calling upon his
considerable gifts of prophetic imagination. Swedenoorg tells us that he was granted
an audience one night with departed spirits of some disciples of Aristotle, Descartes
and Leibniz, proponents of physical influx, "vulgar spiritual influx," i.e., occasional
causes, and pre-established harmony respectively. The spirits assembled in little
groups, the disciples of Aristotle to Swedenoorg's left, the disciples of Descartes to
his right, and the disciples of Leibniz behind the first two groups. Some way off,

The Arcana ofS'wedenborg

63

Swedenborg espied four more spirits standing apart from one another, three of
whom were crowned in laurel. The three spirits in laurel were, it seems, Aristotle,
Descartes and Leibniz in person. The spirit standing behind Leibniz and
deferentially holding the hem of his robe was-who else?-Christian Wolff.
At first, the proceedings were amicable enough. The spirits greeted one another
cordially. They stood around chatting, when all of a sudden another spirit rose up
from the depths waving a little torch in their faces. Lo and behold!, the assembled
spirits grew hostile to one another. It seems an urge to bicker had overcome them.
The Aristotelians stepped forward to argue the case of physical influx; the Cartesians
were just as eager to make a case for vulgar spiritual influx; and, the Leibnizians did
not tany long to put in a good word for pre-established harmony. The spirit with the
little torch soon reappeared. But now he held his light in his left hand, and he waved
it toward the base of the skulls of the bickering spirits. Apparently, this produced a
confusion of concepts in all of them. So tl1e spirits decided to resolve their dispute by
casting lots. They took three slips of paper and wrote "physical influx" on the first,
"spiritual influx" on the second and "pre-established harmony" on the third. Next
they threw the three slips into a hat and charged one among them to draw. Just
imagine! Spiritual influx, Swedenborg's preferred system in The Intercourse
between the Body and the Soul, won the day. Suddenly there appeared an angel who
chastised the whole assembly, "Do not believe that the slip favoring spiritual influx
carne out by chance. It carne out by arrangement. In fact, since you are caught up in
confused concepts, the truth offered itself to your hand so that you would agree with
it" (19)." Thus does prophetic vision solve the disputed questions of metaphysics.
I should point out before going any further tltat we ntay not conclude from this
remarkable story that Swedenborg himself was a friend of occasional causes.
Throughout the telling of his story, Swedenborg refers to the system of occasional
causes as "wlgar spiritual influx." He does so to express his disapproval. As the
spirits prepare to draw lots, the friends of occasimtal causes write "spiritual influx"
on their slip of paper, neglecting the qualification "wlgar," precisely because they
are too vulgar-from Swedenborg's point of view-to see tl1e shortcomings of their
own system. Swedenborg tells us tltat Providence caused the spirits to draw the true
system ofbody and soul. Given Swedenborg's disapproval, the true system of body
and soul cannot be the system of occasional causes. We must conclude, then, that
Swedenborg is equivocating on the tenn "spiritual influx." The tenn means
occasionalism when used by the friends of Descartes; it means the true system of
body and soul when used by Swedenborg himself I shall argue in due course that
what Swedenborg has in mind when he himself speaks of spiritual influx is
something much closer to pre-established harmony. Having ntade that point, we
ntay return to Swedenborg's criticism ofhypotl1eses in metaphysics.
Hypothetical conjecture is unacceptable to Swedenborg, because it induces the
metaphysicians to set aside the question what's true and to engage in empty debates
about empty tenus. Swedenborg attacks the sterility of metaphysics most
spectacularly in the Arcana coe/estia, where he reports that, one day, he spent a long
time in the company of spirits from anotl1er planet. Swedenborg was telling them all
about the wisdom of our world He ell:plained to them that one of the disciplines in
high esteem among our scholars is metaphysics, "a scientific effort to explain aspects
of the mind and its thoughts" (3348)." Swedenborg ntade it plain that our Earthly
metaphysicians have ntade little progress, embroiled as they are in disputes about the
meaning of such tenus as "fonn," "substance," "mind" and "soul." As Swedenborg
tells the story, the spirits immediately perceived that these disputes about empty
tenus and artificial rules could only throw tl1e science into darkness, "[The spirits]

64 The Arcana of Sweden borg

kept saying that things like this [idle disputes about empty tenus] were only little
black clouds that blocked intellectual sight and pulled discernment into the dust"
(3348). 11 The spirits were also quick to point out that they have much clearer insights
in metaphysics, lest it be said-after all-that they too suffer little black clouds to
block their power of understanding. Swedenborg was then granted to see how wise
the spirits were. They conjured up a marvelous image of the human mind as "a
heavenly form" (3348)" and an image of the mind's affections as "spheres of activity
suited to it [the mind]" (3348)."' So marvelous was this image that the angels, who
were apparently close on hand during the whole interview, were full of praise for it.
Now Swedenborg tells us that the spirits of some scholars from Earth were also on
hand. It comes as no surprise tltat these scholars suddenly found themselves out of
their depth. What passed between Swedenborg and the extraterrestrials was entirely
beyond them, even though they had debated these things philosophically throughout
most of their natural lives. Needless to say, the ex1raterrestrials were just a little
contemptuous, "When the spirits again perceived these scholars' thoughts and how
they were simply tangled in tenus, tending to quibble about the correctness of
details, they called these matters 'foaming dregs"' (3348)."
Swedenborg was prepared to make use of metaphysics, provided it was in accord
with his vision of heaven. He could not agree with tl1e Pietists that metaphysics is
irreligious because of some insidious atheism; he argued rather that metaphysics is a
threat to natural religion, because hypothetical conjecture and idle disputes about the
meaning of empty tenus obscure the prospect of divine things to the mind's eye.
Swedenborg would have nothing to do with a metaphysics that clouds the intellect's
power of vision. But, on the other hand, Swedenborg was not above making away
with basic doctrines ofLeibniz, so long as he could conscript them into the service of
prophecy. We must now pause to consider how Swedenborg makes pre-established
harmony the governing principle of heaven and how he conceives the relationship
between heaven and nature. I shall argue that Swedenborg systematically mixes up
sensible things and intelligible things in a most conspicuous way. Later, I shall
argue that this was Kant's own diagnosis ofSwedenborg.
3

According to Wolff and Leibniz, all the world is a vast aggregate of aggregates
composed of simple substances; the visible world is thus an image of all of its
constitutive elements. Swedenborg has much t11e same idea, tl1ough his language in
Heaven and Its Wonders, and Hell is a little bit different. Instead of the "visible
world," he speaks of nature, and "heaven" substitutes for the "order of true unities."
All of nature is an image of heaven, and heaven itself is a society of innumerable
simple substances-tile angels.,. Every angel has certain inner states that continually
succeed one another. The inner state of an angel consists in love of God, faith,
wisdom and intelligence. Now the wisdom of an angel follows from its love of God,
and this love C3lJ vary in intensity. When an angel loves God in tl1e highest degree,
it is wise in the highest degree, and it is in "tl1e light and warmth" (155) of its life; as
the angel's love of God diminishes, it is less wise in the same degree, and it finds
itself swallowed up in the shadows, "an obscure and undelightful state" (155). When
Swedenborg wished to know how this succession of inner states is produced, he says
the angels explained to him that each angel is the cause of all the change that it
undergoes. For it seems that angels are wont to love themselves above other things.
When self-love gains ascendancy in the angels, their love of God diminishes and so
does their wisdom in consequence (158).

The Arcana ofSwedenborg

65

Swedenborg infonns us that, by virtue of their-changing-inner states, all

angels have particular differences, but some of them resemble one another, as
members of the same family often have similar features and mannerisms (47).
Angels form societies with other angels whose inner states exhibit this kind of
familial resemblance (44). The thoughts and inner states of evel)' angel are perfectly
transparent to all the rest. Angels read off from the minds of other angels all of their
thoughts and inner states. Then they naturally tend to congregate with those angels
in whom they observe thoughts and inner states similar to their own. Just as the
individual angel is governed by its love, faith and intelligence, so the angelic
societies are governed by angels who exceed all the others in wisdom. For the
government of the most wise preserves order (213). Thus are formed the societies of
heaven.
The bond that ties all the members of an angelic society together issues directly
from their inner states. Consequently, an angel outwardly expresses not only its own
inner states in the relation it bears to other angels, but the inner states of all its
confederates as well (47). Thus, by virtue of its inner states, evel)' angel reflects the
whole of which it is a part. Now different societies in heaven relate to one another in
the same way that the indiVidual angels relate to one another. All heaven is a great
society of angelic societies. For the sphere of love and faith that draws certain angels
together in one society extends from that society to other societies formed by angels
of different temperament, as it were. Evel)' angel is thus a member of societies of
greater and greater compass. It seems, then, that evel)' angel expresses the whole of
heaven from a certain point of view. Indeed, Swedenborg says that evel)' angel is a
heaven in smallest form (53).
Though one might take Swedenborg'sArcana to be a veritable flight of fancy, it
should be apparent that the visiollal)' of Stockholm is following vel)' well trodden
paths. As I say, the angels in Swedenborg's heaven have the same fimction as the
simple substances in the cosmology of Wolff and Leibniz. Like simple substances,
angels have inner states that constantly undergo change. The succession of an
angel's inner states is produced not by any real interaction among the angels, but
rather by some internal agency-self-love. In just the same way, inner force
produces a succession of inner states in the Wolffian element, and appetite produces
a succession ofperceptions in the Leibnizian monad. The principle ofindiscemibles
applies as well to angels as it does to monads and elements. For no two angels have
exactly the same inner states. Moreover, just as the outward relations one simple
substance bears to another are founded on the inner states of the simple substances,
so it is for the outward relations of the angels. Swedenborg's idea that evel)' angel
expresses the whole society of which it is a part and that, indeed, evel)' angel is a
"heaven in smallest form" is obviously of Leibnizian provenance. For Leibniz
characterizes the monads as "concentrated worlds"" and "kingdoms within
kingdoms.""' Swedenborg's angelology easily yields something like universal preestablished harmony. For just as Leibniz holds that perceptions always arise in
concert in different monads, so it is for Swedenborg."
Swedenborg himself often uses the word "harmony" to describe the co-existence
of angels in heaven. In the Arcana coe/estia, he relates that it was one time granted
him to hear a large number of angels from an especially sanctified host. Together
these angels seem to have formed a society, a chorus in which they had the same
thoughts from different points of view. They conjured up a marvelous vision of a
golden crown with diamonds set upon the brow of God, through a rapid succession
of images in their minds. Swedenborg reports that, though there were a great many
angels, all these different images perfectly agreed with one another. The

66 The Arcana ofSwedenborg

representations of all the angels were in harmony, because every angel outwardly
expressed its own nature. and the nature of every angel was inwardly attuned to the
nature of every other angel. This, says Swedenborg, is the "harmony" that orders all
good people who find a place in heaven after death (3350)."'
So far, Swedenborg seems to be just another cosmologist in the Leibnizian
tradition: eccentric to be sure, but hardly an innovator. One might suppose,
nonetheless, that Swedenborg is closer to the occasionalists than to Wolff or Leibniz,
because of the importance he places on "divine influx." Sometimes the word that he
uses-as in the story about drawing lots to settle philosophical debates in the spirit
world-is "spiritual influx." Either way, the idea seems to be that God himself is the
cause of all order among creatures, whether it be in heaven or on earth. Consider the
following passage from Heaven and Its Wonders, and Hell:
The angels taken collectively are called heaven, for they constitute heaven; and yet that which
makes heaven in general and in particular is the Divine that flows forth from the Lord, flowing into
the angels and being received by them And as the Divine that goes forth from the Lord is the good
of love and the buth of faith, the angels are angels and are heaven in the measure in which they
become recipients of good and truth from the Lord (7).

This passage and others like it raise a question. Elsewhere in Heaven and Its
Wonders, and Hell, Swedenborg tells us that harmony in creation depends on the
inner states of the angels-their love, faith, wisdom and intelligence. It depends,
moreover, on change of these inner states. The inner states of a given angel-and of
all angels-must succeed one another. Our question in light of the passage I just
quoted is whether God himself produces all this change. If he does, Swedenborg
comes closer to the occasionalists than to Wolff and Leibniz.
Though Swedenborg likes to stress the dependence of all creatures on God, he is
perfectly happy to grant that creatures have the power to act under their own steam.
This is as true of the angels as of any other spiritual creature. Sweden borg says that
the angels let self-love over-power them in varying degrees by their own free will.
An angel has only itself to blame if it turns its face from God. Indeed, the angels
themselves explained to Swedenborg that, ". .. their changes of state are not caused
by the Lord, since He, like the sun, is unceasingly flowing in with heat and light,
that is, with love and wisdom~ but the cause is in themselves, in that they love what
is their own, and this continually leads them away" (158). The influx of love from
God could never possibly explain the changes that occur within an angel, because
the love of God towards creatures is absolutely constant, and Swedenborg apparently
assumes that only the variable can account for change. lltis should be enough to
establish that Swedenborg is no occasionalist. But it raises another question in turn.
If the angels themselves change their inner states, what does it mean to say that God
is the cause of harmony in both heaven and earth? What does Swedenborg have in
mind when he goes on about divine influx?
I think we can answer these questions if we take divine influx to be God's
universal concourse. To say that love flows from God into the angels is to say in the
first instance that God creates and conserves the angels and their perfections: their
capacity for love, faith, wisdom and intelligence. No society of angels would be
possible in heaven unless the angels existed and unless they were capable oflove and
all those other things. The angels have God to thank for all this, because God
created them: he made them what they are, and he preserves them in existence. To
say that love flows from God into the angels is also to say that God's power concurs
with that of his creatures. Swedenborg apparently thinks that the angels require
God's assistance to make their power take effect. Just for that reason, divine

The Arcana ofSwedenborg

61

influx-God's universal concourse-is the ultimate cause of all order in heaven and
on earth. We might well wonder how God can assist the angels without doing
everything for them. This is an interesting question, but I am not sure that
Swedenborg has any kind of systematic answer to it Besides, the thing to point out
now is that Swedenborg shares this idea of God's universal concourse with Leibniz.
Leibniz's system of pre-established harmony rests as squarely on the idea that God
must assist creatures as it does on the idea that creatures can act under their own
steam. Indeed, it is interesting to note that Leibniz speaks of God's universal
concourse in language very much like that of Swedenborg.
At 42 oftheMonadology, for example, Leibniz explains that," ... creatures have
their perfections from the influence of God, but ... they have their imperfections from
their own nature, since they are incapable of being without limits." Leibniz says
quite plainly here that creatures owe whatever reality they have to God's influence.
God grants them certain perfections, including the power to act. But creatures
exercise this power on their own behalf. God does not interfere with his creation; he
co-operates with it. Thus, Leibniz would happily agree with Swedenborg: God's
universal concourse is the ultimate cause of all harmony in heaven and on earth. If
God did not concur with the monads, they could not exercise their powers of
appetition in concert with one another. Leibniz makes this very clear in his
comments on the philosophy of Spinoza. Indeed, he writes, "My view is that every
substance is a kingdom within a kingdom, but one in precise harmony with
everything else. No substance receives an influx from anything else whatsoever,
except from God, but yet it depends upon everything else through God, its author; it
proceeds immediately from God, and yet is produced agreeing with everything
else."" Leibniz seems to argue that universal pre-established harmony would be
impossible without God's universal concourse. The interesting thing about this
passage is that, like Swedenborg, Leibniz describes God's action on creatures as
some kind of "influx." Leibniz insists over and over again that no influx can ever
take place between one creature and another. But here he is quite happy to say that
all creatures receive an influx directly from God. Indeed, one imagines that Leibniz
would be happy to descnbe this influx as an influx of love. Swedenborg's talk of
divine influx does not suggest a departure from Leibniz; on the contrary, it suggests
a rapprochement.
Leibniz and Swedenborg may well speak a common language of"divine influx,"
but one thing that seems to set them apart is Swedenborg's use of the term "spiritual
influx." Sometimes "spiritual influx" is synonymous with "divine influx." But just as
often it seems to signify a certain influence that souls or spirits have on things in the
material world In the first instance, it seems to signify a certain influence that the
soul has on the body. Thus Swedenborg e>.:plains that, ''The things that flow in from
God flow first of all into our souls, through our souls into our rational minds, and
through these into the elements that constitute our bodies."'" The body does not
receive an influx of divine love directly from God himself, but by the mediation of
the soul to which it is joined. Swedenborg is a proponent of what we might call
"trickle-down metaphysics." The effect of this divine influence trickling down
through the soul to matter is to instil .life in the body. As Swedenborg e>.:plains:
The premise j~ established-that the soul puts on a body the way a person puts on clothes-leads
to the coroUary that the soul flo.w into the hWlWl mind, and through it into the body, bringing with
it a life that it is constantly receiving from the Lord So it conveys this life indireclly into the body
[via the mind, much Swedenborg apparently distinguishes from the soul], where by a very intimate
union, it creates the appearance that the body is alive."'

68 The Arcana ofSwedenborg

Swedenborg goes so far as to say that we can compare the union of soul and body
effected by this influx and thus the appearance of life in the body to fine wine
absorbed in a clean sp:mge. The fibers of the sp:mge do not have any sweet flavor on
their own. They have flavor only by the presence of the wine. If we squeeze the
sp:mge, the fibers will cby up. They will become limp and tasteless. So the body will
wither and die if it should be cut off from the influx of divine love transmitted to it
by the soul.'"'
On the face of it, this use of the word "influx" in Swedenborg's vocabulary would
be foreign to Leibniz. Indeed, Swedenborg himself is eager to cite it as an important
difference between his own visions and the ideas of the German metaphysician. As
Swedenborg explains:
The third hypothesis, called preestablished hannony, is based on appearances and ~ons of
reason, because even as the mind operates, it ads in unison with the body." However, every
operation is fJrSt sequential and afteJward simultaneous (sequential operation is inflow and
simultaneous operation is hannony), as mx:rt the mind thinks and then speaks, or intends and then
does. So it is a rational ~on to support the simultaneous aspect and rule out the
sequential."'

All the same, it is not obvious that Swedenborg haS said anything objectionable from
Leibniz's point of view-all the less obvious if the effect of the soul's influx on the
body is just to enliven matter that would otherwise be dead. Leibniz would be
perfectly happy to say that souls and primitive monads instil life in matter. Indeed,
he says as much in the Monadology at 62-a passage in which he tells us that
every portion of matter can be conceived as a garden full of plants or a pond full of
fish. Matter is everywhere alive, he says, and this is on account of souls and bare
monads. Leibniz might hesitate to use the word "influx" in this context, but he
would never hesitate to say that souls and bare monads are the sufficient reason of
life in material things.
As I have said, Swedenborg is certainly very eager to put himself at a distance
from any and all metaphysicians. He looks upon their hypothetical conjectures and
their pedantic quibbling with a suspicious eye. But it is remarkable to see that the
content of Swedenborg's angelology differs hardly at all from the natural theology of
Leibniz. Certainly, Swedenborg haS the distinctive claim to have observed preestablished harmony at work in heaven with his own eyes, but this seems to be his
only innovation.
4

I have no doubt that, when Kant finally read the Arcana coelestia some time in the
mid-1760s, he instantly recognized the borrowings from Wolff and Leibniz. Nor do
I have any doubt that Kant would have found this deeply troubling, because
Swedenborg's heaven so perfectly resembles the material world that even the most
perceptive prophets would have difficulties distinguishing one realm from the other.
I believe that this must have suggested to Kant tlmt Swedenborg had corrupted the
pre-established harmony of Wolff and Leibniz. Nothing in the system of preestablished harmony obviously compels us to say that immaterial substances are
made in the image of things in the material world or that they are discernible to the
senses in anything at all like the ordinary way. This is Swedenborg's innovation.
Since Kant himself apparently subjected immaterial substances to the conditions of
the physical world and thus to the conditions of ordinary hunmn sensibility, he must
have found in Swedenborg's writings a picture of everything that went wrong in his
own system of physical influx.

The Arcana ofSwedenborg

69

No doubt, Swedenborg himself would take issue with the charge that his visions
somehow corrupt the order in heaven. because-for Swedenborg-the worst things
in heaven are vastly superior to the best things in nature. We must consider, then.
how Swedenborg undermines himself in this respect.
Let us begin with the famous theory of correspondences. Swedenborg tells us that
everything in nature somehow reflects the order in heaven. As he explains in
Heaven and Hell, "From the things that exist in the natural world the things of the
spiritual world can be seen as in a mirror'' (56). Swedenborg elaborates as follows:
. The whole natural world corresponds to the spiritual world and not merely the natural world in
general, but also in every particular of it; and as a comequence everything in the natural world that
springs fiom and has permanent existence fiom the spiritual world, precisely like an effed fiom its
effeding cause (89).

As a way to illustrate his idea, Swedenborg bids us consider that there is at once a
spiritual world and a natural world in every hwnan being. The spiritual world of a
person consists in the mind; it includes all those things which relate to the will and
the understanding. The natural world of a person consists in the body, everything
which relates to its senses and its motions. Now the hwnan face shows us what a
correspondence is. The face is a feature of the natural world of a person. since it is a
part of the body. If the person is not a dissembler, his face will reveal all the affects
of his mind. A smile indicates happiness or amusement; a frown. anger or
preoccupation. Because the face is an index of the mind in this way, a: person's
spiritual world is presented in his natural world (90). Indeed, all of nature is an
index of the divine; so all of heaven is presented in all the things we commonly see
about us. Every tree, every rock, every animal, every man, every cloud, every star has
its correspondence in heaven.
Even during the course of our natural lives, we are given hints that this is so, for
everywhere we look we find that nature acts with a purpose. Swedenborg offers an
example from the animal kingdom to illustrate his idea. He points out that certain
knowledge is somehow inscribed in all forms of animal life. For instance, bees know
how to produce honey from the nectar of blossoms; they know how to build combs
out of wax, and they know how to provide for themselves, even during the winter
months. The young of the queen are tended by the workers in the hive; all live under
a sort of govenunent whose laws are promulgated by instinct. And thus the species
is perpetuated. "Who that thinks from any wisdom of reason." exclaims
Swedenborg, "will ever say that these instincts are from any other source than the
spiritual world, which the natural serves in clothing what is from it with a body, or
in presenting in effect what is spiritual in cause?" (108). The challenge of course is
to act on the hints of spiritual things we find in the natural world; to learn the
heavenly things to which things in nature correspond. Swedenborg is only too happy
to give us a little help here. He tells us, among other things, that cattle and their
young correspond to the affections of the natural mind; sheep and lambs, to the
affections of the spiritual mind; gardens, to the intelligence and wisdom of heaven;
trees, according to their species, to the perceptions and knowledge of good and truth,
etc., etc, etc. (ll0-111).
To say that cattle and their young correspond to the affections of the natural mind
is presumably just to say that certain kinds of livestock somehow proceed from. and
reflect, certain thoughts or inner states of the angels. Herds of cattle at pasture in the
countryside subsist only so long as certain societies of angels collectively think about
the affections of the natural mind. No doubt, Swedenborg could be a lot more
specific here. Presumably, the different kinds of cattle correspond to the different

70 The Arcana of Sweden borg

kinds of natural affections. For all we know, herds of Holstein will mill about in the
fields so long as the angels reflect upon the way natural minds desire to see their
families prosper, while herds of the Jersey variety will mill about so long as the
angels reflect upon the way natural minds suffer fatigue at the end of a long day of
work. We know that this is Swedenborg's view from an anecdote he relates in
Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom. One day,
Swedenborg overheard the spirits of two deceased presidents of the Royal Society,
Sir Hans Sloane and Martin Folkes. They were talking about the existence of seeds
and eggs, and the way living organisms are produced in nature. Sir Hans Sloane
argued that nature produces seeds and eggs under its own power by the heat of the
sun. Martin Folkes argued that natural production is the work of divine influx.
Needless to say, Swedenborg vindicates Martin Folkes over Sir Hans Sloane:
To settle the question, a beautiful bird appeared to Sir Hans Sloane, and he was asked to examine it
to see \\iJdher it differed in the smallest particle from a similar bird on earth. He held it in his hand,
examined it and declared that there was no difference. He knew indeed that it was nothing but an
affection of some angel represented outside the angel as a bird, and that it would Yllllish or ~.'ease with
its affection. And this came to P= By this experience, Sir Hans Sloane was convinced that nature
contributes nothing \\hatever to the production of plants and animals, that they are produced solely
by what flows into the natural world out of the spiritual world Ifthat bird, he said, were to be infilled
in its minutest parts, with corresponding matter from the earth, and thus fixed, it would be a lasting
bird, like birds on earth ... (344).

Every creature we find in nature-eve!)' insect, evel)' bird, evel)' fonn of animal lifeproceeds from, and reflects, the inner states of angels in heaven or demons in hell.D
Now angels communicate with one another (and with prophets) not by speech
and gesture as we do, but by correspondences. They make themselves understood by
directly producing all the beings that correspond to their thoughts and affections:
birds, such as the one that appeared to Sir Hans Sloane, trees, animals, gardens and
buildings. Unlike natural men, angels can interpret the true significance of
correspondences. When an angel beholds cattle and their young in heaven, it knows
that another angel is thinking about the affections of the natural mind. The only
difference between the heavenly animal-life that proceeds directly from the thoughts
of angels and that which appears before us here below is that the fonner is more
perfect and yet not so lasting as the latter. As long as the angels communicate with
one another, heaven will be populated with creatures that perfectly resemble those in
material nature. Swedenborg himself makes this vel)' clear in Heaven and Hell, for
he writes, "When I have been permitted to be in company with angels, the things
about me appeared precisely the same as those in the [natural] world; and so plainly
that I would not have known that I was not in the world and in a king's palace"
(174). Indeed, it often happens, says Swedenborg, that, when the soul is transported
to heaven upon the death of the body, its new surroundings are so much like those it
was fonnerly accustomed to that it has not the slightest inkling it has passed out of
natural existence. As Swedenborg explains in the Arcana coe/estia:
With regard to the general subject of the life of souls, that is, of novitiate spirits, after death, I may
state that much experience has shown that when a man con1es into the other life he is not aware that
he is in that life, but supposes that he is still in the body. So much is this the case that \Wlen told he is
a spirit, wonder and amazement po&'!CSS him ... because he fmds himself exactly like a man in his
senses, desires and thoughts ... (320).34

Life in the hereafter is scarcely to be distinguished from life in the here and now.
Swedenborg reports in the Arcana coe/estia that he even had to take one deluded
soul to its own funeral service for the sorry truth to dawn (4622). As if that were not

The Arcana ofSwedenborg

71

proof enough. the Danish secret agent, Major-General Tuxen. whose mission it was
apparently to keep an eye on Swedenborg, is said to have asked the spirit-seer of
Stockholm how many people had been converted to his ideas; significantly,
Swedenborg is supposed to have answered that, "... there were not many yet that he
knew of, still he might compute their number at perhaps fifly, or thereabouts; and in
proportion the same number in the world of spirits.""' Swedenborg found the spirits
as skeptical of his ideas about the spirit world as natural men who had not yet put off
this mortal coil.
What did Kant find when he sat down to read the Arcana coelestia in the mid1760s? He found a system of metaphysics-fanciful in its presentation. but a system
of metaphysics all the same. For Swedenborg incorporates pre-established harmony
into his reports of life in heaven. But though Kant was committed to the system of
physical influx rather than the system of Wolff and Leibniz, he also found in the
Arcana coe/estia something like a caricature of his own metaphysics. Swedenborg is
remarkable, because he represents spirits and angels as though they were every-day
material things one might encounter during the course of ordinary experience-he
represents intelligible things as though they were subject to spatio-temporal
conditions of sensibility. But this is also true of Kant. Kant unwittingly ascribes a
material nature to the soul; in otl1er words, he represents the soul as if it could fill
space by forces of repulsion. On Kant's account, the soul must be impenetrable, even
if it has departed from the body; it is something material that one might encounter
during the course of ordinary ex-perience. While Swedenborg claimed to converse
with the spirits of the dead, Kant might claim to collide with them.

CHAPTER FIVE
DREAMS OF A SPIRIT-SEER
1

It is certainly not lost on Kant in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer that he and Swedenborg

have certain things in common. Indeed, he is properly scandalized. Kant admits that
Swedenborg's stories of life and commerce in the spirit world bear an uncanny
resemblance to the "philosophical spawn" of his own brain (meine philosophische
Himgeburt). But so foolish are these stories that Kant fears the reader might sooner
count his metaphysics as patently absurd than accept Swedenborg's reports from
angels and spirits as empirical confirmation of the Kantian system. Kant writes with
uncharacteristic gruffness:
But I get straight to the point: I say that I do not take the object of such offensive oomparisons as jest,
and I declare once and for all that either Swedenborg's writin~ must be suspected of greater wisdom
and truth than it ~ on f.m glance; or it is a sheer coincidence that he concurs with my sys1em,
as poets sometimes make predictions mule they rave-as it appears, or at least as they themselves
admit-predictions much now and then bear fiuit (2.359.24-31 ).

In no uncertain terms, Kant denies tltat he was ever a disciple of Swedenborg, for he
protests that Swedenborg's work is "completely empty of all reason" (2.360.3-4).
Kant disavows the influence of Swedenborg in tllis passage out of devotion to
metaphysics, " ... with whom," as he says, "it was my fate to fall in love ..."
(2.367.21-22). Until 1766, the work of Kant's life had been to secure adequate
foundations for metaphysics, to renovate the system of physical influx, to answer the
objections raised by the harmonists and to prove that the system of physical influx is
not merely plausible, but true. Kant had already discovered in the mid-1760s that his
own system was in difficulty. This unhappy conclusion impressed itself upon him all
the more when he read the Arcana coelestia. For then Kant discovered that the
peculiarities of his system had much in common with Swedenborg's sensuous
accounts of life in the hereafter. Thus Swedenborg came to represent the shortcomings of the Kantian project, and Kant himself used Swedenborg in Dreams of a
Spirit-Seer as a way to show up the problems with his own ideas. The lesson of this
work is that we must-at all costs-investigate the limits of huntan understanding,
for otherwise the future of metaphysics will remain forever in doubt.
We know from a letter to a certain Miss Charlotte von Knoblauch of August 10,
1763 that Kant first learned of Swedenborg in the early sixties through a Danish
officer who had once been Kant's student. While a guest in the home of
Dietrichstein, the Austrian Envoy to Copenltagen, the Danish officer happened to
read a letter from Baron Uitzow, the Mecklenburg Ambassador at Stockholm. In
this letter, Baron Liitzow recounted the story of Swedenborg's visit to Queen Louisa
Ulrika and the message he had passed on to her from her deceased brother,
Frederick the Great. Baron Liitzow had himself been at Court that day, attending the
Queen along with the Dutch Envoy; his letter was titus a first-hand account. Now
the Baron's story seems to have intrigued Kant, as it might intrigue anybody. For it
is quite sensational; one suspects that sometlling peculiar is afoot, and yet there is no
obvious way to expose it as a fraud. Kant writes, "The credibility of such a report
made me suspicious (stiitzig]. For it is difficult to accept that one envoy should
convey to another-for wide circulation-a false report about the Queen of the
country to which he has been dispatched, if he still wished to keep company with

Dreams of a Spirit-Seer

73

dignitaries" (10.42). In other words, a diplomatic officer could expect to be cut off
from high society if he spread false rumors about the sovereign of the counuy in
which he served. So it would have been irrational for diplomats to make up the
stol)', unless something vel)' important were at stake. Either the stol)' was true, then,
or we have reason to suspect political intrigue at the Swedish Court. Kant wished to
learn more of the matter. On the advice of the Danish officer, he wrote directly to
Swedenborg himself. An English merchant delivered the letter to Swedenborg in
person, who accepted it politely and promised to send a reply.
Kant never received the promised answer to his enquiries, so he dispatched a
friend of his, another Englishman, to Stockholm to pursue the investigation. In his
first letter back to Kant, the Englishman reported that, according to the testimony of
"the most distinguished people" in town (10.42), the incident at the Swedish Court
had taken place exactly as Kant had heard. At the time of writing his first letter, the
Englishman had not yet been presented to Swedenborg, but he had heard the strange
stories about Swedenborg which were circulating among "the most reasonable
people" in town (10.42). These stories, he admitted to Kant, were difficult to believe.
As Kant relates to Miss Knoblauch, the Englishman's second letter was of a
different tone; it was much less skeptical. For the Englishman had called upon
Swedenborg at his home and had been vel)' well received. He described Swedenborg
to Kant as "an obliging, reasonable and open-hearted man" (10.42-43). Swedenborg
was without reserve, explaining to Kant's friend that God had given him the power
to communicate with spirits at will. The Englishman reminded Swedenborg of his
promise to answer Kant's letter. Swedenborg said that he would certainly have
fulfilled his promise more promptly, but that he intended to lay the whole matter
before the public. He would soon be off to London to supervise the publication of
another book in which Kant would find a reply to his letter, paragraph by paragraph.
Needless to say, Kant was vel)' eager to read this book; but either it never appeared,
or, when it did appear, it did not answer Kant's questions.
The Englishman passed on to Kant news of Swedenborg's assistance to Mme.
Harteville, the widow of the Dutch Envoy to Stockholm, in the recovel)' of the
receipt for her departed husband's silver service; he also passed on news of the
Stockholm-fire incident. In his letter to Miss Knoblauch, Kant says of the second
stol)' that it appears to be of "the greatest demonstrative power [die grojJte
Beweiskrafl]" (10.44). He writes:
How can one question the credibility of this incident? The fiiend, who \Wites about this to me,
himlelf investigated all this not only in Stockhobn, but also in Gotenborg roughly two months ago
where he knoM very well the most distinguished families and where he was able to infonn himlelf
completely of the whole town, as most of the eyewitnesses are still living since the time of the
incident, not long ago in 1756 (10.45).

One's impression of Kant from this letter to Miss Knoblauch is that he is not
prepared to discount the stories of Swedenborg's adventures in the world of spirits.
This is not to say that Kant comes across as naively credulous. On the contrary, Kant
says at the beginning of the letter that he had always been skeptical about ghost
stories and the like. The point is that the stories about Swedenborg seem to
overcome the skepticism that such stories usually inspire. Kant writes:
I do not know whether anyone has ever detected in me a trace of credulity or a disposition for the
wonde!ful. So much is certain that regardless of all stories about apparitions and the goings-on in the
spirit reaJm-...-whereof a great many of the most probable are kno\o\11 to me-l always considered it
to be most in keeping with the rule of sound reason to steer away from the disputed side. Not that I
claim to have discerned the impos<;ibility [of ghost stories] (for how little is yet kno\o\11 to us about
the nature of a spirit?), but rather because they are altogether insufficiently demonstrated; moreover,

74

Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer

with respect to the inoonceivability and likewise the uselessness ofthis kind of apparition, they are of
such great difficulty---in view of the ease with which we are deceived and the many instances of
discovered deception-that I, \\flo do not willingly inconvenience myself; did not hold it advisable
to let myselfbe fiightened on that account in the daJi. and in cburt:hyards. This was my attitude for a
long time, W1lil the story of Mr. Swedenborg was made known to me (10.41).

Kant ingenuously admits in 1763 that Swedenborg poses a problem for him. Kant
was always inclined to seek a rational explanation for the weird phenomena some
are only too eager to ascribe to the supernatural, but the Swedenborg case seems to
defeat all such efforts. There are no inconsistencies in any of the stories, and all the
witnesses appear to be above suspicion. Moreover, Swedenborg himself was a vel)'
respectable, even distinguished man. It is little wonder that Kant's initial reaction
was at least to admit the possibility that the stories about Swedenborg are true. Given
the evidence at hand, what could have been more reasonable?
The letter to Miss Knoblauch is interesting, because doubtless it is quite different
in tone from Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, written three years later. In 1766, Kant was
famously to describe Swedenborg as "the arch-spirit-seer of all spirit-seers"
(Erzgeisterseher unter allen Geistersehem) (2.354.20). Kant writes savagely that.
"If many authors, now forgotten or one day nameless, have gained no little profit
from disregarding the Cost of understanding in the composition of great works, then
without doubt the greatest honor of them all falls to Mr. Swedenborg" (2.359.33-36).
The tone of Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer is distinctly hostile throughout. Now I have said
that the ultimate target of the criticisms Kant raises against Swedenborg in this
review is the metaphysics that Kant himself expounded in the mid-1750s. If I am
right. one might wonder how Kant could have been so well disposed towards
Swedenborg in the letter to Miss Knoblauch of 1763. Why did it not then occur to
Kant that Swedenborg's fulminations are a sort of caricature of his own
metaphysics? Why did he have to wait three more years to write Dreams ofa SpiritSeer? Perhaps Kant did not discover the perplexities in his system until the late
sixties. But even if he had seen them some time earlier, it would certainly not have
occurred to him to use Swedenborg as a model in his self-critique before then, for
the simple reason that Kant had not yet read Swedenborg's works.
Kant first learned of Swedenborg in the early sixties through second-hand
rumors. As far as Kant was then concerned, Swedenborg was an intriguing
character whose claims to knowledge of the spirit world could not be dismissed
outright as absolutely impossible. But it is clear from the letter to Miss Knoblauch
that Swedenborg's writings were not yet available to Kant in 1763, for he reports
that his friend, t11e Englishman, had arranged to send a copy of Swedenborg's most
recent book-the book with the promised answer to Kant's questions-as soon as
possible. It is unlikely that Kant had any of Swedenborg's other books, because he
tells Miss Knoblauch that he might have learned more than the Englishman about
the way Swedenborg communicated with the dead had he, Kant. paid a visit to
Swedenborg in person. So it seems that the Englishman was Kant's only source on
Swedenborg's ideas. Kant would have learned all he cared to about Swedenborg's
flights into heaven and the world of spirits had he already read the Arcana coelestia.
No question, the tales that Kant heard about Swedenborg for the first time in
1761 immediately excited his interest. Even before he had a chance to read any of
the spirit-seer's writings, he seems to have been quite concerned about the
authenticity of these reports coming from Stockholm and Gotenborg. But it is
important to understand that the reasons for Kant's interest were purely
philosophical from the outset. This we discover from the lectures on metaphysics
which Kant delivered at the University ofKonigsberg from around 1761 to 1764.

Dreams of a Spirit-Seer

15

One of the questions that arises with a certain frequency in the so-called Herder

Lectures is whether and how the metaphysician can account for the nature of spirits,
the possibility of separate spirits forming a community amongst themselves and the
possibility of such spirits communicating with those of us who are still ensconced in
a living body. These would seem unlikely questions to put to a metaphysician. After
all, wouldn't we be satisfied if he could say something reasonable about the nature of
substance or causality? The further questions about spirits and what-not seem to be
just so much more water under the bridge. But before we dismiss them outright, we
do well to reconsider in the first place that the question of spirits was a standard
topic in Wolffian metaphysics. Wolff himself devotes much of Section Four in the
Psychologia rationalis to the nature of spirits, the nature of their union with the
body and their state after death. Baumgarten also discusses these topics in his
Metaphysics. It is not so surprising, then, that Kant himself should devote some time
to them in a series of lectures based at least in part on Baumgarten's text-book. But
we must also bear in mind that Kant had long been struggling with the question
about the possibility of community among substances in general, and this question is
naturally related in the order of reasons with the question about spirits.
Some of the substances in Kant's metaphysics are immaterial, namely the
rational soul and the constitutive elements of matter. Ifthe principle of succession is
true, these substances can engage in some kinds of community. Thus real interaction
takes place among the elements and between body and soul. Now the spirits of the
dead are also immaterial substances; and surely it is not much easier to conceive of a
spirit making its home in a given body than it is to conceive of a spirit flying the
coop, as it were. If the principle of succession permits us to conclude that a domestic
spirit can act on the body, why not conclude the same of a departed one? If departed
spirits can act on the body, surely they can act on one another. All this is just to say
that the question of spirits arises very naturally as soon as we address the question
about the possibility of community among immaterial substances. Kant apparently
found this difficult to accept so long as we assume that the denizens of the netherworld distwb the natural order of things. He made it clear that, "Supernatural
designs do not belong in philosophy-we merely draw conclusions according to the
order of nature ... " (28.121.7-9). But on what grounds may we rightly admit
community between body and soul while refusing any kind of community involving
separate spirits? The question is all the thornier, as Kant pointed out to his students
time and time again, because the metaphysician simply cannot prove that ghosts and
goblins do not exist.
Now we know from the Nova dilucidatio and the Theory of the Heavens that
Kant himselfbelieved every created soul is embodied (1.412.11-12; 1.364.37-365.1).
But notice that Kant never claimed to prove that this is the case. The third
application of Proposition Thirteen of the Nova dilucidatio is very modest indeed,
for Kant acknowledges no more than the likelihood that every created soul is
embodied. Kant seems to have had little faith in 1755 that metaphysics could
actually refute the existence of separate souls.
Kant argued before his students in KOnigsberg that the philosopher can no more
deny the mere possibility of ghosts and spirits than he can deny the possibility of
immaterial substances in general, and his own soul in particular. Nevertheless, just
about every last ghost story we hear can be discounted or explained on purely
rational grounds:
The possibility of other spirits around us is bue (perlJaps separate souls cannot act), but I must act as
though there were none.
I) I have other explanatory causes

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Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer

2) illusion is harmful
Fraud comes in so many varieties that finally its divenity makes everything WlCeltain. Now already
one point is quite sure. The rest are for the most part questions--mere hypotheses, idle preoccupations, much one can neither prove nor disprove (28.120).

So how then are we .to explain the prevalence of ghost stories in all times and in all
places? Kant offered a psychological explanation which he thought would take care
of the greater number of such stories. All creatures have an instinct for self
preservation, he suggested, and so they fear for their lives and their well-being. Men
and beasts are especially fearful at night when danger is much harder to discern
clearly. In men, the imagination readily corrupts the feelings of apprehension we
have after dark into visions of ghosts and goblins, visions we believe to be true. Kant
speculated that this kind of hysteria-or something like it-might explain a good
many common superstitions (28.118-119). But we cannot be sure that it can explain
all, since the philosopher must recognize that he cannot disprove the possibility of
spirits.
Kant went on to give a philosophical accoWlt of how the one case in a thousand
might be genuine. We must suppose, he argued, that souls are subject to the order of
nature just as bodies are. If spirits are possible, the interaction of these substances
and embodied souls must be governed by laws. Just as the soul is sensible to the
effects of its interaction with the body during the natural life of a human being, so it
is presumably sensible to the effects of its interaction with other souls. Most people
are not aware of this interaction, however, because their souls are more sharply
affected by the activity of their bodies. It is possible that a very few people are much
less aware of the mind-body union. It could be that, in such cases, the body is
somehow "disturbed" (verriJckt), that it makes much less of an impression on the
soul-just as we find that it m.:1kes much less of an impression on us when we fall
into a very deep sleep without dreams. A few special people might very well be more
conscious of the interaction of their soul with other souls. Since the body of such a
person would not interfere so much, his imagination would know no constraints; it
would cause very odd sensations to arise haphazardly in his mind. These sensations
would not truly represent other souls and spirits in his presence;' each one of them
would be illusion, but together they would indicate that his soul is in community
with other souls. A person of this constitution would have all sorts of hallucinations;
indeed, we could not distinguish him from a raving madman. Kant suggested that
the stories about Swedenborg might be explained in this way. It is possible, then,
that Swedenborg was a "Phantast," to use Kant's term, i.e., a visionary. "The little
knowledge [we have] of the soul," Kant explained to his students, "prevents us from
seeing how this could be impossible; thus the possibility [is] to be granted ... he who
rejects everything [not just ghost stories, but the possibility of spiritual intercourse as
well] must deny the soul or the state after death-Ghosts have deceived us 99 times
in a 100. So one is inclined not to believe, for the probabilities are against it: but we
must not dismiss everything once and for all!" (28.114 .11-19).
Kant did not seem especially wedded to his explanation of Swedenborg's visions
and suchlike phenomena. The truth of the explanation was not at issue; but merely
its possibility. Kant just wanted to make the point that philosophy can ill afford to
dismiss the tales of Swedenborg too hastily, for then it might just as well give up on
community among any kind of immaterial substances. This is not to say in the least
that philosophers must turn credulous fools. We can discoWlt the vast majority of
reported spirit-sightings as either fraud or as the effects of some kind of hysteria.
The true "Phantasf'-someone like Swedenborg-is a singular case. We must
admit that a Swedenborg is possible, but the price of this commitment is so small

Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer

11

that it would never cast doubt on the credibility of metaphysics. Indeed, the price
comes out to be next to nothing, precisely because Kant's theory respects the special
injunction to admit no supernatural designs in philosophical explanation. So long as
Kant gives a purely naturalistic account of Swedenborg's visions, he thinks that he
can have it all: he can grant the possibility of Phantasten like Swedenborg without
upsetting the natural order of things, and thus he can secure his theory of
community among immaterial substances.
Imagine now what Kant must have felt when he finally sat down to read the
Arcana coelestia. Perhaps after all Swedenborg's great work was the effect of an
imagination insufficiently tied to reality by a body that made too little impression on
a certain soul. But it must have been much more than that from Kant's perspective.
As I have argued, Swedenborg's writings are remarkable in two respects. In the
first place, they are obviously as much inspired by the genius of Leibniz as they are
by the grace of God. For Swedenborg's account of heaven borrows liberally from the
system of pre-established harmony. Say what Swedenborg will against metaphysics,
he is not above exploiting metaphysical theories when it suits his purpose. But in the
second place, Swedenborg subjects angels and spirits to the ordinary conditions of
human sensibility-he represents heaven in the image of the material world. What
is the nature of Swedenborg's prophecy? It is an apparently not-so-special gift for
seeing and hearing objects that look and sound all the world like the things the rest
of us normally encounter in our day-to-day business. The wonder is not so much that
the prophet sees and hears the angels above but rather that he can distinguish them
from the material beings here below. The effect of Swedenborg's prophecy is thus to
'sensualize' the system of pre-established harmony.
As I have also argued, Kant's early metaphysics has much in common with
Swedenborg's visions, even though Kant himself is the champion of physical influx.
If the soul really acts on the body by Newtonian-type external forces, it is not
altogether clear on Kant's own tenns that the soul does not fill space by an original
force of repulsion. If it does, it must be impenetrable. The soul must be impenetrable
so long as it acts on bodies by repulsive forces, and this is true even if the soul has
left the body it inhabited during the course of its natural existence. If a separate soul
is impenetrable, it can collide with living human bodies; if it does so, then
depending on the intensity of its original force of repulsion, and depending on how
acute our powers of sensation are, we---Qr some of us, anyway-are likely to have
direct experience of spirits and angels. If our powers of sensation are very acute, and
perhaps slightly deranged, we might very well be more aware of the effects of spirits
and angels on us than of anything else. Precisely because Kant himself subjects
immaterial things to the conditions of sensibility, his early metaphysics has more
than enough room for prophets and Phantasten.
In light of the difficulties in Kant's early metaphysics and its kinship with
Swedenborg's visions, the theory of the Phantast Kant presented in the Herder
lectures yields a surprising result. Not only does it offer us a naturalistic account of
Swedenborg's prophetic gifts, sparing philosophers the distasteful task of appealing
to supernatural designs, it also makes room for Kant himself-<>r rather anyone
sensitive enough under Kant's system of physical influx to feel the effects of spiritual
impenetrability-among the ranks of prophets and spirit-seers. This would not
necessarily be troubling to Kant but for the fact that spiritual impenetrability is
inconsistent with his view that the soul is everywhere present in every part of the
body. When he finally sat down to read the Arcana coelestia, Kant must have been
struck once again by the difficult questions raised by his efforts to reform the system
of physical influx,' and he must also have been struck by the similarities between his

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Dreams of a Spirit-Seer

own system and the visions of Swedenborg. Indeed, he must have been struck by the
filet that he himself could very well count as a Phantast under the theory he had
presented to his students at the University of Kt>nigsberg. No wonder Kant later
made it very clear in Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer that his speculations about Phantasten
reflected badly on metaphysics. Kant would have this to say in 1766 about a
philosophical theory of the Phantast very much like the one he expounded in the
Herder Lectures:
For a bad suspicion is already cast on the desire to come up with a serious way of explaining the
delusions of Phantasten, and the philosophy, OOich lets itself be found in such bad company, puts
itself in doubt. Granted, I did not dispute above the illusion in the same appearance, not so much
indeed as the cause of an invented community of spirits, but as a natural consequence of the same
connected therewith. But then what kind of stupidity could not be brought into agreement with a
groundless metaphysics? (2.348.5-13).

When Kant finally read Swedenborg, he must have been very impressed that the line
between his own metaphysics and spirit-seeing is very fine indeed. He must have
understood that his own metaphysics accounts all too well for Swedenborg's visions
and that he himself might be reckoned a Phantast.
There is no question that Kant had read the Arcana coelestia by the time he
wrote Dreams of a Spirit-Seer. For he says in the Preliminary Report, which opens
the review, that he had purchased a "great work" and that, "worse yet," he had
actually read it through (2.318.20-21); later, Kant gives a brief exposition of central
themes from the Arcana coelestia, explicitly citing the work by its title. Needless to
say, the metaphysical content of Swedenborg's Arcana is not lost on Kant. Kant
observes in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer that, although Swedenborg's work is
"completely empty of reason," (2.360.3-4) nevertheless, one detects in it "a
wonderful accord with the fruits that can issue from the most exquisite reflection of
reason on such matters ... " (2.360.4-5). Now, as I have argued, Swedenborg's works
raise a number of very difficult questions for a metaphysician with Kantian
commitments. First, there is t11e question about the possibility and the nature of
community among immaterial substances; then, there is the no less thorny question
about the possibility that such substances might be encountered during the course of
ordinary experience. The tales Kant heard about Swedenborg in the early sixties had
certainly moved him to think again about these questions. This we can see from the
Herder Lectures. But it took Swedenborg's clinical reports of angelic interaction in
the Arcana coe/estia to convince Kant that not only was Swedenborg busy retailing
a mad metaphysics, but that Kant himself had nothing much better to offer. This, I
believe, explains why Dreams of a Spirit-Seer is so much more hostile in tone than
the letter to Miss Knoblauch.
Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer is written in two parts. I shall discuss Part Two first, and
then Part One. In Part Two, Kant addresses the Arcana coelestia explicitly, the main
ideas of the book and their consequences for metaphysics. I shall argue that the
lesson Kant draws from Swedenborg's work is that we may not take for granted the
possibility of encountering immaterial substances during the course of ordinary
experience; that immaterial substances are not subject to the conditions of sensible
things; and that metaphysics will remain forever in a shadow of doubt unless we
investigate the limits of huntan reason. In light of the lessons from Part Two, I shall
argue that Part One is an exercise in satire. Kant ironically assumes the voice of an
uncritical metaphysician to show us what dangers lie in store if the boundaries of
huntan reason remain uncharted. The point seems to be that, even if the uncritical
metaphysician argues from the most innocent premisses, he cannot help but smuggle
spatio-temporal conditions from tile realm of sensibility into the world of intelligible

Dreams of a Spirit-Seer

19

things. For the uncritical metaphysician, the whole intelligible world bears a false
likeness to the sensible world, a result that the metaphysician cannot accept and still
remain faithful to his most fundamental commitments. I shall argue, moreover, that
Kant's uncritical metaphysician is led into error, precisely because he assumes
implicitly and wrongly that things in the intelligible world are subject to precisely
the same conditions that prevail in the sensible world. As we shall see, then, the
uncritical metaphysician makes the same mistake as Swedenborg and as Kant
himself in the Nova dilucidatio.
2

For now, we must tum to that passage in Part Two of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer where
Kant gives us an exposition ofthe basic themes from the Arcana coelestia. Here we
shall learn what Kant took to be the most fundamental ideas of Swedenborg. As we
shall see, he insists above all on the problem of deception and false experience. He
explains that he is chiefly interested in Swedenborg's audita and visa-the things
that Swedenborg claims to have seen and heard (2.360.21-24). He seems to think
that Swedenborg was hopelessly deceived by his senses, and this impresses him to
no end Kant explains that we can voluntarily correct an error of reasoning or
judgment, because we know how such error is produced, and we can take steps to
prevent it. But he says that thorough-going, coherent deception of the senses is so far
inescapable, because we have not yet discovered its underlying cause. Kant obviously
thinks that this phenomenon is not only singular, but also very significant. Indeed,
he suggests that it is significant for metaphysics, because he says that Swedenborg's
audita and visa fit in nicely with the "aircraft of metaphysics" (das Lujlschiff der
Metaphysik) (2.360.25-26) that he himself launches under the veil of satire in the
first section of Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer. The implication here is that, if we can learn
something about the pathology of Swedenborg's visions, we might learn what's
wrong in metaphysics as well. So let us turn now to Kant's account of the Arcana
coe/estia.
In the first place, Kant rightly observes that the doctrine of divine influx is at the
very heart of Swedenborg's visionary metaphysics. As Kant formulates the doctrine,

"Corporeal beings have no subsistence of their own; rather they persist solely
through the spirit world" (2.363.36-364.1). Kant also observes that the theory of
correspondence follows naturally from this doctrine. For all knowledge of material
objects is doubly significant, "Tl1us the knowledge of material things has two-fold
meaning: an outer sense in the relation of matter on one another and an inner sense
to the extent that they [material things]-as effects-indicate the forces of the spirit
world, which are their causes" (2.364.2-6). According to Kant, a fundamental
feature of the theory of correspondence is this: "[On the view of Swedenborg], all
spirits always represent one another under the appearance of extended figures, and
the influence of all these spiritual beings on one another brings forth at the same
time the appearance of still other extended beings and likewise the appearance of a
material world ..." (2.364.21-25). Spiritual things do not make themselves manifest
to one another, Kant reasons on behalf of Swedenborg, except under the guise of
natural things. Consequently, all heaven itself has the appearance of something like
the natural world. Kant says that, on Swedenborg's view, heaven itself is a sort of
mirage, a false image of nature. Kant has hit on something important. This is a
crucial point to make, because it raises the all important question about the nature of
community among spiritual things. If heaven itself has the appearance of the natural
world, it must be outwardly determined by tl1e same conditions that prevail

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Dreams of a Spirit-Seer

throughout material nature. Thus spirits and angels must be present in time and
space, and indeed in such a way that they might fall under the senses (provided the
senses be sufficiently acute) just as physical objects do.
Now even though the outward appearance of angelic things in space and time is
purely symbolic, corresponding to the ilmer states of the angels, Kant explains that it
can deceive the unsuspecting spirit. For the likeness between heaven and nature is
perfect. A spirit newly departed from its body might very well mistake the
appearance of heaven as a material world for nature itself; such a spirit will refuse to
admit that its natural life has come to an end. As Kant points out, Swedenborg
himself reports having often encountered spirits confused in this way. (Remember
that Swedenborg tells us in tl1e Arcana coelestia at 4622 that he had to take one
deluded spirit to its own funeral service in order to convince it that it was no longer
of the material world.) Though Kant never comes out and says so, I would expect
him to think that Swedenborg's conception of heavenly conununity is flawed,
precisely because it makes such confusion inescapable.
Kant observes that we might very well take Swedenborg to be an idealist, " ...
because he denies the matter in this world a subsistence of its own, and he can take it
perhaps to be just a COIUlected appearance which springs from the tie with the spirit
world" (2.364.29-32). The world of material things is nothing real in itself; it issues
directly from the iMer states of spirits and angels. But since spirits and angels
represent one another in the guise of material things, heaven has the outward
appearance of nature. Thus Swedenborg can describe at length the " ... gardens,
distant regions, residences, galleries and arcades of the spirits, which he saw [in the
spirit world] in the clearest light with his own eyes ... " (2.364.32-34). The surprising
thing is not that newly departed spirits mistake heaven for nature, but rather that
they can ever be disabused at all. Heaven must be a place of eternal illusion, which is
just to say that Swedenborg's conception of heavenly conununity is far too low. To
be sure, we can take Swedenborg as an idealist who derives all material things in
nature from the iiUler states of spirits and angels. But, in the final analysis, he
subjects the angelic societies of heaven to the conditions which govern material
bodies, for no one-with the exception perhaps of Swedenborg himself-can say
with any great certainty where nature ends and heaven begins. For all we know, we
are already in heaven, or perhaps in hell. .
In addition to the doctrine of divine influx, the theory of correspondence and the
nature of conununity in heaven, Kant addresses the problem of prophecy in
Swedenborg's works. Prophecy is very important indeed, because almost all of
Swedenborg's claims depend entirely on his special visions. As Kant points out, it is
Swedenborg's view tl1at all hunmn beings are somehow tied to the world of spirits,
though most people do not know this. Swedenborg himself is supposed to be a
special case, Kant observes, because Swedenborg's ilmer being has-by the grace of
God-been made sensible to spiritual influences. Kant explains that,
"[Swedenborg's) gift is supposed to consist in the consciousness of obscure
representations which tl1e soul forms through its enduring COIUlection with the spirit
world" (2.361.36-362.1). Unlike any other person since the time of the Ancient
Hebrews, Swedenborg not only has representations of spirits and angels, he knows
he has such representations.
Now Swedenborg's claim to prophetic vision is most troubling to Kant. For it all
seems so arbitrary; nobody but Swedenborg has seen heaven and hell. Mistakenly
citing Aristotle, Kant says that, when we are awake, we all belong to the same
world, but when we dream, each of us finds himself in a world of his own.
Consequently, we may infer, as Kant points out, that, when different people inhabit

Dreams of a Spirit-Seer

81

different worlds, they must be dreaming (2.342.7-8). This is what makes

Swedenborg the champion dreamer of all dreamers. For Swedenborg spends his
time in a world to which none of us has ever paid a visit.
Swedenborg's visions are arbitrary not simply because they are exclusive, but also
because they seem quite impossible. As Kant points out, Swedenborg believes that
every spirit knows a priori the irmer states and thus the representations of every
other spirit. As a prophet, Swedenborg can converse with the spirits as the spirits
converse among themselves. To make himself understood, he has only to lay bear
his irmer states to them. But then Swedenborg's representations of the natural world
must also be on view for the spirits, along with his spiritual representations of
heaven and hell. Consequently, the spirits who converse with Swedenborg can see
the natural world as plainly as Swedenborg can. For they see it through
Swedenborg's eyes. Indeed, Swedenborg relates that, when spirits communicate
with him, they often deceive themselves into thinking they view the natural world
first-hand: Kant bristles with indignation at such a thought. "But this is impossible,"
he declares, "for no pure spirit has the slightest sensation of the corporeal world ... "
(2.362.22-23). Kant seems to be thinking that, even if we admit the existence of
spirits for the sake of argument, it is unreasonable to suppose that spirits can see and
hear as we do. For normal hearing and vision are functions of the body, and spirits
are presumably incorporeal. Unless spirits have the same sensibility as human
beings in flesh and blood, they cannot possibly have a vision of the natural world so
intense that they imagine they see it for themselves. Now the implication seems to be
this. Given that a spirit cannot hear and see the things that Swedenborg hears and
sees, surely it is impossible for Swedenborg to know the things that pass through the
irmer state of a spirit. How, then, can we take seriously Swedenborg's claim to
prophetic wisdom?'
Remember that, in the Herder Lectures, Kant was willing to admit the possibility
that a Phantast might have very strange sensations as the effect of his soul's
interaction with other spirits. But even then he was unwilling to say that the
Phantast sees either spirits or the things which spirits see themselves. The Phantast
suffers the effects of spiritual interaction not through his sensibility, but through his
imagination. Since tl1e body of the Phantast has little sway over his mind, the
imagination runs wild, creating sensations which are utterly convincing to the
Phantast, but which have no touch with reality. Thus, the Phantast is constantly
deluded by hallucinations, altl1ough he really interacts with spirits. Even if Kant
were still prepared in 1766 to grant the possibility that Swedenborg might be a
genuine Phantast, he could only have taken Swedenborg's claims in the Arcana
coelestia to see the thoughts and irmer states of the angels as a symptom of mental
impairment.
If Kant does indeed call into doubt Swedenborg's claims to prophetic wisdom in
1766 for the reasons I have suggested, the conclusion is obvious. Human sensibility
has certain limits. A natural man can have sensations of all those things governed by
the conditions tlmt prevail in tl1e natural world. For his sensibility is governed by the
same conditions, and therefore it can be affected by natural things. But human
sensibility cannot be affected by tllings which are not governed by these conditions;
so a natural man cannot have prophetic visions of supernatural beings. Immediate
experience of immaterial substances is therefore impossible for us; in which case, the
task of the philosopher is to determine what lies within the capabilities of our
intellect and powers of sensation. If the systems of philosophers defy human
capabilities, they will be no more credible than Swedenborg's arcana; the distinction

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Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer

we should like to draw between metaphysics and spirit-seeing will prove truly
sophistic.
The lesson of Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer is this. Metaphysics has no hope unless we
investigate the limits of hwnan reason. Kant apologizes to his reader for having
subjected him to some of the most singular notions one could possibly imagine. He
fears he has disappointed the expectations of curiosity-seekers and serious thinkers
alike. For he offered neither tales of great sensation nor valid principles of reason.
Dreams of a Spirit-Seer would have been a complete waste of time were it not for
the higher motives that inspired the work. Kant tells us that metaphysics has two
advantages. First, it promises answers to questions posed by the mind who would
enquire into the hidden properties of things with the aid of reason. More often than
not, however, the promises of metaphysics go unfulfilled in this regard. So Kant
goes on to explain that, "The other advantage [of metaphysics] is better adapted to
the nature of hwnan understanding, and it consists in this: to see whether the task is
also detennined from what we can know, to see what relation the question bears to
the concepts of experience, the concepts on which all our judgments must always
repose" (2.367.31-368.1). Metaphysics, says Kant, is a "science of the limits of
hwnan reason" (2.368.1-2). Like a sparsely populated country with long borders,
metaphysics ought to be more concerned with exploring and defending its territory,
than with securing new conquests. The most pressing task of metaphysics is
therefore to detennine what use it can reasonably serve and by what means.
Kant does not conduct an investigation of the limits of hwnan reason in Dreams
of a Spirit-Seer. TI1e purpose of his review is rather to show that such an
investigation is necessary. All the S311le, Kant makes clear what he thinks the results
are likely to be. His point seems to be that, if we critically reflect on our concept of
causality and if we consider what experience can actually teach us, we shall no
longer run the risk of conceiving souls as though they could be objects of sensation.
Community among bodies is the effect of Newtonian forces, forces that can only
come into play under the conditions of space and time. As Kant points out, we learn
of these forces through e~.-perience (with the aid of mathematics):
... observations have lately revealed to us, after having been resolved by mathematics, the force of
attraction in matter ... Since ground<; of reason in such a case are not of the slightest help, either for
the discovery or for the confumation of the possibility or the impossibility [of this force], we can only
concede the rigbt of decision to elqlerience (2.371.22-32).

Kant insists that pure reason can teach us nothing about the interplay of Newtonian
forces, because the highest principle governing all use of this faculty is the law of
contradiction, and the law of contradiction alone cannot help us establish whether
one state of affairs is the effect of another:
It is impossible ever to see through reason how something can be a cause or have a force; rather
these relations must be taken solely from elqlerience. For our rule of reason exterxk only to
comparison with respect to identity and contradiction. But so far as something is a cause, then
through Something, something else is given; and thus we shall find no connection through
agreement-just as no contradiction ever arises if I wish not to regard the very same something as a
cause, because it is not contradictory for somelhing to be taken away when somelhing is given
Hence the fimdamental concepts of things as causes, of forces and activities are ahogether aroitr.uy
and can neither be confinned nor refuted if they are not taken from elqlerience (2.370.11-22).

It is equally consistent with the law of contradiction to say that the fall of the Earth
towards the center of the Sun is the effect of the Sun's gravitational force as it is to
say that it is not the effect of the Sun's gravitational force. Kant observes that
Newton would have been a laughing-stock if he had tried to derive his theory of

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83

universal gravitational attraction from the law of contradiction alone. Newton's

theory is credible precisely because it is derived from the phenomena. Perhaps one
day we shall also learn that magnets have the power to cure tooth-ache, says Kant,
but experience will tell us whether this is so-not the law of contradiction.'
But now what about community of immaterial things such as the soul? 'This
much is certain on Kant's view:
I recorJ1ize changes that occur in myself as in a subject that lives, namely thoughts, will, etc., etc.;
and because these determinations are of another kind than all that which together cooslitutes my
concept ofthe body, I appropriately conceive an incorporeal and abiding being (2.370.29-34).

It is important to see here that Kant is perfectly willing to countenance immaterial

things, in particular the existence of his own soul. Introspection teaches him that he

has certain peculiar iimer states--thought and volition-and that these iimer states
are ''unlike all that which together constitutes [our] concept of body." Precisely
because thought and volition are somehow excluded from our concept of body, Kant
concludes that he may" ... appropriately conceive an incorporeal and abiding being."
The question for Kant is not whether we may properly conceive immaterial things
(clearly we can), but whether we may properly conceive a community of such things
either with bodies or with one another. Given Kant's reflections on the nature of
causality and forces, this question gives rise in turn to yet another: does experience
offer us any evidence of community among souls or between souls and bodies?
Kant answers this question as follows. He begins by considering the problem as it
is raised by the union of a soul and a living body:
I know full well that thought and will move my body, but never-through analysis--au~ I reduce
this appearance as a simple experience to another; thus I can know this appearance full well, but I
cannot understand it. That my will moves my ann is no more intelligible to me than if someone
should say that my will could also stop the Moon in its orbit. The difference is only this: I have
experience ofthe former, but the Iauer has never fallen Wider my senses (2.370.23-29).

Obviously, Kant is far from denying real interaction between soul and body. But it is
just as obvious that he is far from the position he adopted in the True Estimation and
the Nova dilucidatio. At most, says Kant in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, he can learn
from experience that his arm moves whenever he wants it to. Thus Kant thinks he
can reasonably say that his will is the cause of movement in his arm.' But not even
experience (much less pure reason) can teach him so far whether some kind of force
explains this community of body and soul. Such community remains totally
mysterious. As far as Kant is now concerned. we can say what happens to his arm
and we can even say that what happens is the effect of a cause, namely Kant's will to
move his arm. But we cannot say, as Kant himself did in his earlier writings, that
the relation between cause and effect here is the work of some primitive power or
spiritual Newtonian force.
Of course, this is precisely what we would expect Kant to say. Kant ran the risk
of making immaterial things--the soul, in particular-an object of the senses by
assuming that these things can act on one another and on material things by
spiritual Newtonian forces. Because he called on forces to explain how the soul is
present in space, he made it difficult to avoid the conclusion that the soul is
impenetrable and thus an object of sensation. Kant has to ward off this conclusion
for the reasons I have indicated One way to do that is to reflect critically on the
concept of force. Do we observe any power, causal efficacy or force in the soul?
No-at most we can say that our limbs move when we want them to. We learn
nothing about spiritual forces or powers from ordinary experience. Nor does pure

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Dreams of a Spirit-Seer

reason give us any ground for concluding a priori that there are such powers. Talk
about spiritual forces seems to be fundamentally misguided; we should take every
care to avoid it. Do we now have any reason to believe that the soul might be
impenetrable? Only if we should ever happen to collide with one. Until that
happens, we may rest easy that the soul is not impenetrable-nor, then, an object of
sensation.
It is sometimes noted that Part Two, Chapter Three of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer
owes a lot to Hume. This is true, so far as it goes. The passage I have just quoted
resonates sympathetically with the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. For
Hume writes:
... is there any principle in all nature more mysterious than the Wlion of soul with body; by \\hich a
supposed spiritual substance acquires such an influence over a material one, that the most refined
thought is able to actuate the grossest matter? Were we empowered, by a secret wish, to remove
mowltains, or control the planets in their orbit; this extensive authority would not be more
extraordinary, nor more beyond our comprehension. But if by consciousness we perceived any
power or energy in the wit~ we must know this power, we must know its connexion with the effect;
we must lmow the secret uruon of soul and body, and the nature of both these substances; by \\hich
the one is able to operate, in so many instances, upon the other. 10

Both the ideas and the images in the passage I quoted from Dreams of a Spirit-Seer
seem to come from Hume's Enquiry." But we must ask ourselves what Kant found
so appealing in them and what use he thought he could make of them. u This is what
I would like to suggest.
Hume's critical reflections on alleged powers in the soul play right into Kant's
hands. As I have argued. the problem for Kant is to ward off the conclusion that the
soul might be impenetrable and thus an object of sensation. Kant is faced with this
conclusion only because he was willing to say in the True Estimation and the Nova
dilucidatio that the soul impresses some kind of spiritual Newtonian forces on the
body. So Kant must now figure that he can appeal to Hume's reflections in order to
frustrate this line of thought. Since pure reason can discover no instance of a causal
relation, all our knowledge of causes and effects must come from experience. But
experience so far reveals no power or agency in the soul; it reveals a constant
conjunction of certain volitions and certain motions in the body. As a result, we must
reject any metaphysics fool-hardy enough to explain the union of body and soul as a
community of Newtonian forces. In other words, we must reject Kant's earlier
efforts to make physical influx a system of rational psychology. Having done so, we
shall no longer be faced with any of the peculiar consequences of that system. u
This still leaves the question about the possibility of community among souls,
embodied or otherwise. Once again Kant has to appeal to experience, and he
concludes reasonably enough that ordinary experience is silent on the matter:
I am uruted with my kind of being through the mediation of corporeal lam>; whether I also stand
now or later in conunWlity with [intelligible substances] without the mediation of matter according
to other lam> \\hid1 I shall call "pneumatic," I can in no way conclude from what is given to me [in
experience). All such judgments, as those of that kind about how my soul moves the body or how it
stands in relation now or in the future with other be~ of its kind, can never be anything more than
imagirung'! ... (2.370.36-372.6).

A community of souls is just as mysterious as the community of soul and body. We

do not have any evidence that my soul can somehow impress ell.ternal forces on
other souls by pneumatic laws. Even if we had evidence of a constant conjunction
between some of my volitions and certain effects in other souls, we would have no
right to infer the existence of any spiritual power, force or causal efficacy. Again, the

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85

conclusion is precisely what one would expect: the agency of souls and spirits is
incomprehensible.
Now my case has been that Kant's first efforts to rehabilitate the system of
physical influx stand as much to gain from an enquiry into the limits of human
reason as the Arcana of Swedenborg. Like Swedenborg, the early Kant represents
immaterial substances as though they could fall under the senses just as ordinary
physical objects do. Kant's rational psychology makes it difficult for us to conceive
how the soul could be present in space except through forces of repulsion. If the soul
has an original force of repulsion, it must be impenetrable. So, on Kant's account,
we could have immediate experience of souls, even if they had passed out of natural
existence. For we could collide with them. The virtue of investigating the limits of
human understanding, as Kant suggests in Part Two, Chapter Three of Dreams of a
Spirit-Seer, is precisely that it forestalls this line of thought before it can get going. If
there was ever any question whether spirits have forces, we have only to remember
Hume's words in the Enquiry. Reason can never discover any instance of the causal
relation; experience alone can tell us whether one thing is the effect of another. But
experience reveals no spiritual forces or powers; at most it reveals certain constant
conjunctions-none of which involve my soul's resistance to penetration by bodies.
3
It is a tricky business sorting out the argument in Part One, precisely because Kant
turns to satire rather than offering us an analysis of metaphysics gone astray.
Nothing is straightforward, because the reader must constantly make an effort to
figure out when Kant speaks in his own voice and when Kant assumes a voice
whose utterances are later to be undermined. But it helps a lot to have read Part Two
first, for there Kant finally reveals his hand: the object of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer is
to move metaphysicians to investigate the limits of human reason. Where we find
the voice in Part One making demands on human reason without first seeking to
chart its boundaries, we may safely assume that Kant has invited the uncritical
metaphysician to expose his faults to us. Before I can begin to discuss the content of
the metaphysical doctrines under attack in Part One, I must determine precisely the
character and tone of the assumed voice; I must also determine precisely when the
assumed voice speaks up and when Kant speaks for himself. If we neglect these
preliminaries, Part One will remain a mystery to us. As something of a guide, let me
right now map out the dramatis personre and a plot-summary of Part One; then I
shall go into the details of the argument.
The first part of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer comprises four chapters. I shall argue
that an assumed voice speaks in Chapters One and Two, though Kant speaks for
himself in-ehapterThree. In Chapter Four, the assumed voice returns once more,
promising to mend his ways.
The voice Kant assumes in Part One, Chapter One is highly suspicious of
academic philosophers. "I trust," says the voice, "that, if it occurred to someone to
pause and consider the question what kind of thing is that truly which we call by the
name of a spirit and of which we think we know so much, he would throw all these
smarty-pants [philosophers] into the greatest embarrassment" (2.319.9-13). So the
persona takes nothing for granted, carefully subjecting the concept of spirit to
scrutiny. Yet, for all his precautions, this willing, though suspicious, student of
pneumatology delivers a lecture that would have sounded very familiar to any of
Kant's students at the University of Konigsberg. For the reflections in this chapter
do not take us beyond the ideas in Kant's so-called Herder lectures on metaphysics

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Dreams of a Spirit-Seer

of 1761-1764-ideas that Kant himself must now find problematic given his critical
remarks in Part Two of Dreams ofSpirit-Seer."
This, I think, is significant, because it shows that even a wary soul can be lured
down the wrong path unless he converts his misgivings into a proper and thorough
investigatiop of the limits of human understanding. I do not mean to suggest that the
insights of the uncritical metaphysician in Chapter One are outrageous; they are not
in the slightest. But Kant's point seems to be that such insights, however innocent at
first glance, ~ lead to impossible absurdities without the appropriate checks of selfcritical reason! For in Part One, Chapter Two, the voice adopts a new tone. It gains
in confidence as it seems to make headway; philosophical temerity triumphs over
circumspection. Reckoning himself now no longer a novice, but an initiate of the
mysteries of rational psychology, the uncritical metaphysician permits himself to
speculate without reserve. The result is lunacy. Kant himself must finally step in to
restore reason. In Part One, Chapter Three, Kant undermines the airy conjectures of
his persona by bringing discredit on the whole enterprise: the metaphysics
expounded in the first two chapters is mad; it rests on prophetic vision, the privilege
of a diseased mind. The most determined circumspection is not enough, therefore, to
preserve metaphysics from temptation. Once again, the lesson seems to be that we
cannot even make a start in metaphysics unless we first investigate the limits of
human understm1ding.
In Chapter Four, the uncritical metaphysician returns to center stage, properly
chastened, to confess his errors and to promise refonn He admits that the only thing
which still inclines him to his doctrine of spiritual community is the hope of life in
the hereafter. So much for the drama/is personre and the plot-summary of Part One
in Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer.
The rhetorical strategy of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer seems to have bedeviled
readers since the publication of the review in 1766. Ernst Cassirer tries to sum up
the problem in a passage from Kant's Life and Thought-a passage worth quoting a
second time:
But in this puradoxical mixture ofje& and ~ \\hich was the decisive fador? Which was
the author's true face and \\hich the mask he has asswned? Was the book just a passing by-blow of
free hwnor, or was there con=aled behind this sal}T play of the mind something resembling a
tragedy of metaphysics? None of Kant's fiiendoi and critics was ever able to answer this question
with certainty."

The problem here is that Kant is apparently playing games in Dreams of a SpiritSeer. Though he preaches the virtues of caution and critical reflection in some parts
of the book, he indulges in the wildest speculation in other parts of the book. Can the
metaphysician reasonably hope to make progress in rational psychology or not?
It seems to me that Cassirer and company have engineered greater difficulties
than we actually find in the tex1. The reflective reader is not left to drift aimlessly
through Dreams of a Spirit-Seer. He readily distinguishes Kant's voice from that of
the persona; he knows the answer to Cassirer's question. To be sure, the style of the
review is labored, even tortured in places, for this is anything but the satire of Pope
or Swift. Moreover, Kant confesses to Mendelssohn that the work was written in a
disorderly manner; a page at a time sent off to press, so that even as the first pages
were being printed, K.:wt did not always know how the next pages would turn out. 16
But all the same we have signposts to guide us along.
As I have argued, by the time we have finished Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer, we know
for sure that Kant himself advocates an enquiry into the limits of human reason; we
also know that, on Kant's view, any metaphysics that neglects such an enquiry is

Dreams of a Spirit-Seer

87

doomed to failure. Now when we return to the first section of the work, we find our
first clue in the title of Chapter One, "A Complicated Metaphysical Knot that Can

Be Untied or Put Asunder at Will." Kant himself would never attempt such a knot,
by either means, unless he could mark with confidence that "Point where Sense and
Dulness meet" But the voice who speaks up in Chapter One is not to be side-tracked
by such considerations. So it cannot belong to Kant; it belongs rather to someone
who thinks he stands a chance at solving the puzzles of pneurnatology by paddling
on right in.
Now there is no question that the voice in Chapter One speaks with a certain
philosophical sophistication. The satirical persona is perhaps as ready as Kant to
criticize the standard metaphysics taught in the universities. In the very opening
sentence of Chapter One, the voice puts us on guard, "If we put together all that the
school-boy says in his prayers, all that the great crowd has to tell and all that the
philosopher demonstrates about spirits, it appears to constitute no small part of our
knowledge" (2.319.6-9). The persona does no favor to the credibility of philosophers
by associating their demonstrations with the sapience of crowds and the prayers of
school-boys. Nor does he raise any great expectation that philosophers have much at
all to offer us. For the combined wisdom of school-boys, crowds and philosophers at
best appears to represent a large part of our total knowledge. According to the
persona, we in fact know very little about spirits. and professional philosophers have
simply made things worse, because they happily skirt the issue, "The methodic
fustian of the higher schools is often only a pact to evade a difficult question through
the equivocal meanings of words, because the appropriate and in most cases the
reasonable, 'I do not know,' is not easily tolerated by academics" (2.319.13-17). To
guard against the stratagems of professional philosophers, the uncritical
metaphysician recognizes that tl1e first thing we must do, if we are sincere in our
desire to learn about spirits, is to determine what sort of idea one should have in '
mind when there is talk of spirits, i.e., to determine what the word "spirit" means.
Until we know what a spirit is, it makes no sense to argue whether spirits exist or
not.
The uncritical metaphysician supposes in Chapter One that the word "spirit" is
not without any meaning, since people use it; and, moreover, they seem to
understand one another. In order to clarify the concept that corresponds to this word,
the uncritical metaphysician recognizes that he must bear the concept's origin in
mind. For his strategy is to apply t11e concept of spirit to cases encountered in
experience, in order to determine those cases to which it applies and those to which
it does not. Now it is all the more difficult to put this strategy into practice, because
the uncritical metaphysician acknowledges in a footnote that our concept of spirit is
not of the same provenance as our empirical concepts. We form empirical concepts
by abstraction. The empirical concept of Tree, to take an example, is formed by
comparing different sensuous representations of different trees: we determine what
each of these representations has in conunon; we strip away all the rest; then we
conceive Tree in general. But empirical concepts presuppose the existence of their
object as disclosed in e>..-perience. It would be impossible for us to form the concept
of Tree in general if we never saw a pine, a maple or an elm. No one doubts whether
there are trees, because most of us have had experience of them. The existence of
spirits, by contrast, is precisely what's at issue, because no one really knows whether
it is possible to encounter a spirit in the course of ordinary experience. So we may
not treat the concept of spirit as though it were an abstraction like the concept Tree
in general." How, then, did we form this concept? It seems to involve some sort of
confusion. The uncritical metaphysician suggests somewhat vaguely that, in the

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Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer

darker recesses of the mind, we are led by experience to draw hasty, half-formulated
inferences. From these inferences arise peculiar concepts that sometimes affix
themselves, unbeknownst to us, to other concepts we might have formed by reason
or by abstraction from experience. Such must have been the origin of the concept of
spirit.
Alertness of the uncritical metaphysician to the problems raised by the different
origins of different concepts is a mark of his philosophical sophistication. Perhaps
one might take this sophistication as evidence that we are not dealing with an
assumed voice, as I have been arguing all along. Could it be that Kant speaks for
himself? Could it be that, here in Chapter One, Kant is already setting out to
investigate the limits of human reason? No indeed. If Kant believed that it would be
enough for his purposes to take into consideration the different origins of different
concepts; he would have taken refuge and solace in the works of John Locke. Kant's
point at the end of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer is surely that we must do more than
construct a genealogy of concepts. Our task is to determine what is possible for the
understanding and human sensibility. Though the uncritical metaphysician seems to
reason in Chapter One with a certain philosophical sophistication, we must not
assume hastily that Kant is speaking for himself here. This is an assumed voice, and
it adopts an untenable position that Kant will later undermine.
.
One might perhaps object again that Kant would surely not have granted
philosophical sophistication to a theory he was scheming all along to discredit. But
this is to misunderstand Kant's purpose and his strategy. Kant seeks no empty
victory over straw-men; he wants to prove to learned, brilliant minds like Lambert
and Mendelssohn that even the most responsible philosopher is bound to go wrong,
unless he first investigates the limits of human reason. The uncritical metaphysician
speaks in Chapter One with some sophistication, because Kant wants to show that
sophistication alone is not enough to make metaphysics a science. It was reasonable
that Gulliver should not want to live like a Yahoo; indeed, it was reasonable that he
should emulate the life-style of the Houyhnhnrns. But surely he must be reckoned a
fool for having preferred the company of his gray mare to that of his fellow men
when he was finally restored to his country and his family at the conclusion of his
long voyage. Likewise, it is reasonable that the voice in Chapter One of Dreams ofa
Spirit-Seer should wish to detennine the meaning of the word "spirit" and the origin
of the concept that corresponds to this word. But such level-headedness as the voice
displays in the first pages of Kant's review is surely not enough to persuade anyone
that the conclusions the voice draws later are creditable.
There is a stronger reason for thinking that Kant speaks for himself in Chapter
One: the ideas in this chapter and the order in which they are presented seem to
follow some of the material from Kant's Herder Lectures on metaphysics. 1' The
uncritical metaphysician begins in Part One, Chapter One of Dreams of Spirit-Seer
by speculating about a C\Jhic foot of space filled with something material. He raises
the question whether we would have to remove each element of matter from this
space in order to fill it completely with spirits. If the answer is yes, spirits must resist
penetration as bodies do, i.e., spirits must be impenetrable by reason of a certain
repulsive force. The uncritical metaphysician denies that we can accept this result,
and he proceeds to consider how a spirit might occupy space without filling it in the
manner of bodies. Then he goes on to raise the question about the seat of the soul.
We find precisely the same considerations in the Herder Lectures-including the
problem of completely filling a certain volume with spirits. "The concept of spirit
does not permit us to conceive a cubic inch of spirits," Kant explained to his students
at the University of KOnigsberg, "one would have to conceive it, however, if they

Dreams of a Spirit-Seer

89

[spirits] occupy a space as simple parts of bodies do, and thus constitute an extensum
impenetrabile ..." (28.1.145).
Now we know from the published works that these issues were of great concern
to Kant, who explicitly raised the question whether the soul is present in space
through repulsive forces in the Preisschrift of 1764. But there is a vecy important
difference between Kant's position in the Preisschrift and the material in the Herder
Lectures. At the time of the Herder Lectures, Kant seemed to think it obvious that
the soul was not impenetrable-that one would not have to remove particles of
matter in order to fill a space already occupied by a body. By the time of the
Preisschrift, however, Kant was much less sanguine about the problem. I quote once
more the relevant passage:
I admit that the proof we have, that the soul is not matter is good. But take care not to conclude
therefium that the soul is not of a material nature. For we do not only mean thereby that the soul is
no matter, but rather also that it is not such a simple substance that an element of matter could be.
This requires a special proof; namely that this thinking being is not in space through impenetrability,
as a corporeal element is; and that it could not constitute together with olhers a mass and an extended
thing-whereof truly no proof has yet been given, which if discovered, would show the
inconceivable way that a spirit is present in space (2.293. 7-18).

If the material in the Herder Lectures faithfully represents Kant's views on this
question, we must asswne that it pre-dates the Preisschrift. We know that Kant
delivered the Herder Lectures some time between 1761 and 1764. So even if he then
believed that he could explain how an immaterial substance can be present in space
without being impenetrable, he obviously became much less confident by 1764 when
he published the Preisschrift. This is helpful for putting Part One, Chapter One of
Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer into perspective.
Dreams of Spirit-Seer was published in 1766. By that time, Kant was not
satisfied that he could adequately explain how a spirit can be present in space
without resisting penetration. Now the voice who speaks in Part One, Chapter One
of the book is just as reluctant to admit impenetrable souls as Kant himself was, and
apparently for the same reasons: it is impossible to reconcile spiritual impenetrability
with the co-existence of body and soul in the same place. "I would require a strong
proof," says the voice, "before I would find absurd what the School-men say: my
soul is wholly in the whole body and wholly in evecy one of its parts" (2.325.2-5). If
we say that the soul is impenetrable, we have to say that the soul occupies a
determinate place in the body as t110ugh it were a piece of tissue. "But, then," says
the voice, "one could no longer recognize with any certainty any characteristic
peculiar to the soul-any characteristic that would distinguish the soul from the raw
material of bodily natures; and. Leibniz's amusing notion, according to which we
might perhaps swallow atoms destined to become [the souls of men] when we drink
our coffee, might no longer be such a laugh after all" (2.326.23-327.3).
Nevertheless, we know that the voice speaking in Chapter One must belong to a
satirical persona, because the solution offered to the problem of spiritual
impenetrability in this chapter violates the strictures Kant lays down in Part Two,
Chapter Three.
Remember that one of tl1e lessons of Part Two, Chapter Three of Dreams of a
Spirit-Seer is adapted from Hwne's Enquiry: we have no ground to say that souls
have any kind of power, force or causal efficacy. Kant's strategy in this final chapter
is apparently to frustrate the line of thought that leads to the problem of spiritual
impenetrability before it can get going. The intelligent thing to do, says Kant, is to
resist the temptation to posit any forces in the soul at all. But notice that the persona
in Part One, Chapter One has another strategy altogether. He suggests that we

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Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer

conceive the soul as we do physical monads, but that we deny souls an original force
of repulsion. Thus souls are present in space by reason of their forces or spheres of
activity just as the monads are. The difference is just that elements have repulsive
forces while souls do not. Souls have some other kind of force (2.323.12-34). Now
the persona in Part One, Chapter One has no confidence that he can tell us what
kind offorce this might be. Indeed, he comes to the conclusion, as Kant himself had
in the Herder lectures, that the presence of the soul in the body is as great a mystery
in metaphysics as any other for just this reason. But Ia'* of confidence in the
persona on this difficult problem is not a sign of critical self-reflection. The persona
has already stepped out of line when he introduced the idea of spiritual forces. From
the point of view Kant expresses in Part Two, Chapter Three, this idea is wrongheaded. We shouldn't be positing forces in souls at all. The proof that we shouldn't
be doing this can be found in Part One, Chapter Two. For there the persona goes on
to speculate about special forces in spirits and the laws of spiritual interaction. But
however spiritual these forces are supposed to be, we discover at the end of the
chapter that Phantasten must still have a hard time distinguishing the spirit world
from the material world of bodies. Thus, even if we banish repulsive forces from the
realm of spirits, immaterial substances seem bound to fall into the world of sensible
things just to the extent that they impress some kind of force on one another.
The second chapter of Part One goes by the title, "A Fragment of the Secret
Philosophy, Opening the Community with the Spirit World." This is a clue that the
voice who speaks in Chapter Two no more belongs to Kant than the voice who
speaks in Chapter One. For, again, Kant would hazard no conjecture .about the
community of spirits, unless he had already traced the limits of human reason. It is
less clear, however, whetlter the voice of Chapter Two is the same as the voice in
Chapter One. I am inclined to suppose that it is, though I cannot prove it. But I think
it is of little or no consequence to Kant's rhetorical strategy either way. All Kant has
to do is to establish that this "fragment of secret philosophy" rests on the doctrine
expounded in the preceding chapter. This the uncritical metaphysician suggests in
the opening paragraph of Chapter Two:
The initiate has already accustomed himself to abstract concepts and to elevating the WJderstanding
once weighed down by the outer semes. And now he can see spiritual fonns stripped of corporeal
raiments in that twilight \\here the dim light of metaphysics illuminates the kingdom of shadows.
After having withstood difficult preparations, we wish then to tJy our luck on the hazardous route
(2.329.4-10).

Here speaks one who has removed the blinkers of sensibility, eager at last to survey
the dark and mysterious world of spirits with no other aid but pure reason. It is a
measure of the persona's temerity that, though he recognizes the light of
metaphysics is "dim," he still remains confident that it will illuminate this "kingdom
of shadows." How might the uncritical metaphysician have acquired the powers of
reflection he will need to set out on this quest? He must simply have taken to heart
the lessons of Chapter One.
To have properly overcome the obstacles put up by sensibility, the voice who
speaks in Chapter Two would have to have understood that spirits are immaterial
beings; that tlte possibility of spirits has to be adnlitted and that a spirit has no
special place, that it is everywhere present in every part of the whole body. These are
the fundamental premisses of the "secret philosophy." If spirits were impossible,
they could never stand in COilllnunity with one another. If they were material beings,
they would interact with otlter material beings according to the laws of physical
causality; and, again, tltere would be no special community of spirits. Suppose,

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91

finally, that a spirit had a place in the body as the liver or kidneys do. That spirit
would then fill space as though it were a piece of bodily tissue, as though it were a
material object; and, again, there would be no special conununity of spirits. Now all
these insights come from Chapter One of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer. When the
uncritical metaphysician says that we may now embark on our hazardous journey,
having ''withstood difficult preparations," he means that, having armed ourselves
with the insights ofChapter One, we may now set out in earnest to investigate the
conununity of spirits.
One might object perhaps that the voice who speaks in Chapter Two must belong
to Kant himself, because, after all, we find in this chapter a theory of the Phantast
almost exactly like the one Kant expounded to his students in the Herder Lectures.
Here the voice argues that the human soul is at once a member of the material world
and the world of spirits. In most people, that part of the soul which interacts with
material objects has no idea of what happens to that part of the same soul which
interacts with the spirits and the angels. But the voice suggests that, in a very few
people, the imagination is somehow greatly heightened. It suffers acutely the effects
of spiritual interaction, and so it creates all sorts of sensations which, though they
have no connection with reality, are nevertheless so vivid that spirits seem to dance
before one's very eyes. These sensations are all illusion, but they are still the effects
of the soul's conununity with separate spirits:
However, this kind of appearance camot be something cormnon and familiar, but rather it occws
only in persons whose organs have an extraordinarily great sensitivity, so that they amplifY more
than those of healthy men do, or should do, the images of the Phantasie, according to the inner state
of the soul through hannonious motion. Such strange persons would be disturbed at ~
moments by the appearance of many objects as outside them, which appearances they would bold to
be a presence of spiritual natures which affect their corporeal semes, although this is only a delusion
of the imagination. Yet the cause of it is a 1rue spiritual influence which camot be semed
invnediately, but is only disclosed to consciousness through related images of the Phantasie, which
assume the appearance of semati<U (2.339.30-340.11 ).

One might well argue that, since this theory of the Phantast so closely resembles that
which we find in the Herder Lectures, Kant must be speaking for himself here. I
would argue, on the contrary, that Kant has assigned this little speech to the persona
of the uncritical metaphysician, precisely because he wishes to undermine it. We
know that Kant no longer endorses this theory in 1766, because, in Chapter Three,
he clearly speaks up for himself and shows contempt for it. I have already quoted
this passage, but it is wortl1 doing so again:
For a bad suspicion is already cast upon the desire to come up with a serious way of explaining the
delusi<U of Phantasten, and the philosophy, which lets itself be found in such bad company, puts
itself in doubt. Granted, I did not dispute above the illusion in the same appearance. not so much
indeed as the cause of an invented commwtity of spirits, but as the natural consequence of the same
oomected therewith. But then what kind of stupidity could not be brought into agreement with a
groundless philosophy? (2.348.5-13).

Indeed, the voice who speaks in Chapter Three must belong to Kant himself-or
if not to Kant than to the uncritical metaphysician coming round to right reason.
The title of the chapter alone announces the change of perspective, "Antikabbala: a
Fragment of Conunon Philosophy Dissolving the Conununity with Spirit World."
Here we find disparaged all that went before. Spirit-seers are not initiates into any
kind of "secret philosophy," nor are tl1ey practitioners of the dark craft; they are
madmen, "Thus I do not blame the reader in the least if, instead of finding in the
spirit-seers dual citizens in this and the other world, he dismisses them once and for
all as candidates for t11e asylum and t11ereby exempts himself from any further

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Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer

research [into the 'secret philosophy']" (2.348.13-17). Most of this chapter is

devoted to a pathology of the illness that aftlicts spirit-seers. Since it must now be
assumed that prophecy or the possibility of direct communication with the spirits is
impossible, the challenge is to explain what might move apparently sincere people,
like Swedenborg and deluded metaphysicians, to say that they have actually seen the
spirit world. This is nothing like the theol)' of the Phantast Kant expounded to his
students in the Herder lectures. There Kant assumed that the Phantast is no
madman, though he suffers from periodic delusions. For these delusions are still the
effect of true spiritual intercourse. Here in Part One, Chapter Three of Dreams of a
Spirit-Seer, Kant argues that the spirit-seer really has lost his wits.
In the fourth and final chapter of Part One, the uncritical metaphysician returns
to center stage, properly chastened, to confess his errors and to promise reform. We
may think of Chapter Four as something like the final chorus of a Mozart opera, a
hymn to reason in which all is reconciled. Da Ponte himself could have penned the
final chorus of Part One:
I have pwified my soul of prejudices; I have banished every blind loyalty ~ch ever furtively
insinuated itself [upon me] in order to gain entrance for me to much imaginary knowledge. Now
nothing is more important to me, nothing more venerable, than what is found through the path of
sincerity in a tranquil and open mind; ~ it confirm or confute my previous judgment, ~
it detennine me or leave me Wldecided. Where I enoounter something that instructs me, I shall give
myself up to it The judgment of him \\flo contradiru my ground<; is my judgment after I have first
weighed it against dJe scale of my vanity and then against my alleged ground<; and have found in it a
greater value. Before, I considered WliVInal hwnan wxlerstanding only from the standpoint of my
own; now I set myself in the place of a reason other than my own and obse!ve my judgments with
their most secret motives from the point of view of others (2.349 .4-19).

The uncritical metaphysician goes on to admit that the only thing which still
inclines him to his doctrine of the community of spirits is the hope of life in the
hereafter.
Perhaps one might object that it cannot be half so simple, as I have said, to sort
out the different voices in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, since the review caused such
bewilderment when it was first released to the public in 1766. Not even
Mendelssohn was sure what Kant was up to, or even if Kant were seriously
committed to tl1e cause of metaphysics. If it is all so plain to see, why was
Mendelssohn perplexed after reading Kant's essay? There are a couple of answers to
this objection. First, Dreams of a Spirit-Seer is vel)' badly written; the prose plods
along through a labyrintl1 of dependent clauses guaranteed to tie knots in the SJXIOl
of Theseus. Second, tl1e review is out of character for the author of the Beweisgrund
and the Preisschrift of 1764. Mendelssohn and company might have. expected from
Kant a challenging, but vel)' sober, system of metaphysics. Perhaps they might even
have expected a hard-hitting critique of the metaphysics practised in the school of
Wolff. But no one would have expected satire from Kant. There can be no doubt that
the singularity of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer made it next to impossible for Kant's
contemporaries to make sense of the idea he was trying to convey.
Perhaps one might also wonder why Kant went to such great lengths in the first
place. Why does he ironically assume the voice of an uncritical metaphysician in
Chapters One, Two and Four? No doubt, he means to make an example of the
persona in order to show us graphically what dangers lie in store if the limits of
hUDlan reason go uncharted. But was it not enough for Kant to make his case as
straightforwardly as he does in his critical e:\.-position of Swedenborg's Arcana in
Part Two oftl1e review?

Dreams of a Spirit-Seer

93

I think that Kant would have been very sympathetic to Alexander Pope's
justification of satire. As Pope explained in a letter to his friend Dr. Arbuthnot,
"General propositions are obscure, misty, and uncertain, compared with plain, full,
and home examples. Precepts only apply to our reason, which in most men is but
weak; examples are pictures, and strike the senses, nay raise the passions, and call in
those (the strongest and most general of all motives) to the aid of reformation.""
These are words that Kant himself almost seems to echo in his letter to Moses
Mendelssohn. Explaining that the doctrines of the "secret philosophy" expounded in
Part One of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer are not to be taken seriously, he went on to
describe them as" ... an example of how far one can proceed altogether unhindered
in philosophical fabrications when there are no data ..." (10.69). So Kant apparently
turns to satire in Part One of his review as a last resort. If he cannot persuade
metaphysicians by argument alone that they must initiate reform in their science, he
will do his best to persuade them by other means that they are every bit as absurd as
his satirical persona. For all satire is an appeal to vanity: it asswnes that the
wayward are not so far gone that they could ever relish ridicule.
Having determined who speaks when, with what tone and to what purpose, we
may now reflect on the content of the metaphysics that Kant tries to expose in Part
One. Since the uncritical metaphysician neglects to investigate properly the limits of
human reason, it is here in these chapters that we may expect to find a good
specimen of uncritical metaphysics. I shall argue that this specimen of uncritical
metaphysics fails for precisely the same reasons that Swedenborg's Arcana were
bound to go astray: it wrongly treats immaterial substances as though they could
somehow fall under the senses. We shall see, then, that the specimen of uncritical
metaphysics in Part One of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer is a caricature of doctrines that
Kant himself once espoused in the Nova dilucidatio and the Physical Monadology.
4

As I say, we find the basic premisses of the uncritical metaphysics in Chapter One
where the satirical persona begins by explaining that the word "spirit" means a
simple, immaterial being possessed of reason. "Either the meaning of the noun
'spirit' is the one I have indicated," says the persona, "or the word has no sense at
all" (2.321.26-28). To be sure, this proves neither that spirits exist, nor even that
they are possible. The uncritical metaphysician rightly observes that, if experience
were the test of a thing's possibility, we should have to dismiss all talk of spirits as
airy nonsense. A material object makes its presence known to us in experience by
resisting the effort of any other material object to penetrate the space that it occupies.
Thus we know the force of repulsion is possible, though we might never know how.
Spirits are immaterial substances; consequently, they do not make their presence
known through the force of repulsion, nor, therefore, in experience. Indeed, we
cannot even try to imagine them to ourselves in concreto, by forming sensuous
representations of spirits in our mind, as we might form sensuous representations of
material things. This just goes to show that our concept of spirit is plagued by a sort
of unintelligibility in empirical terms. Now the uncritical metaphysician argues that
such unintelligibility does not prove that spirits are impossible; all it proves is that
we cannot think about spirits the way we think about material objects disclosed to us
in experience. What could be more reasonable? Once we have admitted that "spirit"
means a simple, immaterial being possessed of reason, it surely makes no sense to
think of spirits as tl10ugh they were material objects. As long as we have no proof
that spirits are impossible, reasons the uncritical metaphysician, we may safely

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Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer

admit their possibility, as by hypothesis. We have no hard evidence or demonstration

that spirits are possible, but the uncritical metaphysician tells us that it is a safe, if
not a sure, bet (2.323.10-12).
On the supposition that spirits are inunaterial beings and that they are possible,
we have to find a way to explain how they could be present in the same space filled
by bodies. The human soul, for instance, is an inunaterial being; and yet, it is
present in the same space filled by a certain lxxly throughout the course of its natural
existence. In itself, this is easy enough to explain: though the body is impenetrable,
the soul is not. But now we are faced with a difficult question about the nature of
souls or spirits. Space is divisible, but spirits are supposed to be simple beings.
Preswnably, spirits too would be divisible if they could be present in space. If spirits
were divisible, they would be composite things, which is impossible. Here we begin
to see that the rational psychology Kant is tJying to e"-pose depends on doctrines that
Kant himself expounded in the Physical Monadology of 1756. For the uncritical
metaphysician suggests that we can resolve the difficulty by stipulating that a spirit
is not present in space through its existence alone, but through the sphere of its
activity. He is clearly thinking of spirits the way that Kant conceived the elements of
body in the late fifties.
The analogy is a natural one. Like spirits, the elements are perfectly simple
substances. To be sure, elements are the constitutive parts of a lxxly, but the bulk of a
body-that aspect of the body which fills space-is the sum of the volume of the
elements. The volume of an element is nothing more than appearance; it consists in
the element's sphere of activity or that part of space through which the element's
force of repulsion overcomes the effect of its force of attraction. Now an element's
sphere of activity is divisible in space. So if elements were nothing but the sphere of
their activity, they too would be divisible into parts, each of which could exist
separately from the others. But then bodies would not consist of simple substances.
In and of themselves, the elements must be absolutely indivisible; every element
must have certain inner determinations that do not fill space.
According to the uncritical metaphysician in Chapter One of Dreams ofa SpiritSeer, spirits and elements are the same kind of thing but for these differences: spirits
possess reason; elements exert a certain force of repulsion on account of which
matter is impenetrable. Though spirits do not have repulsive force, they seem to
have a force of a different kind. For spirits are active beings, and they can make their
influence felt around and about them. Thus we learn from the uncritical
metaphysician that a spirit is present to some space by the sphere of its activity, as
though it were an element. But, whereas the forces of attraction and repulsion
constitute an element's sphere of activity, other forces must be at work in the case of
spirits. The uncritical metaphysician will later suggest in Chapter Two that a spirit
has forces of public and private interest. Though spirits make themselves manifest in
space by the interplay of these opposing forces, in and of themselves, they do not
really fill space. So we may no more call into doubt the simplicity of a spirit by
reason of its presence in some space than we may call into doubt the simplicity of a
corporeal element by reason of its presence in some space through the force of its
repulsion.
In summary, then, spirits and the elements of lxxly have this in common. They
are intelligible substances, simple by nature, though present in some space by the
spheres of their activity. The uncritical metaphysician makes this perfectly clear in
Chapter One:
Such spiritual natures would be present in space, but they are without impenetrability even though
space is for corporeal being-;, because their presence is indeed an efficacy in space, but not a filling of

'j
'~

Dreams of a Spirit-Seer

95

it, i.e., [the presence of spirits in space does not] oonlain a resislancc as the ground of solidity. Should
one admit such a simple spiritual substance, then one can say without calling its indivisibility irdo
questioo that the plaoe of its immediate presence is not a point, but rather a space itselt: For, to call
upon the aid of the analogy, the simple elements of bodies themselves by necessity fill a small
portioo of space that constitutes a proportiooate part of the whole exten;ion, because points are not at
all par1s, butratherlimitsofspace. Since this fiUmgofspacethrough an effective fora: (of repulsion)
happens and is thus merely a COI1IJ'UI of the great activity, but does not indicate a plurality of
constitutive parts of the effective subjed [i.e., since the filling of space through repulsive fora: does
not show an element to be a composite thing], it does not conflia at all with the simple nature of it
(the element], although admittedly the possibility camot be made more distinct herefrom ... Even so
at least no proven impossibility will be raised, although the thing itself remains inconceivable, if I
declare that a spiritual substance, though it is quite simple, should nevertheless occupy a space (i.e.,
could be directly active in space), without filling it (i.e., by putting up resistance to material
substances) (2.323.12-34).

The uncritical metaphysician goes on to claim that no one place in the whole body is
the privileged seat of the soul: the soul does not inhabit the heart or the brain; rather,
it is everywhere present in every part of the body. The uncritical metaphysician
anticipates an objection that such a claim would make the soul into something
extended, into a material object divisible in space. Again. he seems to call on the
analogy between souls and elements to respond to this objection. For he says, "I
would remove this obstacle by remarking that the immediate presence in a whole
space proves only a sphere of the ex1ernal efficacy, but not a plurality of inner parts,
and thus no extension or figure, which occurs only if ... there are parts, separate
from one another" (2.325.10-16). As the uncritical metaphysician seems to argue, it
is possible for simple substances such as the elements to be present in space without
extension; so we may at least entertain the possibility that the same thing is true of
simple substances such as spirits. In other words, it is no argument against spirits to
say that their assumed presence in space would imply that they are composite things.
For this simply does not follow.
As we have already seen. the analogy between souls and material elements is
problematic, precisely because the two kinds of substances are so much alike. Kant
himself pointed out in the Preisschri.ft that we might easily prove that the soul is not
made of matter. But. as he also noted, this proof depends entirely on showing that
the soul is simple. It is one thing to say that the soul is simple; still another to say
that the soul is penetrable. Material elements resist penetration. and they are just as
simple as souls. Thus we need some further proof that souls are not present in space
in the manner of physical monads. Otherwise, we shall have to conclude that the
soul can fall under the senses-and indeed in such a way as to preclude its coexistence with the body in the same place. Now the uncritical metaphysician is
perfectly aware of the difficulties attending the analogy between souls and elements.
But his effort to deal with these difficulties in Part One, Chapter One of Dreams ofa
Spirit-Seer is inadequate in light of Kant's critical remarks in the final chapter of the
book. For the uncritical metaphysician's idea seems to be that we can ascribe forces
to the soul other than the force of repulsion. As we shall see in due course, Kant
seems to think that this stratagem does not really help matters. The trouble, we
discover in Part Two, Chapter Two, is that the ascription of any kind of force to the
soul-however spiritual these forces may be-makes the soul an object of the senses,
at least for those whose faculty of sensation is sufficiently heightened.
The possibility that spirits are present in space is licence for the uncritical
metaphysician to go on a spree. For it is enough to warrant all manner of speculation
about the kinds of community in which a spirit might participate. Obviously, the
uncritical metaphysician now has grounds to suppose that there is a certain
community of tl1e spirit with tl1e body. For since it is possible that a spirit could

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Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer

make its presence felt in some space through the sphere of its activity, it follows
naturally that a spirit could be present in the space occupied by a body, that it could
be everywhere present in every part of the whole body and that the spirit could affect
the body through its active forces. In Part One, Chapter One of Dreams of a SpiritSeer, the uncritical metaphysician does not speculate how this could be; as far as he
is concerned, it is enough if he has shown that it is possible.
If we grant the possibility that spirits are present in space and that they may
therefore bear some sort of outward relation to material things like the body, why
should we not also grant the possibility that spirits bear outward relations of some
very peculiar sort to one another? The uncritical metaphysician makes precisely this
point at the beginning of Chapter Two:
Since these immaterial bein~ are self-active principles and are therefore substances and selfsubsisting natures, the fust comequence to which one is led is this: immaterial beings are W1ited
directly with one another; ~ they can constiwte a great \\bole, which one can call the
immaterial world (mundus intelligibilis). For on what grounds of verisimilitude does one wish
indeed to say that these same ~ which are all of the same nature, could Sland in community
only through bein~ of alien constiwtion (corporeal~)? For this (the community of spirits with
one another by the mediation ofbodies] is still more mysterious (2.329.30-330.4).

As the oocritical metaphysician argues, it is very difficult to establish the possibility

that the soul and the body stand in community with one another, because the soul
and the body are different kinds of substances. But once we have gone that far, what
could be simpler than admitting the possibility of community among the spirits
themselves? Surely, we may expect that spirits act on one another with greater ease
than they act on bodies.
The speculations in Chapter Two_about community in the world of spirits are
extravagant, as I have said. We know that Kant meant for them to be extravagant,
because that is what he tells MendeiSOim in the letter of 8 April 1766.'4J But now we
must determine what makes them so. What is absurd about imagining the principles
that govern pnewnatic causality? Why shouldn't we investigate the interaction of
spirits amongst themselves? Such an investigation cannot be dismissed out of hand
once it is admitted that spirits are possible. And why shouldn't we admit this? The
problem, as we shall see directly, is that, Wlless we refrain from ascribing forces to
souls we shall very likely treat souls as though they were subject to conditions of
sensibility.
If there does indeed exist a world populated by spirits, the uncritical
metaphysician argues that all spirits must mutually relate to one another according
to certain laws of reciprocal influence. He argues, furthermore, that these laws must
be entirely independent of the laws of physical causality which prevail in the
material world. Now it is true that some spirits are intimately bound to bodies; thus
the soul of a human being during the course of his natural life. But though the laws
of physical causality govern the hwnan body, the soul falls outside their jurisdiction.
As the uncritical metaphysician observes, " ... [the interaction of immaterial beings
with bodies] does not hinder these same immaterial beings, who act on one another
by the mediation of matter, from standing in another special and thoroughgoing
community besides this one [besides community through bodies]; nor does it hinder
them from always exercising reciprocal influence on one another as immaterial
beings ... " (2.330.9-13). A human soul is thus a member of the spirit world, even
while it is embodied here in the world of material things.
These are the basic assumptions of Kant's persona in Chapter Two. Now the
uncritical metaphysician sets out to determine the law of community in the spirit
world, " ... not solely from the concepts of spiritual nature in general ... but from any

Dreams of a Spirit-Seer

91

real and universally admitted observation ..." (2.333.29-32). He remarks that human
nature, as we know it from ordinary experience, is subject to two opposing passions:
the desire to seek our personal good and the desire to seek the good of others. The
human will seems to be perpetually at odds with itself, torn by the competing claims
of private and public interest. The uncritical metaphysician derives his law of
community in the spirit world in Chapter Two from this "real opposition" observed
in human nature, in much the same way that Kant himself attempted, in the
Physical Monadology, to derive the law that determines the volume of the elements.
It seems that every spirit has a kind of moral repulsive force which moves it to
seek its own, to the exclusion of everything else. But if spirits acted only by the force
of self-interest, there would be no community at all. Spirits would disperse, just as
the elements would disperse to the confines of the universe had they no other force
but repulsion. Hence the spirits must also have something like a force of attraction to
draw them back together, to bring "moral unitY' (sittliche Einheit) into the realm of
spirits and to turn this realm into a "system of spiritual perfection" (System von
geistiger Vollkommenheit). The very possibility of community in the spirit world
presupposes that the spirits are moved by something like the force of public interest:
Thus Ne\Wln called the certain law of the elfor1s of all matter to approach one another the
demonslrations in a
bad-spirited partiality in philosophical disputes \Wich can arise over the cause of gravitation.
However, he never thought olherwise but to treat this gravitation as a true elfect of a Wtiversal
activity of matter in one another, and hence he also gave it the name attraction. Ought it not to be
possible to represent the appearance of the moral impulse in thinking natures, as such relate
reciprocally to one another, likewise as the consequence of a true active force, so that the moral
sentiment would be this feh dependence of the private will on the universal will and a consequence
of the natural and Wtiversal intercourse, through \Wich the .inunaterial world acquires its moral
unity, as it is constituted into a ~ of spiritual perl"ection according to the laws of this its own
oonnedion? (2.335.16-32).

gravitation of the same, though he did not wish to entwine his mathematical

Like the forces of repulsion and attraction, the forces of public and private interest
are in real opposition. Consequently, the effects of the one force cancel the effects of
the other under the appropriate circumstances. Just as the effects of an element's
repulsion and the effects of its attraction are cancelled at some place on the diameter
of the element's sphere of activity, so the effects of public and private interest are
cancelled in the spirit world when a spirit strikes a compromise between claims
made on it by the good that it seeks for itself and the good that all spirits seek for one
another. This compromise detennines a spirit's moral volume, as it were, the place
that the spirit occupies in the spirit world.
Notice that the uncritical metaphysician supposes that the laws governing the
interaction of spirits are analogous to the laws governing the interaction of bodies in
the material world. He says quite plainly that we may conceive the interaction of
spirits as "the consequence of a true active force," just as Newton took the
interaction of bodies to be the consequence of certain forces in matter. Private
interest stands to repulsive force, tl1en, as public interest stands to universal
attraction.
Since spirits are not supposed to be impenetrable, private interest and repulsive
force are not the same thing. But they are forces of the same kind: they are external
forces in Newton's sense. According to Newton's laws of motion, every body will
remain in its state of eitl1er motion or rest until the force of another body causes it to
undergo an acceleration. Likewise, according to the laws of moral interaction, no
spirit has the power to effect change of state in itself; all change is produced from
without. A spirit cannot improve its condition spontaneously; it can only change the
condition of some other spirit. In other words, it must impress its force of private

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Dreams of a S'pirit-Seer

interest on another spirit by doing what it can to profit from its rival, either by
worsening the rival's condition or by promoting it in self-serving ways. If private
interest were not an external force, if spirits could spontaneously improve their
condition without interacting, they would not morally repulse one another. There
would be none of that competition among them which tends to disrupt the moral
unity in the spirit world, and so there would be no need for a spiritual attractive force
to counterbalance the effects of spiritual repulsion.
Public interest is no more universal gravitation than private interest is the force of
repulsion. After all, spirits are not supposed to have weight. But public interest is
also an external force in the Newtonian sense. A spirit does not spontaneously seek
the public good; on the contrary, it responds to exhortations from without.
Because the uncritical metaphysician takes for granted that spirits act on one
another by ex1ernal forces just as bodies do, he comes to treat spirits as though they
were subject to the conditions of the physical world-as though they could be objects
of sensibility. But of course, the uncritical metaphysician would surely deny that he
has made any mistake at all. For he boasts at the beginning of Part One, Chapter
Two of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer that he is adept in the mysteries of pneumatology,
that he has accustomed himself to "abstract concepts" and "to elevating the
understanding once weighed down by the outer senses" (2.329.4-5). He fully expects
to see "spiritual fonns stripped of corporeal raiments in that twilight where the dim
light of metaphysics illuminates the kingdom of shadows" (2.329.6-7). Moreover, he
later tells us that, "All these inunaterial natures ... would stand in a community that
befits their nature: a community that does not repose on conditions whereby the
relation of bodies is restricted-a community from which there vanishes the distance
of places or epochs, which constitutes a great abyss in the visible world and which
abolishes [genuine spiritual] community" (2.332.6-15). The point seems to be that
people in the visible world do not engage immediately in spiritual community with
one another, because they are separated in space and time. We find no such divisions
in the spirit world, precisely because these conditions do not hold there. The soul of
someone living to-day could not commune in the visible world with the spirit of
Peter the Great, because the Russian monarch has long since gone to his grave. Nor
could this soul commune under these conditions with someone else from half way
round the globe. But as an immaterial being, the soul is a citizen of the spirit world,
which is immune to the conditions of space and time. Thus the soul may interact
freely with any spirit it chooses, whether Peter the Great or Ethelred the Unready.
For all his protestations to the contrary, the uncritical metaphysician cannot
escape treating inunaterial substances as though they were physical things liable to
fall under our senses. This is plain if we consider once again the lesson of Part Two,
Chapter Three of Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer. As Kant himself argues in the second half
of his review, we crumot justify any talk of special spiritual forces or powers, because
so far we have no evidence that such powers really exist. We certainly cannot appeal
to the law of contradiction to derive the concept of these powers from our concept of
a spiritual substance, for the first concept is not contained in the second. But nor
may we infer the existence of these powers from any kind of experience, ordinary or
otherwise. I leam from experience of a constant conjunction between what my soul
wills and certain motions in my body. So at most, the adepts in the "secret
philosophy"-those who contend that souls engage in a community of forces with
one another-can hope to show from the experience of putative Phantasten that
there is a constant cottiunction of thoughts or volitions in one soul and certain affects
and passions in others. No Phantast (not even Swedenborg himself) can rightly
claim to have observed forces at play among the spirits-no more than any natural

Dreams of a Spirit-Seer 99
human being can claim to have observed a certain force of his mind at work in his
body. This is just to say that the very concept of spiritual power is empty. So this is
also to say that we shall have problems if we follow the lead of the oocritical
metaphysician in Part One, Chapter Two of Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer by insisting that
souls and spirits really do impress forces on one another. We can give content to talk
of spiritual forces only by thinking of these things as though they were the kind of
forces that are currently well known to us, namely the kind of forces that bodies
impress on one another.
Kant is perfectly willing to ascnbe forces to bodies, even though he follows Hume
in criticizing those who heedlessly ascribe forces to souls. Kant apparently exploits
the criticisms Hume raises against our notion of causal efficacy, but he does not
espouse Hume's conclusions all the way down. He seems to have the greatest
confidence in the Newtonians: they have successfully demonstrated from experience
and mathematics that material things have original forces of attraction and
repulsion!' We can understand Kant's problem with the uncritical metaphysician in
light of his optimism on this score. If it is true that the concept of attractive and
repulsive forces in bodies makes sense, while the concept of spiritual power does not,
the oocritical metaphysician will have to rely almost entirely on the first concept in
order to shed light on the second. In other words, the oocritical metaphysician will
have very little recourse but to ascribe repulsion and attraction to spirits if he wants
to speak meaningfully of their community at all. But the cost of this stratagem is
obviously too high for him. The very suggestion that spirits have anything like
original forces of attraction and repulsion implies that spirits are heavy and
impenetrable. The conclusion must be that spirits are scarcely distinguishable at all
from material things and so liable to fall under our senses in much the ordinary way.
This is just to say that the most accomplished Phantast could not mark the border
between the physical world and the world of spirits with any great confidence.
The irony here is that tl1e uncritical metaphysician himself recognizes at the very
beginning of Part One, Chapter One that our knowledge of Newtonian external
forces, as disclosed in experience, can teach us nothing about spirits. Indeed, he says
that our concept of spirits is empirically unintelligible. We cannot sensuously
imagine the way that spirits fill space except by thinking about the repulsive force of
material things, and this can afford no genuine knowledge:
If I suppose now sub;tances of another kind, which are present in space with fon:es other than that
active force from which impenelrability is the result, surely I cannot at all conceive in concreto an
activity of the same [spiritual force] Wlless it has an analogy with my empirical representations; and
since I remove from them [spiritual substances] the properties whereby they mil!)lt fill the space in
which they act [i.e., since I deny them a force of repulsion], I deprive myself of a concept whereby
~ are otherwise conceivable to me, and so there must necessarily arise a kind of inconceivability
(2.3 22.3 5-3 23 .6).

As the uncritical metaphysician himself admits, we cannot sensuously imagine the

action of spirits on bodies and otl1er spirits except as the result of Newtonian forces;
and thus, by his own admission, the theory of spiritual interaction that he presents in
Part One, Chapter Two affords no genuine knowledge of spirits at all. It makes it
impossible for us to conceive of spirits except as heavy and impenetrable. Little
wonder, then, that Kant should later write to Moses Mendelssohn:
My analogy [in Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer] between a spiritual su!Nance's actual moral influx and
the force of universal gravitation is not intended seriously; but it is an example ofhow far one can go
in philosophical fabrications, completely Wlhindered, where there are no data, and it illustrates how
important it is, in such exercises, first to decide what is required for a solution of the problem and
whether the necessary data for a solution may be lacking. 21

100 Dreams of a Spirit-Seer

The doctrine of spiritual influx in Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer is philosophy gone astray,
because it neglects to consider whether and how we could possibly distinguish the
effects of spiritual forces from the effects of repulsive and attractive forces revealed
to us in the course of ordinary experience.
Notice now that the theocy of spiritual community expounded in Chapter Two of
Dreams of a Spirit-Seer is fraught with the same difficulty that we find in the early
metaphysics of Kant. Kant himself argued that the soul is present in space as the
effect of its action on bodies. But he could not explain how the soul's activity differs
from the repulsive force exercised by the constitutive elements of matter. Thus, he
could not find a way to escape the conclusion that the soul is impenetrable. If the
soul itself is impenetrable, we coUld never be sure, on Kant's account, when a
collision is the effect of repulsive forces in bodies and when a collision is the effect of
forces exercised by spirits. Since the early Kant neglected to investigate the limits of
hwnan sensibility, he made the mistake of the satirical persona he puts on parade in
his review of the Arcana coelestia: he falsely represents the realm of intelligible
substances as though it were subject to the conditions of the sensible world. Thus,
Kant and Swedenborg both are targets of the satire in Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer.

CHAPTER SIX
THE INAUGURAL DISSERTATION

It is quite clear from Dreams of a Spirit-Seer that. in 1766, Kant regarded his early
projects in metaphysics as a dismal failure. I have argued that Kant accuses himself
in that work of having harbored delusions as extravagant as those of the "arch-spiritseer of all spirit-seers," Emanuel Swedenborg. Swedenborg and the early Kant both
treated immaterial substances as though they could fall under the sensessufficiently keen senses. Thus, on Kant's view, a Phantast might conceivably feel the
effects of spiritual impenetrability. The thought of spiritual impenetrability would
not necessarily have been so disturbing to Kant but for one thing: it is incompatible
with his professed view that the soul is everywhere present in every part of the body
during the course of its natural existence. The soul cannot occupy the same place as
the body so long as it is impenetrable. The purpose of Kant's reflections on our
knowledge offorces in Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer is at least in part to frustrate the line
of thought that gave rise to this dilenuna. Having noted that the concept of a given
force does not include the concept of that force's effects, Kant concluded that all our
knowledge of forces must come from ex-perience. Then he argued that we have no
evidence from ex-perience that the soul exercises any kind of force at all, either on
the body or on other souls. Unless the soul can exercise forces, it cannot be
impenetrable. Thus, by calling on Hume's reflections from the Enquiry, Kant
thought he could secure his commitment to the principle that the soul is everywhere
present in every part of the body and so purify his conception of immaterial
substances.
Dreams of a Spirit-Seer bewildered its readers when it first came out. It left
Moses Mendelssohn totally bafiled. Did Kant think he had sounded the death knell
of metaphysics, or was this some kind of practical joke? Kant tried to reassure
Mendelssohn in a letter of 8 April 1766. First he expressed his hope that
Mendelssohn would never doubt his sincerity, and then he expressed his great
contempt for metaphysics as it was currently practised:
As to my expressed opinion of the value of metaphysi<Z in general, perhaps here and again my
words [in Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer] were not sufficiently careful and qualified But I cannot conoea1
my repugnance, and even a certain hatred, toward the inflated arrogance of whole volumes full of
what are passed off nowadays as insights; for I am fully convioo:d that the path that has been
selected is rompletely mung. that the methods now in vogue must infinitely increase the amount of
folly and error in the world, and that even the total extermination of all these chimerical insights
would be less harmful than the dream science itself; with its confounded contagion 1

These are the harsh words that a reader might well expect from one whose fate it
was "to fall in love" with metaphysics, but who could "boast scarcely any testimony
of her favor'' (2.367.21-23). And yet, Kant went on to temper his statement:
I am far from regarding metaphysi<Z itself; objectively considered, to be trivial or dispensable; in
fact, I have been convinced for some time now that I understand its nature and its proper place in
hwnan knowledge and that the true and lasting welfare of the human race depends on it-an
appraisal that would seem 'Uttastic and audacious to anyone but you.'

So what. then, did Kant mean to prove in Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer?

The question, Kant e>.:plained to Mendelssohn, restating tl1e lesson from his
review of 1766, is whetl1er or not we can discover "tl1e nature of the power of

102 The Inaugural Dissertation

external agency'' and "the nature of that receptivity or capacity of being affected by
an external agency." How is it possible, in other words, for something to effect
change of state in something else? The union of a rational soul with the human
body, he added, is but a special instance of a much more general problem. But the
metaphysician is not satisfied with partial solutions. He seeks a system of universal
causality; he wants to know how it is possible for any substance at all to produce
change in any other.
Now experience yields only a few instances of the causal relation, namely the
forces of attraction and repulsion and the accelerations that they produce in matter.
Though experience can show us that physical influx is possible among bodies, it
cannot show us that such interaction is possible among other substances. It does not
even establish physical influx between body and soul. At most, said Kant, we
discover in experience a certain concordance between the inner state of the soul-its
thoughts and its volitions-and the outer condition of the body. But we have no
empirical evidence that the soul and the body really act on one another. How could
we? Bodies effect change in one another by a community of attractive and repulsive
forces under the conditions of space and time. If the soul and the body could effect
change of state in one another just as bodies do amongst themselves, souls would
have to be subject to the conditions of space and time; and, they would likely have
forces of attraction and repulsion. But the soul is not supposed to have either weight
or impenetrability, because it does not have a material nature. Since we have no
experience of physical influx between the soul and the body, we have no way to
determine whether or how the body and the soul really act upon one another. That
leads us, said Kant, to the following conclusion:
... the upshot c: all this is that one is led to ask ~ it is intrinsically possible to determine these
powers of spiritual subaances by means of a priori rational judgments. This investig;ltion resolves
itself into anolher, namely, ~ one can by means of rational inferences discover a primitive
power, that is, the primary, fundamental relationship of c:wse to effect. And since I am certain that
this is impossible, it follows that, if these powers are not given in experience, they can only be
invented. But this invention, an heuristic fiction or hypothesis, can never even be proved to be
possible, and it is a mere delusion to argue from the mere fact of its conceivability (which bas its
plausibility only because no impossibility can be derived from the concept either). Such a delusion is
Sweden~'s reverie, though I myself would try to defend it if someone were to argue it
impossible.

The metaphysician's quest for a system of universal system of causality is in vain.

For experience can teach us nothing about any spiritual forces. As a result, the
metaphysician must take care not to represent immaterial things in the image of
things from the sensible world. The metaphysician would do just as well to claim he
has first-hand experience of inunaterial substance~a delusion every bit as
outrageous as the visions of Swedenborg.
Dreams of a Spirit-Seer and the letter to Mendelssohn raise a very difficult
question. Even if the true and lasting welfare of the human race does indeed depend
on metaphysics, what kind of future lies in store for this science now that it has
become plain that Kant's initial project has failed for good? Kant himself might be
excused for thinking that the prospects of renewal are very grim. But the letter to
Mendelssohn, if not the publication that aroused Mendelssohn's concern in the first
place, is rather optimistic-all things considered. Metaphysics has not come to an
end, wrote Kant, it must simply chart a new course. In fact, Kant tried his best to
enlist Mendelssohn's help in the w1dertaking. "It befits brilliant men such as you,"
he exclaimed, "to create a new epoch in this science, to begin completely afresh, to
draw up the plans for this heretofore haphazardly constructed discipline with a

The Inaugural Dissertation 103

master's hand." Far from giving up on metaphysics, Kant was as detennined as
ever to carry it forward. But how to proceed?
Since metaphysics has not yet become a science, it would be reasonable as a first
step to determine the conditions under which it might do so in the future. Such a
project would be fraught with difficulty. For the object would not be simply to
cultivate an infant science that showed every promise of reaching maturity with
grace over time, but rather to pull down a shaky edifice to its very foundation and
build all over again In the letter to Mendelssohn, Kant could suggest only in the
vaguest terms that his newly projected reform of metaphysics would have a purely
negative purpose, namely "the avoidance of stupidity."' "Although the innocence of
a healthy but uninstructed understanding requires only an organon in order to arrive
at insight," he wrote, "a propredeutic is needed to get rid of the pseudo insight of a
spoiled head." In Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, he urged the reader to investigate the
limits of human reason. But the renewed project of reform did not really take shape
for Kant untill770, the year in which he defended his Inaugural Dissertation.
2

Unlike the Nova dilucidatio, the Inaugural Dissertation is not a system of

metaphysics. Kant defines metaphysics in the Inaugural Dissertation as "philosophy
containing the first principles of the use of the pure intellect' (2.395.16-17). But
there is no mention besides this of any such first principles anywhere in the
Dissertation. Apparently, Kant has nothing to say in 1770 about either the principle
of contradiction or the principle of sufficient reason. Why the omission? The answer
is very simple. What Kant now has to offer us is at once more modest and more
fundamental, namely a specimen of a propredeutic science to which we must apply
ourselves before we can make any progress in metaphysics at all. "But that science
whereof we present a specimen in this our dissertation," he announces, "is the
propredeutic that teaches how to distinguish between sensitive knowledge and
knowledge of the intellect" (2.395.17-19). In other words, the possibility of reform in
metaphysics depends on drawing a distinction between the conditions that govern
sensibility and the conditions that govern the understanding.'
It makes perfect sense that the propredeutic should involve a distinction of this
kind. The soul is an immaterial substance, and thus we can learn nothing about its
nature from experience. The soul is not supposed to be an object of sensibility; it is
an intelligible thing, an object of the intellect. When Kant first attempted to defend
the system of physical influx, he came very close to ascribing repulsive forces to the
soul, and thus he subjected something intelligible to conditions that prevail in the
sensible world. Indeed, Kant represented all created intelligible things under the
conditions of sensibility-not just the soul, but the constitutive elements of matter as
well. Kant had argued in the Physical Monadology that the elements exercise forces
of repulsion and attraction, and that the real opposition of these forces detennines
their volwne. On Kant's account, tlte elements--anyway, the spheres of their
activity-are spatially extended; they are parts of bodies. Now Leibniz specifically
denied that elements or monads are parts of bodies, though he would have been
willing to agree that they are the foundation or the sufficient reason of all material
things. If the elements are parts of bodies, not only could we feel them by touch,
provided the nerves in our finger tips were sufficiently sensitive; perhaps we could
even see them-thro\lgh the microscope, if not with the naked eye. Kant had
apparently pushed things so far tltat he could admit no created immaterial substance
totally exempt from the conditions of sensibility. Thus we could learn much of what

104 The Inaugural Dissertation

we could ever hope to know about souls and elements from experience with the aid
of mathematics," in which case these substances must be objects of natural
philosophy. Now the proper objects of metaphysics are not supposed to be subject to
the conditions of sensibility; they are supposed to be immaterial substances--<>bjects
of pure Wlderstanding. The effect of Kant's early metaphysical projects was
apparently to deprive metaphysics of its proper object. As we know from the letter
to Mendelssohn, Kant still took the future of metaphysics very much to heart-----even
after the publication of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer. So he figured that, if metaphysics
has any object at all, we must find a way to distinguish it from the object of natural
philosophy. In other words, we must find a way to distinguish sensible things from
intelligible things, and we must find a method to preserve the latter from any further
"contagion" by the former. This is precisely what Kant proposes to do in the
Inaugural Dissertation.
So this much is already very clear at the outset of the Inaugural Dissertation: we
must make a real distinction between sensibility and the understanding. It is not
enough to say as Wolff and the followers ofLeibniz that knowledge conveyed to us
by the first faculty is somehow more confused and less distinct than knowledge
conveyed to us by the second, ''For these are just logical distinctions that do not
touch at all the things given which lie beneath all logical comparisons" (2.394.3133). If we insist on making clarity and distinctness in our representations the line
dividing sensibility and the understanding, we shall almost certainly overlook
something much more fundamental, namely the fact that the objects of these two
faculties are different, and therefore governed by different principles. Thus Wolff
and his followers have done inuneasurable damage to philosophy:
But I fear that the illustrious Wolff has, to the great detriment of philosophy, perhaps totally
abolished that noble institution of antiquity-discussion about the disposition ofphenomena and
noumen~gh this distinction between sensitive thing-; and intellectual thing<;, which to him is
purely logical; and that he has often turned souls from the investigntion of phenomena and noumena
to logical minutiae (2.395.9-14).

Kant himself had certainly entertained this logical distinction between sensitive
knowledge and intellectual knowledge in his early works. At the time of writing the
Physical Monadology, for instance, Kant would surely have said that our intellectual
knowledge of the elements is more distinct and less confused than our sensitive
knowledge of bodies and the particles of matter. But this was not enough to make
him see that objects of the first kind of knowledge are radically different from objects
of the second kind of knowledge; it was not enough to prevent him from subjecting
intelligibles to the conditions that prevail in the world of sensible things. Kant faults
Wolff in this passage of the Inaugural Dissertation, because Wolff was regarded at
the time as a great luminary in philosophical circles. That brings a greater urgency
to Kant's message: since the illustrious Wolff is an example to so many, his
unfortunate error has spread far and wide, and we must struggle mightily to correct
it. But clearly, Kcwt himself has to be one of the chief targets of this criticism. For
even Kant, who had labored so long and so hard to make progress in metaphysics,
had neglected that "noble institution of antiquity"-discussion of the phenomena
and the noumena-in preference for "logical minutiae," a distraction that doomed
his project from the very outset
Already at the begiruting of the Inaugural Dissertation, we can also see that, "No
intuition of intellectual things is given (to man), but rather symbolic cognition ..."
(2.396.19-20). Since the conditions that prevail among intelligible things are not the
same as the conditions that prevail among sensible things, intelligible things can

The Inaugural Dissertation lOS

never be an object of hwnan sensibility. Only a Swedenborg or a deluded
metaphysician could think otherwise. To be sure, says Kant, we can represent
intelligible things symbolically, dressing them in the guise of sensible things. But the
mistake is to think that such representations yield adequate knowledge of the
intelligibles, for, " ... intellectual knowledge is permitted to us only through universal
concepts in abstracto, but not through a singular concept in concreto" (2.3%.2021). We have knowledge of intelligibles through general concepts. We know the
intelligibles through genus and specific difference, but not through any singular
representation of an individual. Though a wisp of smoke might serve as a kind of
picture of the hwnan soul, we learn nothing at all about the soul by inhaling the
fumes emitted by a campfire. Neither the rising haze we see before us, nor the
stinging sensation that brings water to the eyes can tell us whether the soul is
sensitive, locomotive or rational. As Kant explains:
Besides, all the matter of our knowledge is given only by the senses, but the noumenon as such is not
to be conceived through representation; drawn from sensations. Therefore, an inlelligible concept as
such is abandoned by all things given to human intuition (2.396.27-31 ).

The objects of sensibility, on the other hand, are never given to us as the marks of
universal concepts, but always as an individual thing. Though we can never have an
intuition of the soul, it is certainly possible for a billow of smoke to fall under the
senses:
For all our intuition is subject to a certain principle of form Wider much alone something can be
discerned immediately, or as a singulor thing, by the mind; nor can it just be conceived discufflively
through general concepls (2.396.21-24).

From the standpoint of the Inaugural Dissertation, the important thing is always to
remember that a billow of smoke and the rational soul are not the same thing. The
one is an object of sensibility; the other, an object of the understanding.
The question for now, then, is how are we to make this distinction between the
sensible and the intelligible? On what grounds?
In Section Two, 3 of the Inaugural Dissertation, Kant puts it this way:
Sensibility is the receptivity of the subject through much it is possible that the subject's
representative state be affected in a definite way by the presence of some object. Intelligence
(rationality) is the foculJy of the subject through much it can represent \\bat cannot-by its very
quality-fall Wider the senses. The object of sensibility is sensible, but that much contains nothing
but \\bat is to be known by inlelligence is inlelligible. In the schools of the ancients, the first were
called phenomena, the second, noumena. Insofar as it is subject to the law.; of sensibility,
knowledge is sensitive; insofar as it is subject to the law.; of inlelligence, it is intellectual or rational
(2.392.13-21 ).

Here the distinction is purely nominal. Kant has not yet produced the different
principles that separately govern the sensibles and the intelligibles." But his very
words raise a delicate question. How can we be so confident that we can say
anything at all about intelligible things? Why is Kant emboldened here to say that
we have a power "to represent what cannot-by its very quality-fall under the
senses"? Even if the intelligible world abounds in noumena, how can we expect to
discover the principle that prevails there? Kant seems to despair in 1766 that he will
ever again find intelligible things within reach. At the end of Part Two, Chapter
Two of Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer, he writes:
Before we floated in empty space like Democritus, aloft on the butterfly wings of metaphysics, and
we even engaged with spiritual fonns. Now, since the sobering force of self-knowledge has drawn

106 The Inaugural Dissertation

together the silken~ we find ourselves once more on the humble ground of experienoe and the
common understanding. happy! if we regard it as our designated place from which we never depart
with impunity, and which also contains all that can content us so long as we stay with ~ useful
(2.368.22-30).

Kant has to be very sure in the Inaugural Dissertation that he can discover the
principle which governs the world of intelligible things without making any of the
mistakes of his early metaphysics. His prescription against such mistakes in Dreams
of a Spirit-Seer is never to ascribe forces to anything without compelling evidence
from experience: if we have no empirical evidence that souls and spirits have forces,
we must cautiously refrain from ascribing forces to them. But so long as we remain
on the "humble ground of experience," how can we learn anything at all about the
intelligible world? The intelligible world is precisely the sort of thing which is never
given to us in experience. Kant's injunction in the Dreams may well prevent us from
repeating the mistakes of his early metaphysics. But it also seems to preclude any
further progress in our understanding of things intelligible.
The best way to sort this out is first of all to see what Kant takes the principle of
the form of the intelligible world to be. As it turns out, Kant takes God to be the
principle of the form of the intelligible world. This will permit us to focus our
questions. The first question we shall want to ask is what licenses Kant's talk about
God? How can Kant say anything about God without departing from the "humble
ground of experience" and rising aloft again on the "butterfly wings of
metaphysics"? The second question we shall want to ask is how our knowledge that
God is the principle of the form of the intelligible world is supposed to prevent us
from representing intelligible things as though subject to the conditions of
sensibility. This question is all the more urgent given that Kant's reasoning follows
so closely his discussion of the principle of ~xistence in the Nova dilucidatio.
Nothing that Kant said in the Nova dilucidatio made it any more difficult to
represent intelligible things as though subject to the conditions of sensibility.
In Section Four, 16 of the Inaugural Dissertation, Kant explains why we must
not only seek the principle of tlte form of the sensible world, but that of the
intelligible world as well. The first of these principles permits us to show simply
how the "universal coordination" (coordinatio universalis) of things is possible as
given to human intuition. The objects of sensibility are appearances, after all; they
are not objects in tltemselves. Naturally, we would like to know how the sensibles
relate to one anotlter, i.e., how tltey fonn a nexus, and that is precisely why the
principle of the form of the sensible world is of interest to us. For it is" ... that which
contains the reason of the universal connection of all things insofar as they are
phenomena" (2.398.14-15). But now we would also like to know how such universal
connection is possible for the things tltemselves, not just tlteir appearances. As Kant
himself puts it, "And thus the cardinal point of the question concerning the principle
of the form of the intelligible world turns on this: that it be shown how it is possible
that a plurality of substances should mutually act upon one another ..." (2.407.710). We want to know "how tltere can be in general a connection among several
things and a totality among all tllings" (2.407.13-14).
What, then, is this ground of all mutual interaction among substances? Kant
gives an answer very close to tlte one we know from the Nova dilucidatio, "For
several given substances, the principle ofthe interaction that is possible among them
does not consist in their existence alone, but in anotlter thing that is required
besides, from which mutual relations are known" (2.407.16-18). This is, of course, a
partial statement of tlte principle of ~xistence. Kant argued in the Nova
dilucidatio that, since no substance has tlte power to effect change in itself,

The Inaugural Dissertation 107

substances do not interact just because they exist. If it is the natural tendency of
substances to preserve their state, millions of substances could exist without ever
interacting. So he concluded that there must be something besides the existence of
substances and that this extra thing must be the ultimate ground of all their
interaction. Kant seems to have preserved this line of reasoning in the Inaugural
Dissertation. He writes:
For they [suOOiances] do not necessarily relate to anything else because of their subsistence, except
perbaps to the cause of them Now the relation of the thing caused to the cause is not interaction, but
dependence. Therefore, ifsome interaction comes between them and olher ~ it is necessary for
this interaction to be determined precisely by a peruliar reason (2.407.18-22).

What "peculiar reason" could Kant have in mind here? In the Nova di/ucidatio,
Kant appointed the "schema of the divine intellect," i.e., a law of interaction decreed
by God in accordance with his infinite wisdom. One has to suppose that he has the
same thing in mind here in the Inaugural Dissertation. Even as late as 1770, God is
still the ultimate principle of all interaction among substances in the intelligible
world, if not in the world of sensible things.
The argument, as Kant presents it in the Inaugural Dissertation, is very sketchy
and very rapid indeed. He tosses it off in four very short paragraphs, 18 through
21. The main ideas seem to be as follows. The objects of the intellect are intelligible
substances that form a world or a unified whole by their interaction. For that very
reason, these substances must be contingent things, and thus the intelligible world
itself is composed of contingent things. Why so? In 18, Kant argues that a whole of
necessary substances is impossible. Tllis we learn in part from the concept of
necessary existence. If the existence of a substance is necessary, it depends on no
other existence at all. Even if nothing else existed in the universe, there would still
exist a necessary substance. So Kant concludes that necessary substances cannot
interact (18). It is not immediately obvious how the conclusion follows from the
premiss, because there seems to be an unstated assumption here. Perhaps this is the
way to flesh out the assumption. Substances that interact have a kind of mutual
dependence, for some of the determinations of one substance are produced by the
agency of another substance. But the relation of mutual dependence must be
excluded from the very concept of necessary existence. Since a necessary substance
would exist even if nothing else existed in the universe, it must be self-sufficient in
determinations. It must have all the reality that it needs to sustain itself in existence
all on its own. In effect, a necessary substance must contain all possible reality.u But
in that case, no other existing substance could add any new determination to it.
Since necessary substances are incapable of mutual dependence, it follows that
interaction is impossible for them. The intelligible world is therefore a unified whole
of interacting, i.e., contingent, tllings ( 19).
If necessary substances cannot act upon one anotl1er, it is natural to wonder what
relationship they could possibly bear to the contingent substances in the intelligible
world. Tills is the question Kant addresses in 19. Obviously, necessary substances
cannot be parts of tl1e world, " ... because the connection of co-parts is that of mutual
dependence which does not fall to the lot of a necessary being" (2.408.8-9). There is
no place for necessary substances within the intelligible world, because necessary
substances cannot interact: they neither interact amongst themselves, nor amongst
contingent things. Consequently, the only relationship a necessary substance could
bear to the intelligible world is that of cause to caused. In other words, a necessary
substance would have to have created the intelligible world and everything in it, in
order to relate to it at all. Kant never comes out and explicitly says so, but he

108 The Inaugural Dissertation

obviously takes it for granted that the intelligible world was indeed created, and that
its creator is a necessruy substance.
Where does this leave us? The same necessruy substance that created all the
contingent substances in the intelligible world is also the ground of their mutual
interaction. For all these contingent substances proceed from the same cause. The
intelligible world was created by a single agency (20). If contingent substances are
the work of different necessary beings, they cannot interact. Kant tells us that, 'The
effects of causes that are alien to all mutual relations would not interact" (2.408.1516). Interaction is no more possible among contingent things that proceed from
different necessary substances than it is possible among the necessary substances
themselves. 'Therefore," Kant concludes, "UNITY in the conjunction of substances
of the universe is the consequence of the dependence of all on one" (2.408.16-17).

A single necessary substance is thus the principle of the form of the intelligible
world. So far, Kant has not denied the possibility that there might be a number of
different necessary substances. But the contingent things created by a necessary
substance will always act upon one another~ never upon the contingent things
created by another necessary substance. It follows, says Kant in 21, that, if there is
a plurality of necessary substances, there must also be a plurality of actual worlds.
I said earlier that the argument Kant presents in 18-21 is very sketchy. Perhaps
it is not even fair to say that this is an argument. But there is no doubt what the
conclusion is supposed to be: interaction among the contingent things in the
intelligible world is possible, because all these things proceed from a common cause,
namely a certain necessary substance. This necessary substance, God. is therefore
the principle of the form of the intelligible world. Kant says here, in effect, what he
had already said in the Nova di/ucidatio: creatures do not interact just because they
exist; they interact insofar as God created them according to a certain plan. The only
important difference between the Nova dilucidatio and the Inaugural Dissertation
on this point is that Kant now imposes a restriction. He now claims that the point
applies only to real things, i.e., to objects of the intellect.
We may now try to answer the questions that I raised earlier. First of all, we
would like to know what licenses all this talk about God. Hasn't Kant violated his
own injlUlction in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer never to depart from the "humble ground
of experience." Hasn't he succumbed again to the temptation to rise aloft on the
''butterfly wings of metaphysics"? The way to answer this question is to put Kant's
injtu1ction in its proper context. The point at issue in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer is
whether we can ascribe forces to things. Kant enjoins us never to ascribe forces to
things unless we have compelling empirical evidence. Since we have no such
evidence that souls and spirits have forces, we must refrain from ascribing them any.
This is how we can avoid the risk of ascribing repulsive forces to souls and treating
souls as though they migl1t be impenetrable. As I argued in the previous chapter, the
prescription of the Dreams does not preclude all reflection on the soul-only that
which involves the ascription of forces. A fortiori, it does not preclude any reflection
on God. For there is no temptation to say that God exercises any kind of force on
things. Kant can perfectly well say the tlungs he has to say about God in the
Inaugural Dissertation~en by tl1e lights of his earlier self in Dreams of a SpiritSeer. Kant's talk about God in tl1e Inaugural Dissertation is supposed to follow
Wlcontroversially from a conception of God we have all formed in our intellect.
Whether it does so follow is, of course, another question.
We now come to the second question tlmt I raised earlier. As I have argued,
Kant's argument that God is the principle of the form of the intelligible world
follows very closely his discussion of the principle of co-existence in the Nova

The Inaugural Dissertation 109

dilucidatio. Nothing in the Nova dilucldatio prevented Kant from representing
intelligible things as though subject to the conditions of sensibility. So now we
would like to know how his discussion of God in the Inaugural Dissertation will
prevent any further sensuous representations of intelligible things.
The first thing to note on that score is that calling on God will be of no use at all
to Kant if Kant misrepresents the supreme being. We can as easily represent God in
sensible terms as we can represent souls and spirits-even without ascribing any
forces to him. One of the most difficult tasks of philosophical theology has always
been to discover a way of conceiving of God without importing anything from the
senses. IfKant's conception of God is already tainted by sensibility, nothing he has
to say in Section Four of the Inaugural Dissertation will help him combat the errors
of his early metaphysics. But notice that Kant's discussion of God there always
seems to turn on the concept of necessary existence. Kant conceives of God in the
Inaugural Dissertation as that being which exists with absolute necessity-unlike
any other being. It is no accident that Kant conceives of God in this way. For Kant
seems to think that this conception of God is formed by the intellect without
importing anything at all from the senses. This I gather from an interesting passage
in the Preisschri.ft.
Kant's point in the Preisschri.ft is that, having conceived God as existing with
absolute necessity, we recognize that God is unlike anything else in existence.
Having recognized that God is unlike anything else in existence, we shall find it very
difficult to confuse his properties with those of other things-all the more difficult,
because God's properties are absolutely necessary, and they never undergo change.
For this reason. Kant concluded that our concept of God's necessary existence is
more distinct and more certain than almost any other concept in philosophy:
The easiest and the most distinct distinction of one thing from all olhers is possible if this thing is the
only possible one of its kind. The object of natural religion is the wtique, first cause. Its
determinatiom are such that they cannot be easily confused with those of other tiling;. But the
greatest oonviction is possible \\bere it is ab!olutely necessary that these and no other predicates
bel~ to a thing. For, with contingent determinations, it is in most cases difficult to discover the
changing conditiom of its predicates. Thus the absolutely necessary bein!f!3 is an object of the kind
that, just as soon as one is on the right trail of its concept, it seems to promise more certainty than
most other philosophical knowledge (2.296.17-28).

Kant makes it very clear in the Preisschri.ft that the relevant way to conceive of God
is as that which exists with absolute necessity:
In order to fonn this concept [of God], [we] must first ask whether it is possible that nothing at all
exists. Ifnow [we see] that no existence at all is given, nor anything to think, and that no possibility
obtains, then [we] must seek only the concept of that being which must lay the ground of all
possibility. This thought will extend itsel( and it will settle the detmninate concept of the ab!olutely
necessary being (2.297.1-7).

Now precisely because it is possible to conceive God's necessary existence with the
greatest possible certainty and distinction. Kant also claims in the Preisschri.ft that
we can deduce the concepts of his other properties with great ease. "As soon as the
existence of the unique, most perfect and necessary being is known." he says, "the
concepts of his remaining determinations become much more distinct-because they
are always the greatest and the most perfect-and more certain. because only those
can be admitted that are necessary'' (2.297.8-12). Thus we may confidently derive
God's omnipresence from the concept of his necessary existence, and so too his
foreknowledge.

110 The Inaugural Dissertation

Metaphysical knowledge of God, based as it is on our concept of his necessary

existence, is therefore most certain, unlike our moral knowledge of his free agency,
his justice or his providence. For Kant says that we can learn about these attributes
only by reflecting on human counterparts and by extrapolating. In other words, we
must depend on our knowledge of things down here in order to acquire moral
knowledge of things above. We must assume, for example, that what we know of
human justice will teach us something about the divine, even though the one is
infinitely more perfect than the other. Because we must find a human analogon to
acquire moral knowledge of God, there is always a risk of confusing the properties of
created things with those of the creator. We face no such risk in acquiring
metaphysical knowledge. For the concept of God's necessary existence has no
analogon anywhere in creation. God alone exists with absolute necessity:
However, in all parts \Were we do not find an ana/ogon of contingency, the metaphysical
knowledge of God is very certain But the judgement about his free actions, his provider=, the ways
of his justice and his goodness, can have certainty in this science only through approximation, or a
certainty that is moral. For there is still much that is quite undeveloped even in the concepts that we
have ofthese determinations in oun;elves (2.297.31-37).

The great virtue of our concept of God's necessary existence is that it does not rest
on any kind of analogy. Thus it is one of the most distinct and the most certain
concepts in all of metaphysics. Now the passages I just quoted are from the
Preisschrijl of 1764, but there is no reason to believe that Kant would have changed
his mind on any of this by 1770. So we can now see the attrnction that the concept of
God's necessary existence would presumably have exerted on Kant as he was
writing the Inaugural Dissertation. Precisely because this concept rests on no
analogy of any kind, our knowledge of God will remain free from the taint of
sensibility so long as we keep a fix on it.
Our question has been how Kant can prevent us from representing intelligible
things as though they were subject to the conditions of sensibility. Part of the answer
to this question has to be that Kant conceives of God as a necessary existence. For
Kant takes God to be the principle of the form of the intelligible world, and the
concept of necessary existence excludes anything that the senses might teach us. But
this can only be part of the answer. Even if Kant can show us that community
among things in the intelligible world depends on God, he will still have work to do
to show us that things in the intelligible world never mingle with things in the
sensible world.
The solution to this problem is to impose a certain restriction. Kant will have to
find a way to keep the objects of sensibility apart from the objects of the intellect, and
he will have to show that the principle of the form of the sensible world is different
from the principle of the form of the intelligible world. But this strategy will involve
an important modification to the doctrines of the Nova dilucidatio. At the time that
Kant wrote the Nova dilucidatio, he believed that the schema of God's intellect and
the mutual interaction among creatures issuing from it were the sufficient reason of
the world as a whole. He believed that they were the sufficient reason of creatures
and their relational properties. The relational properties he had in mind were spatial,
in the first instance, and sensible, in the second instance. I say that he had sensible
properties in mind insofar as the sensible ones depend on the spatial ones (as, for
example, weight and impenetrability in bodies). Now, in the Inaugural Dissertation,
Kant wants to argue that these spatial and sensible properties do not proceed in any
straightforward way from the schema of God's intellect. He wants to argue that these
properties do not have their ground in any real thing in itself: he now thinks that

The Inaugural Dissertation 111

these properties are subjective and that they depend on the very nature of human
sensibility. Thus Kant writes:
But the world, insofar as it is considered a phenomenon. i.e., with respea to the sensuality of the
human mind, does not know any principle of its fonn save a subjective one, i.e., a settled law of the
soul on account of which it is necessal)' that all~ which can be objects of the semes (through
the quality of the semes), are seen necessarily to belong to the same whole. So whatever be, then,
the principle of the fonn of the sensible world, there will be included in it, however, only actual
things insofar as they can be considered as falling under the senses. Therefore neither immaterial
substances, which as such are excluded by definition fiom the external semes, nor the cause of the
world ... can be objects ofthe semes (2.398.16-26).

Precisely because spatial and sensible properties depend on the conditions of human
sensibility, whereas conununity among immaterial substances depends on the
schema of God's intellect, Kant thinks that he can show rigorously that immaterial
substances cannot fall under the senses. This is useful, he thinks, because it offers us
a method for exposing and correcting systematically the false representation of
immaterial substances that Kant had found so worrisome in his own system of the
world. I shall discuss this method in some detail in section four of the present
chapter.
Before pushing on, there is one more thing to note. Kant's strategy in the
Inaugural Dissertation is to show that the spatial and sensible properties of things
are cut off from the realm of immaterial substances and so depend on certain
principles of human sensibility. He proceeds to argue--or anyway to claim-that the
principles in question are space and time. Kant himself states the claim in the
following terms. He says that, "These formal principles of the phenomenal universe
are two, as I shall presently demonstrate. They are space and time, which are
absolutely first, catholic and besides as it were the schemata and conditions of all
sensitive things in human knowledge" (2.398.27-29). This claim is interesting for a
number of reasons. First of all, it introduces a new and important twist in Kant's
conception of space and time. In the Nova dilucidatio, Kant treated time as nothing
more than the order of succession-as nothing apart from things that undergo
change. Moreover, he treated space as nothing apart from things that externally
relate to each other. He considered both space and time as residual effects of mutual
interaction among creatures. But now in the Inaugural Dissertation Kant grants
space and time a new priority. He treats them not as consequences, but as the very
grounds of mutual interaction among things-insofar as these things are objects of
the senses. Kant says of space, for example, that it is first-prior to the sensible
things that externally relate to one another:
And so space is the formal principle of the sensible world; it is absolutely first, not only by vil1ue
of the fact that it is only through its concept that objects of the universe might be pbenomena, but
rather indeed for this reason: by its essence it cannot but be unique, containing absolutely all
externally sensible lhin!}'l. and therefore it constitutes the principle of the universitatis, i.e., of the
whole, which cannot be a part of another whole (2.405.6-11).

The claim here is that space would exist even if it were empty. But while Kant
claims that space is really distinct from the tllings in space, he resists the conclusion
that space itself is something real. "Space is not something objective and real," he
insists, "it is neither substance, nor accident, nor relation; but rather it is subjective
and ideal, proceeding from the nature of the nlind by a fixed law, as a schema for
coordinating amongst themselves absolutely all externally sensible things"

(2.403 .23 .26).

112 The Inaugural Dissertation

So the interesting thing here is first of all Kant's claim that space and time are
prior to things in space and time and second of all his claim that space and time are
in some sense subjective principles. Both these claims will reappear with further
qualifications in the Critique ofPure Reason as mainstays of Kant's new doctrine of
transcendental idealism. But both of them here serve the special purpose of the
Inaugural Dissertation: namely to set up conditions for interaction among sensible
things distinct and separate from the conditions of community among the objects of
the intellect. I will suggest now, without further argument, that the original
motivations for some of the basic claims of the Transcendental Aesthetic in the first
Critique lie here in the Inaugural Dissertation.

3
The main purpose of this chapter is to show that Kant's distinction between the
principle of the form of the intelligible world and the principles of the form of the
sensible world gave Kant a method for exposing and correcting the error of his early
metaphysics-a method, that is, for correcting his false representation of immaterial
substances as determined by the conditions of sensibility. I shall discuss this method
in some detail in the following section of the present chapter. But for now I would
like to make an observation about Kant's new conception of space.' As I argued in
the preceding section, Kant's strategy depends on setting up space and time as
conditions of interaction among things insofar as these things are objects of human
sensibility. I pointed out that Kant now grants space and time a special priority that
he deliberately refused them in his early metaphysics. To spell out the consequences
of this move, one would not go so far wrong to say that Kant makes space and time
play the role of God in the sensible realm. Indeed, what I would like to point out
now is that there is a peculiar analogy between space and God in the Inaugural
Dissertation. The same kinds of things that Kant says about God he also says about
space. The difference is just that space is one of the principles governing things in
the sensible realm.
Let me begin by reviewing what Kant has to say about God in the Inaugural
Dissertation. The important thing to bear in mind is that Kant conceives of God as
something with necessary existence. Tilis is notlling new to the Inaugural
Dissertation. There is evidence of it in t11e Nova dilucidatio of 1755, the
Beweisgrund of 1763 and the Preisschrift of 1764. Kant is concerned to show in
these early works that God has necessary existence, not especially because he wants
to show that God exists. He is much more interested in knowing what God is than in
knowing that God is. Kant hopes that the argument for God's necessary existence
will lead to a special understanding of God's nature. The argument in a nutshell
runs as follows.
Nothing at all would exist, nor would anything at all be possible, if God himself
did not exist. Since it is impossible that nothing should be possible, God must exist
with absolute necessity. Furthermore, since God's necessary existence lays the
ground of all possibility, it must contain t11e real in every possible to the highest
degree of perfection.
As stated, the argument raises t11e following question: what does Kant mean by
the "real in every possible"? K.mt is presupposing a distinction between "formal
possibility" and "real possibility," as he will later put it in the Beweisgrund. It seems
that fonnal possibility has to do with securing propositions from formal
inconsistency. If we can judge tlmt p without violating the law of contradiction, the
state of affairs p is fon11ally possible. But Kant is not especially interested in the

The Inaugural Dissertation 113

conditions offonnal possibility. He is much more interested in the conditions of real

possibility. In the demonstration of Proposition 7 in the Nova di/ucidatio, Kant says
that possibility is a sort of combining. He says that the real possibility of a triangle
depends on the possibility of combining certain geometrical figures. Then he says
that all combining presupposes that there be something real to combine. We cannot
explain how triangles are possible simply by observing that we can conceive of them
without violating the law of contradiction; if there were nothing real-no line
segments, nor any Euclidean planes-we could never say that triangles are really
possible. In other words, we could not say that triangles are constructible figures. So
the so-called "real" in every possible is whatever it takes for something to be more
than fonnally possible. In the example Kant considers in the Nova di/ucidatio, the
real in a possible triangle is whatever a geometer will need in order to construct the
triangle. Now Kant proceeds to argue in the Nova dilucidatio that nothing is really
possible," ... unless whatever is real in every possible notion exists ... with absolute
necessity'' (1.395.11-13). Then, he proceeds to argue that all the real in every
possible notion must be wlited in a single being. That which is real in a notion not
only exists with absolute necessity, it exists wlited in a single being along with the
real in every other notion. So the possible is possible, because a certain being exists
with absolute necessity, a being in which all the real in every possible notion is
assembled. If this being did not exist, not only would nothing else exist; nothing at
all would be possible-and tllis, says Kant. is utterly inconceivable." It follows, then,
that some being must exist with absolute necessity. What other being could this be
besides God? To say that God exists with absolute necessity is just to say that God is
the most real of things. He is that being in which all tltat is real is assembled.
Whatever one makes of the argument as such, the important thing to see is that it
is supposed to make us think of God as that which is most real and so the condition
of possibility of anything that is really possible. God is the origin of all things insofar
as they are real. Kant describes God in the Nova dilucidatio as the "well-spring of
all reality'' (omnis realitatisfons) (1.396.1-2). He makes the point once again, and at
greater length. in the Inaugural Dissertation. Thus he writes:
But in any kind of thing<; \\hereof the quantity is variable, the maximum is the conunon measure
and the principle ofknowledge. The maximwu of perfection, called an idea by Plato (as the idea of
the republic itself) and now these da~ called an ideal, is the principle of all thing<; contained under
the general notion of some perfection insofar as it can be reckoned that lesser degrees are not
detenuinable save by limitation ofthe maximwn But, as the ideal of perfection, God is the principle
ofknowledge; as really existing. he is at the same time the principle of the becoming of all perfection
all together(2.396.l0-l7).

The word "perfection" in this passage is a correlate of the word "reality." As Kant
explains in a footnote to the announcement of his lectures for the academic year
1759/1760, " ... something is perfect in the absolute sense only insofar as the
manifold in it contains the ground of a reality. The ntagnitude of this reality
determines the degree of perfection" (2.30.34-37). God is the maximwn of
perfection, precisely because he contains t11e maximwn of all reality. Creatures are
less perfect than God insofar as they contain a lesser reality. Since lesser degrees of
perfection are lirnitations of tltat which is most perfect, the real in creatures is but a
limitation of the highest reality contained in God. Apart from that which is most
real, the real in creatures would be nothing at all.
From the fact that God is the most real thing and the source of reality in all other
things, it is supposed to follow that God is infinite, for his perfections are without
nwnber. But God is also simple. He is not the sum of his perfections. Otherwise, he
would be the consequence, rather than the ground of all reality. The realities that

114 The Inaugural Dissertation

proceed from God are not parts of the divine being, but limitations of the real that he
contains. Now the thing to see is that tltis brief characterization of God's nature
applies equally to space and time as tlte principles of the fonn of the sensible world.
In the Inaugural Dissertation, Kant conceives of space and time as the highest
possible reality in the realm of sensible things. Just as God contains all the real in
every possible of the intelligible world, so space contains every possible region and
so time contains every possible moment. No region is given except as a limitation of
the whole of given space; no moment is given except as a limitation of the whole of
given time. Thus space and time are absolutely necessruy in the world of sensible
things. For without them, it would be absolutely impossible to represent something
either as occupying a place somewhere or as succeeding another thing at a certain
moment. As Kant himself puts it," ... neither a point, nor a moment can be thought
by themselves, but they are conceived only in space and time already given, as
though they were the boundaries of the same" (2.405.20-22). Moments and regions
would be no more possible in the sensible world without time and space than the
intelligibles would be possible without God. Thus time and space are given with the
same necessity to human sensibility as the existence of God is given to immaterial
substances of the intelligible world.
The analogy does not stop here, however. For both space and time are infinite.
Just as God contains infinitely many perfections, so space contains infinitely many
regions; and time, infinitely many moments. And yet, the simplicity of space and
time is no more compromised than the simplicity of the divine being. Space is not
the swn of its regions, nor is time the swn of its moments. Otherwise, the priority
would be reversed: space would be the consequence rather than the ground of all
regions; likewise for time and moments. Regions are no more parts of space, and
moments are no more parts of time, than perfections are parts of God. There is no
composition in either space or time, because they are not fonned out of simple
things. Points are not the fundamental constituents of space; on the contrary, they
are nothing more thmt limitations.
Suppose we construct a line segment on a Euclidemt plane. Let us divide the
segment in half; let us divide tlte half in half, tlten tlte quarter, the sixteenth and so
on. The point is sometlting contained witltin our line segment, and the halving
operation brings us closer mtd closer to it. We would not have tltis point, or any
other, were it not for tlte properties oftlte Euclidean plane. Thus space is not fonned
as a composite of points; ratlter tlte points are given to us as limitations of space.
What is true of points and space is also true of moments and time. "In the intuitions
[of space and time]," says Kant, "the parts, and simple things more especially, do
not contain the reason of the possibility of the composite, as the laws of reason
instruct, but, following the exemplar of sensitive intuition, the infinite contains the
reason ofthe part wltich is tltinkable, and finally it contains the reason of the simple
or rather the boundary" (2.405.15-18). "For no definite space and time is assignable
by limiting," continues Kant, "except through both tlte infinite given space and the
infinite given time" (2.405.18-20). Thus the point is a limit of space, and the
moment is a limit of time, just as a created substance is a limit of the real contained
in God. So like tlte divine being, space mtd time are simple things. Moreover, they
are unique, for there is only one time and only one space.
As if to allay any doubt tlmt tltere is indeed some kind of analogy between God
and the principles of sensitive cogttition, Kmtt has tltis to say in the Scholium at the
end of Section Four:
Hence it [the human mind] does not sense external tiJin&'; save by the presenre of the same common
sustaining cause; and therefore space. mudl is the univ=al and necessruy cause of the com-

The Inaugural Dissertation liS

presence of all thing. known by the senses, can be called the PHENOMENAL OMNIPRESENCE.
(For the cause of the universe IS not present to one and all, jw;t because it is in the same places they
.are, but rather there are places, i.e., possible relations ofsubstances, because it is intimately present to
all things.) Besides, since the possibility of the changes and the successions of all ~ whose
principle resides in the concept of time insofar as it is known by the senses, supposes the endurability
ofthe subject whose opposite slates succeed one another, but since a thing. whose states are flowing.
does not endure Wlless it is sustained by another: the concept of time as the unique and immutable
infinite, in which are all thing. and in which all ~ persist, is the phenomenal eternity of the
general cause (2.409 .34-41 0.12).

There is no question that space, time and God all have something in conunon just by
being principles of the fonn of their respective worlds. To that extent, it is surely fair
to say that the Inaugural Dissertation is built on some kind of analogy: the principle
of the fonn of every world must be necessary; it must contain all the real in its
world; it must be unique, infinite and simple.
4

Kant makes it very clear in Section Five oftheinaugural Dissertation that the great
virtue of this propaedeutic science he has founded is to help us avoid the kind of
mistakes that he himself had made in his early system of metaphysics. Having
produced the principles of the fonn of both the sensible and the intelligible world,
and having shown that the principles governing the first world are radically different
from the one that governs the second, Kant believes he can offer us a method for
exposing and correcting the "metaphysical error of subreption" (vitium subreptionis
metaphysicum), the "contagion" (contagium) of sensibility among the objects of the
intellect. In other words, he believes he can offer us a method for testing axioms and
basic postulates of metaphysics to see whether they bear the trace of sensibility and,
if so, to purify them
At the begiruring of 24 in Section Five, Kant writes, "Every method of
metaphysics regarding sensitive things and intellectual things returns especially to
this precept: we must diligently beware that the domestic principles of sensitive
knowledge do not quit their boundaries and affect intellectual thingi' (2.411.28-31 ).
Such a method is desperately needed, he continues in 25, because the intellect is so
very easily led into error. It throws itself "under the protection" (sub patrocinio) of
the following principle, "Whatever cannot be known at all through any intuition is
not to be thinkable at all" (2.413.10-11). This principle is true enough in its own
right, says Kant; but somehow tl1e intellect is always tempted to draw the hasty and
unfounded inference that whatever cannot be known through any intuition is
therefore utterly impossible." This is the fatal mistake, according to Kant. Because
all our intuitions are infallibly governed by the principles of sensibility, we come to
recognize that something like an intellectual intuition is humanly impossible. It is
not given to us to perceive the intelligibles directly through the understanding.
Therefore, to safeguard the possibility of intelligible things, we yield to temptation,
and we subject these things to tl1e conditions of space and time.
This could do very well as a diagnosis of tl1e errors tlmt Kant himself had made
in his early works. Convinced as he was that immaterial substances must have
spatio-temporal determinations as long as they really interact, Kant as good as took
it for granted that the intelligibles were possible--or at any rate, conceivable for
l.JS-{)nly as Dlade over in the guise of sensibilia; and thus he fell into the
metaphysical error of subreption. Little wonder that Kant should feel so acutely the
need for a method "regarding sensitive things and intellectual things in
metaphysics." In 24 of the Inaugural Dissertation, he writes, " ... and thus I call

116 The Inaugural Dissertatio11

such a hybrid axiom, which would retail sensitive things for things that adhere
necessarily to an intellectual concept, a subreptive axiom. And from these spurious
axioms there did certainly arise principles for deceiving the intellect that laid waste
to all of metaphysics" (2.412.9-13). Who can help but think that Kant himself felt
especially responsible for having unleashed such disastrous principles among
philosophers?
The principle behind Kant's method for coping with subreptive axioms is the
following, " ... if there is predicated generally of any intellectual concept anything
that pertains to the relations of SPACE AND TIME, it is not to be affinned
objectively, and it denotes nothing save the condition without which the given
concept is not knowable by the senses" (2.412.22-413.1 ). Kant presupposes that
every judgment has a subject and a predicate, and that the predicate is the principle
whereby we learn something about the subject. In the judgment, "God is eternal," for
example, the predicate "eternal" ascribes a certain attribute to the divine being; we
know God in this judgment through the attribute of eternity. Now the subjects and
predicates of judgments can be either sensitive or intellectual; they can either
correspond to intuitions governed by the conditions of space and time or to concepts
formed by the wtderstanding. Every intellectual concept expresses the real state of
objects in themselves, but a sensitive concept can only express the subjective
conditions governing the object as appearance or phenomenon:
Thus, since whatever is sensitive in knowledge depend<; on the special character of the subjea
insofar as it is capable of this or another modification by the presence of objects, much modifications
can be different in different circumstances according to the changes of the subjects; but (since]
whatever knowledge is exempt from such sul~ective conditions relates only to the objea itself it
seems that~ kno\W by the senses are representations of things as apparent, mule intellectual
~are representations of~ as they really are (2.392.23-29).

No problem arises so long as sensitive knowledge is predicated of a sensitive subject,

or intellectual knowledge is predicated of an intellectual subject. In the first case, we
form a judgment strictly in accordance with the appearances; in the second case, we
form a judgment strictly in accordance with what we know to be true of objects in
themselves. The trouble is caused by predicating sensitive knowledge of intellectual
concepts, as though the predicate in such a judgment could express the real state of
the subject:
For because the predicate in any judgment, much is affumed intellectually, is the condition
without much the subject is not to be asserted, the predicate is thus the principle ofknowing: if it is a
sensitive concept, it will only be the condition of possible sensitive knowledge, and therefore it will
especially suit the subject in a judgment \\h05e concept is likewise sensitive. And if it be applied to
an intellectual concept, such a judgment will be valid only by virtue of subjective laws. Hence it is
not to be objectively proclain1ed and predicated of the intellectual notion itself; but only as a
condition without which there is no place for sensitive knowledge ofthe given concept (2.411.31412.5).

If we have a judgment in whlch the subject is conceived intellectually and the

predicate sensitively, the subject pertains to the object itself, but the predicate can
express only the sensible conditions goveming the object as appearance. It is a
mistake to think that we can objectively affirm a sensitive predicate of an intellectual
subject.
Kant claims that there are three kinds of delusion giving rise to subreptive
axioms. These delusions are all based on one of the following three principles:
1. The S3ll1e sensitive condition, under much alone the intuition of an object is possible, is the
condition of the possibility ofthe object ito;elf.

'

j
.l

The Inaugural Dissertation 117

2. The same lleiiSitive condition, W1der \MUch alone things given can be taken together for the
formation of an intellectual concept of the object, is also the condition of the ~ibi1ity of the
objeaiUelf.
3. The same sensitive coodition, under \MUch alone the subsumption of any enoountered object
under a given intellectual concept, is also the coodition of the ~ibility of the objea iUelf
(2.413.22-29).

It is useful to consider some of Kant's examples of the subreptive axioms that can
follow from these principles. For here we find Kant exposing and correcting the
errors of metaphysics. and indeed the errors ofhis own metaphysics.
Kant lists Crusius' fundamental maxim in 27 as an example of a subreptive
axiom of the first kind. According to Crusius, whatever is, is somewhere,
somewhen. It is plain that this maxim follows from the first of the three illusory
principles, because it presupposes that space and time, the sensitive conditions Wlder
which alone the intuition of an object is possible, are the conditions of the possibility
ofthe object itself. No thing exists except as given in some place at some time. Kant
had been critical of this maxim-for other reasons--even before the publication of
the Inaugural Dissertation," but it is not unfair to say that he himself had
unwittingly made it the key-stone of his own system. After all, he argued in the
Nova dilucidatio that God sustains all creatures-even immaterial substances-in a
certain community of forces; and he argued, moreover, that creatures must all have
spatio-temporal determinations as a result. Not surprisingly, Kant is critical, in this
passage of the Inaugural Dissertation, of precisely the concerns that had
preoccupied him so intently in his earlier works. He cites, in particular, the problem
of the soul's presence in the material world:
Hence, concerning the place of inunaterial substances in the COipOI'e3l Wliverse ... , concerning the
seat of the soul and other ~ of the kind, empty questions are tossed about; and since sensitive
~ are improperly mingled with intellectual ~ as the square and the round, it very often
happens that, among the parties to the discussion, the one seems to milk a ram \MUle the other hold<;
out the sieve (2.414.2-7).

Kant himself had tussled witl1 a dairy ram. For, to all intents and purposes, he had
located the rational soul in the sphere of its activity, i.e., in the place where it exerts,
and suffers the effects of, certain forces: the difficulty had always been to show that
these forces were not original forces of repulsion. Kant now proceeds in his
indictment, even praising Euler for admitting his ignorance of the way souls and
bodies act upon one another:
But space does not contain the conditions of ~ible mutual actions, except for those of matter,
indeed, it absolutely escapes the human intellea ~ constitutes the external relations of forces in
inunaterial substances either ~ themselves or between them and bodies, as-for imtance--the most peo;picacious Euler-a great investigator and judge of phenomena in other things-noted
acutely in letters sent to a certain princess ofGermany(2.414.9-1S).

It is not surprising that Kant should bring up Euler here. The metaphysics of the
early Kant lapsed into the error of subreption, precisely because it subjected the soul
to the conditions that govern material things. As I argued earlier, it is almost
impossible to conceive the soul, on Kant's accoWJt, in any other way except as
impenetrable. Now Euler would have foWld this especially appalling, because of his
antipathy to materialists, free-thinkers, atheists and SWldry villains. One of Euler's
chief concerns in philosophy was to defend the radical distinction between the soul
and the body. He makes this very clear in the letters to the German princess noted by
Kant in the passage I cited above. Though Euler was a champion of physical influx,
he preferred to deny that we can Wlderstand how physical influx is possible, or how

118

The Inaugural Dissertation

it takes place, rather than admit that the agency of the soul is anything like the
agency of the body. By 1770, Kant was in total agreement with Euler."
It is also interesting to consider what Kant has to say about the subreptive axioms
that fall under the second principle. For here again, we find him openly critical of
some of the basic presuppositions of his earlier works.
There are two subreptive axioms of the second kind: the first affects our
knowledge of quantity; the second, our knowledge of quality. Kant formulates the
first axiom as follows," ... every multitude is countable; and, therefore, every
quantity is finite ..." (2.415.11-12); and thus the second," ... whatever is impossible
contradicts itselj (2.415.12-13). The subreption in these axioms is hard to detect,
because there is no overt appeal to the conditions of sensibility. But Kant argues that
time is presupposed in each "as a means ... of informing the concept of the
predicate" (2.415.15). We infect the intellectual concepts of quantity and quality
with conditions of human sensibility, because it is only through time that these
concepts are within reach of us. In other words, we tacitly call upon the second of
the three basic, illusory principles, for we assume that the same sensitive condition,
under which alone things given can be brought together for the formation of an
intellectual concept of the object, is also the condition of the possibility of the object
itself
Let us begin with the subreption in the axiom of quantity. According to Kant, we
can have distinct knowledge of any quantity or series only through "successive
coordination" (per coordinationem successivam). In order to acquire distinct
knowledge about a certain quantity, we must count the things in a given manifold
one by one. Likewise, to acquire distinct knowledge about a series, one must survey
its members in order, one after the next. This takes time. So it would seem that, only
by the help of time, can we form the intellectual concept of either quantity or series.
Now the successive coordination of the members of a manifold can only be brought
to an end in a finite period of time. We recognize from the limits of the
understanding that distinct knowledge of an infinite manifold is impossible, for the
enumeration of its members would never come to an end. But we hastily infer that
such a manifold itself must be strictly impossible. This hasty inference, says Kant, is
an illusion which arises by assuming that a certain law of the understanding and a
certain law of sensibility are one and tl1e same.
According to the law of the understanding, every consequence has its ground,
and every series of consequences, its principle (principium). For example, the
understanding must lay it down as a postulate, on Kant's view, that every child has a
natural father, and that every human being, who ever was or who ever will be, is an
offspring of the first man. Thus it is intellectually impossible for the regress from
consequence to ground to continue without end. The understanding is confident
that-in principle-it can trace tl1e ancestry of anybody it pleases all the way back to
Adanl. According to the law of sensibility, on the otl1er hand, every series has a
definite beginning (initium). If we wish to determine the length of a strip of carpet,
we must find some place to lay down the beginning of our tape measure. Unlike the
law of the understanding, the law of sensibility does not govern the relation of
ground to consequence (or the dependence of the part on the whole, to use Kant's
expression), it governs measurement. We fall into the error of subreption,
concluding that an infinite manifold must be impossible in itself, when we take these
two laws of our separate faculties of knowledge to be identical.
The illusion is this: we suppose that the intellect requires not only an assignable
end to every regress, but also a beginning. We suppose, in other words, that every
series or quantity must be finite. But Kant obviously thinks that such an assumption

The Inaugural Dissertation 119

is unwarranted. He must figure that, even if Adam were indeed the founder of the

hwnan race, and thus the assignable end of every genealogy, Adam's progeny can
continue to proliferate indefinitely. According to the law of the understanding, then,
there is no reason why the series of Adam's descendants cannot be infinite in the
downward or progressive direction. In that case, there would be no determinate
beginning in the opposite direction, because the understanding could begin its
regress back to Adam wherever it pleased in the series. It could trace the ancest:Jy of
Jacob, but it might also trace the ancest:Jy of King David. Kant must also figure that
infinite manifolds are possible from the standpoint of sensibility." For example, it
would be poss1ble to produce one end of a given line segment indefinitely. Though
the consequent ray would have no end, it would have a definite beginning. If we
confuse the requirements of sensibility and understanding, we must deny the
possibility of infinite manifolds, and thus we fall prey to illusion.
Kant argues that this is the origin of a lot of deluded metaphysics. Among other
things, he cites a basic principle of the Physical Monadology, the postulate that
every body is composed of a definite number of elements or simple substances:
In the same way, to the argument ofthe intellect, by much it is proved that, for a given substantial
composite, there would be given principles of composition, i.e., simple ~ there is added
something counl.elfeit secretly learnt from sensitive oognition, namely that the regress in such a
composite ofthe parts in the compositioo would not be given to inflllity, ie., that a defmite nwnber
of parts would be given in any composite. The meaning of this counl.elfeit notioo is certainly not a
twin of the first notioo [i.e., the legitimate argument of the intellect), aJ1d is therefore heedlessly
substituted for it. Thus, that the size ofthe world should be limited (that it not be a maximwn); that it
admowl~ the principle of it; that bodies OOJISist of simple thing;: all this can certainly be known
by an infulbble sign of reason But that the universe should be mathematically finite with respect to
mass; that the age of the world should be measurable; that any body should OOJISist of a definite
nwnber of simple thing;: these are propositions that clearly speak of their origin in the nature of
sensitive knowledge; aJ1d however they can be held for true in other respects, they labor nevertheless
from the blemish of their doubtful origin (2.41 S.J0-416.9).

Precisely because Kant confused the law of the understanding and the law of
sensibility, he assumed in the Physical Monadology that the simple things in every
body must be finite in number, and thus he subjected objects of the understanding to
the conditions that govern appearances.
Likewise, our intellectual knowledge of qualities falls into the metaphysical error
of subreption when we Wliversally subject tl1e law of contradiction to the conditions
of time. Of course, it is perfectly reasonable to appeal to time in the formulation of
the law of contradiction, because it is impossible for a certain quality and its opposite
to belong to any sensible tiling at one and the same moment. But we may not take
the temporal formulation of this law as a universal definition of the impossible.
According to Kant, we may not say tlmt, " ... every impossibility simultaneously is
and is not ... " (2.416.17). For not all things are subject to the conditions of
sensibility. The impossible of t11e intelligible world cannot be the same as the
impossible of the sensible world, even if we lmve no way of discovering the
difference for ourselves. All sorts of illusions have proliferated throughout
metaphysics, precisely because we have confidently assumed that something is
possible when no impossibility can be detected according to the conditions of
sensibility. It is surely significant that Kant singles out the notion of forces exerted
by immaterial substances to illustrate his point:
Hence so many vain inventions offorces, of what I do not know, of thing; oonoocted at pleasure,
much forces-without the obstacle of contradiction-rushed fOrth in a twnuh from any
architectonic mind, or ifyou'd rather, from any mind given to chimeras. For since a force is nothing
other than a relation of a substance A to something else B (an accident) as rationis to rationatum,

120 The Inaugural Dissertation

the poosibility of a force does not rest on the identity of causae and causati, or that of substance
and accident; and, therefore, the impossibility of falsely ooncocted flli\'Ql does not depend solely on
contradiction. Consequently, it is permitted to assume no original force as poosible, unless it be
given by experience, nor can its poosibility be conceived a priori by any insight of the intellect

(2.416.30-417.3).

Since the metaphysician can find no contradiction in his postulate of a comnnmity of

forces among immaterial substances in the sensible world, he takes it for granted
that such forces are possible, and thus fiction passes for truth. The only original
forces that we may admit as possible are those disclosed to us in experience, namely
the forces of attraction and repulsion. We may not blithely assume that immaterial
substances can impress forces on one another the same way that bodies do. For even
though this assumption contains no violation of the law of contradiction, as
formulated in temporal terms for the world of sensible things, it rests on the
mistaken idea that the conditions governing the objects of sensibility and the
conditions governing the objects of the Wlderstanding are one and the same. The
original forces of attraction and repulsion in bodies are possible only in space and
time. Immaterial substances would have to have spatio-temporal determinations
before they could impress such forces on one another; and this, says Kant, is
inconceivable.

We have here an echo from Dreams of a Spirit-Seer and the letter to Moses
Mendelssohn. It is worth quoting from both of these pieces once again. Kant sums
up the lesson of Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer at the end of that work as follows:
... it is ~ible for us ever to see by reason how something could be a cause or have a foro:; rather
these relations must be taken exclusively from experience. For our rule of reason governs only
oomparison according to identity and contradiction. Insofar as something is a cause, then, through
something, something else must be given, and thus no connection is to be encountered through
agreement (with the law of contradiction]; just as no contradiction arises when I do not regard the
same as a cause, because if something is given, it is no contradiction to take something else away.
Thus the fund:unental concepts of thing'> as causes, the concepts of flli\'Ql and actions, are utterly
arbitrary if they are not drawn from experience. TI-.ey can be neither proved, nor disproved

(2.370.11-22).

And from the letter to Mendelssohn:

... the upshot of all this is that one is led to ask \o\bether it is intrin<;ically poosible to detennine these
powers of spiritual substances by means of a priori rational judgments. This investigation resolves
itself into another, namely, \o\bether one can by means of rational inferences discover a primitive
power, that is, the primary, fundamental relationship of cause to elfect. And since 1am certain that
this is ~ible, it follows that, if these powers are not given in experience, they can only be
invented. But this invention, an heuristic fiction or hypothesis, can never even be proved to be
poosible, and it is a mere delusion to argue from the mere fact of its conceivability (which has its
plausibility only because no impossibility can be derived from the concept of either). Such a delusion
is Swedenborg's reverie, though I myself would try to defend it if son1eone were to argue it
~ible."'

Now Kant had not yet attempted in 1766 to chart the bound.:'Uies of sensibility and
the Wlderstanding. At most, we find in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer and the letter to
Mendelssohn a call for metaphysicians to conduct such a survey!' But we can see
that the results of the Inaugural Dissertation reinforce the lesson of 1766. For once
Kant had finally produced the principles of the form of the sensible world and the
intelligible world, there could be absolutely no admitting any original force but those
we discover in experience. All the rest is dremn and illusion.

The Inaugural Dissertation 121

6

I have argued that Kant's early system of physical influx fell into the error of
metaphysical subreption; it subjected things of the intelligible world-immaterial
substances such as the human soul-to the conditions of sensibility. Kant tries to
correct this mistake in the Inaugural Dissertation by distinguishing the principle of
the fonn of the intelligible world from the principles of the fonn of the sensible
world Because immaterial substances are the proper object of pure understanding,
they cannot be subject to the conditions of sensibility. Kant argues that metaphysics
has a future so long as its practitioners bear this in mind. But though the Inaugural
Dissertation makes great progress over the Nova di/ucidatio, it raises almost as
many questions as it seems to settle.
In the first place, it raises a question about the intelligible world. Kant tells us at
the beginning of Section Four that, if we determine the principle of the fonn of the
intelligible world, we shall understand, " ... how it is possible that many substances
should be in mutual interaction" (2.407.9-10). Now this suggests that things in the
intelligible world really act on one another; and, indeed, that they can produce
change of state in one another. But change always involves succession: when a thing
changes, one of its states succeeds the other. And yet, Kant himself argues in Section
1bree that succession necessarily presupposes the pure intuition of time. "For I do
not understand what the little world after means," he writes, "except through an
already previous concept of time. For those things are after one another which exist
at different times ... " (2.399.4-6). Since time is a condition of sensibility, it has no
place in the intelligible world. Indeed, Kant himself points out that:
... whatever fmally be the principle of the fonn of the sensible world, it is not applied however to
anything save actual things insofar as they are supposed to be capable offalling under the senses;
and thus neither inunaterial substances, which, as such, are already amolutely excluded from the
external senses, nor the cause of the world, which, since the mind itself exists through it and is active
by any sense, can be an object of the senses (2.398.21-27).

Since change involves succession, and since succession presupposes the pure
intuition of time, which is a condition of sensibility, change cannot take place in the
intelligible world. So what could it possibly mean to say that there is real interaction
among the intelligibles?
We can perfectly well conceive interaction without change. Two things interact
when the one is the reason of a certain state in the other. If the influence that these
things exercise on one another is constant, no change of state will occur. But this
raises another question. Kant reckons the soul an immaterial substance-a creature
of the intelligible world, and yet the soul seems to undergo constant change of state.
For our perceptions succeed one after the other. How can this be possible unless the
soul is in time? Furthennore, Kant is as committed as ever to physical influx in
rational psychology. He will not deny that body and soul really act on one another;
and, presumably, he thinks that some of the changes which occur in the soul are the
effect of the body. How can this be possible? Since bodies have spatio-temporal
determinations, they are subject to the conditions of sensibility. How could
something in the sensible world interact with something in the intelligible world?
Kant himself, as we know, is circumspect. Following Euler, he says that this is a
question which defies human understanding. I quote once again:
... but space does not contain the conditiom of possible actiom except for those of matter; indeed, it
ab;olutely escapes the human intellect what oomtitutes the external relatiom of forces in inunaterial
substances, either~ thetmelves or between them and bodies ... (2.414.9-13).

122 The Inaugural Dissertation

Kant suggests earlier in the dissertation, however, that external things (namely
bodies) can act on the mind, because they all proceed from the same divine being:
If it were~ to move even a small Slep beyond the bounds of apodictic certainty, mud! befits
metaphysics, it seam worth the effort to investigale certain ~ much pertain not only to the laws
of sensitive intuitioo, but also to its causes, mud! are only to be known through the inteiJect.
Namely the human mind is not affected by exlemal tiJing'l. and the world does not appear to be
visible to it in infinitum, except insofar as the mind itselfis sustained with all other things by the
same infinite force ofone being. Hence it does not sense exlemal ~except through the presence
ofthe same sustaining, common cause ... (2.409.28-410.1).

This is very strange indeed. For it is almost a return to the position of the Nova

dilucidatio. Kant suggests here that the mind is affected by bodies, because they all
participate together in a certain community sustained by one and the same God. But
since Kant himself says that things which form a community together are part of the
same world (2.407.10-11), he seems to make short shrift of his own distinction
between the world of sensible things and the world of intelligible things. No doubt,
sensible things really produce change of state in one another, because they are
subject to the conditions of time and space. Though change of state seems to be
impossible in the intelligible world, it is nonetheless conceivable that intelligible
things are capable of some kind of constant interaction amongst themselves. But
since intelligible things are not subject to the conditions of space and time, it is
inconceivable that anything can produce change of state in them, much less a thing
from the sensible world.
Part of the problem in the Inaugural Dissertation is that Kant has not
systematically worked out his conception of the soul. Obviously, he has to admit that
the soul is temporally determined, because our perceptions succeed one another in
time. If he also wants to secure a place for the soul in the intelligible world, he must
distinguish the empirically determined self from its noumenal counterpart-as he
will do later in the Critique ofPure Reason and the Groundwork ofthe Metaphysics
ofMorals.
But the biggest problem in the Inaugural Dissertation is that Kant has no
systematic account of the understanding. He defines sensibility as the receptive
faculty of the mind-the faculty by which the mind is affected by objects. Since
sensibility and pure understanding are not the same, he tells us that the
understanding cannot be receptive. Hence intellectual intuitions are impossible for
us. But this is all that Kant has to say on the matter. Hence a very difficult question:
since the understanding is not a receptive faculty, it cannot be affected by objects, so
what can it possibly mean to speak of the "objects of the understanding''? Does the
understanding create its objects? Does it create the soul and all the other immaterial
substances that inhabit the intelligible world? Surely not, because these things are
the work of God. If the w1derstanding could create its objects, it would be divine.
Since the underst:mding can neither create its objects, nor be affected by them, it
would seem that no object is left to it; that is to say, the relation between the
understanding and any kind of object is a complete mystery.
Kant himself formulates the problem in his famous letter to Marcus Herz of
February 21, 1772. Thus he ex'}llains:
I was satisfied in the dissertation (of 1TIO) to express the nature of the intellect in purely negative
terms: namely that they [concepts of the wxlerstanding] were not modifications of the soul produced
by the object. The problem, however, much I ~ over in silence, is how, then, a representation
much is related to an object can otherwise pm;ibly exist, without being affected by it in some way.
But by \\bat means are these thin~ given to us, if it is not by the way they affect us; and if such

The inaugural Dissertation 123

inlellectual representations rest on our inner octivity, whence comes the agreement which they are
supposed to have with obje~.1s, the objects not being originated by this activity. and whence is it that
the axioms of pure reason concerning these objects agree with them, without this agreement being
permitted to derive assistance from experience~

Kant cannot hope to explain whether or how bodies and souls act on one another
unless he can show that the relevant concepts of the understanding-notably, the
concepts of cause and substance-apply to something. He must show what kind of
thing the concepts of the understanding apply to, and under what conditions. This is
the project of the transcendental deduction in the Critique ofPure Reason.
I have argued throughout this book that Kant was compelled to distinguish
between the principles governing sensibility and pure understanding in order to lay
the foundations of a credible system of physical influx. Once Kant had that
distinction in hand, he was compelled to address the question how the pure concepts
of the understanding can apply to objects. This is the centrnl question of the Critique
ofPure Reason.

CONCLUSION
TOWARDS THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY
I have argued during the course of this study that Kant's early project in
metaphysics was to undermine the system of pre-established harmony and to
lay the foundations of a credible system of real interaction. I have also argued
that this project was a failure on its own terms, because Kant mistakenly
represented immaterial things in the image of sensibilia. We can think of Kant
as addressing the realm of immaterial things in the words used by Francis
Thompson to address the "Kingdom of God":
0 world invisible, we view thee,
0 world intangible, we touch thee,
0 world unknowable, we know thee,
lnapprehensible, we clutch thee!'

Like Thompson, the early Kant might have claimed to touch the intangible. For
having argued that soul and body impress forces on each other, he raised the
worry that our soul has the sensible quality of being impenetrable. It was in part
to put this worry to rest that Kant tried to separate so sharply the sphere of the
intellect from the sphere of human sensibility.
Kant argued in the Inaugural Dissertation that things known to us under the
conditions of the one faculty cannot be known to us under the conditions of the
other. Thus the true nature of the rational soul might be known to us-if at
all-under the conditions of the intellect, but not under the conditions of
human sensibility. Likewise, a community of forces might be known to us
under the conditions of human sensibility, but not under the conditions of the
intellect. If Kant has the story right, we make a great mistake when we
represent rational souls as engaging in a community of forces. For we thereby
presuppose that the conditions underlying our faculties of knowledge somehow
run together. The only way to correct this mistake is to remind ourselves of the
sharp boundaries between our two faculties and thus to remove from our
intellectual representation of the soul any taint of sensibility.
If I have properly reconstructed Kant's philosophical development and the
motivations underlying the Inaugural Dissertation, I believe that we can
understand better some of the motivations underlying the Critique of Pure
Reason.
Needless to say, the Critique of Pure Reason is a high-water mark in Kant's
philosophical development, because here for the first time Kant formulates his
mature doctrine of transcendental idealism. According to this doctrine, we can
know only those things given to us under the conditions of human sensibility.
Knowledge of things as they are in themselves is not possible for us. Now this
doctrine presupposes an important result of the Inaugural Dissertation, namely
the conclusion that space and time are neither things in themselves, nor
properties of things in themselves, but rather the formal conditions of human
sensibility (2.404.21-31). But the view Kant held in 1770 is different from the
one he held in 1781 in at least one important respect. Kant still believed in
1770 that pure concepts of the understanding can yield knowledge of things in
themselves-things independent of the conditions of human sensibility. This he
would deny in 1781. Indeed, he would argue famously that pure concepts of the
understanding may be rightfully applied not to things in themselves, but only to
objects of human intuition.

Towards the Critical Philosophy 125

An important question in the mind of any reader of the Inaugural
Dissertation is how Kant came to formulate the mature doctrine of
transcendental idealism. No doubt, an answer to this question lies partly in the
fact that Kant's ideas in 1770 were very sketchy. Kant did not fully explaineven in the terms he defined for himself-how either world of knowledge is
possible. He no more fully explained how the sensible world is possible than he
fully explained how the intelligible world is possible. My suspicion is that Kant
arrived at the distinctive doctrine of transcendental idealism as a result of his
efforts to fill in the gaps of his earlier thought. A word or so of explanation is in
order here.
One of the peculiar features of the Inaugural Dissertation is that Kant
discusses the conditions of our knowledge-both sensible and intellectual-in
the terms of general cosmology. Kant seems to think that he can tell us about
the conditions of our knowledge, just in case he can explain how the objects of
our knowledge can collectively form a world. Thus Kant translates all talk
about the conditions of human sensibility into talk about "the principles of the
form" of the so-called sensible world. We must follow Kant's lead and adopt
the perspective of general cosmology in order to understand what Kant himself
must have come to see as the shortcomings of his Inaugural Dissertation. Let
me begin with a comment or two on the gaps in what I shall call Kant's
cosmology of sensation.
Following the example of Wolff, Kant characterizes a world in the
Inaugural Dissertation as a whole made of parts. To be more precise, Kant says
that a world is a composite whole which is not itself a part of a greater whole
(2.387.4-6). Now the question for Kant is how all of these different parts
produce a single world. How is it possible for these things to relate to one
another in one and the same whole? They must be brought together or unified
somehow. A universal connection must be established among them. But what
kind of connection, and how is this connection possible? What principle does it
rest upon?
The questions and considerations about a world in general also apply to the
so-called sensible world. The sensible world is a whole made of parts. The parts
of the sensible world are objects insofar as they are known to us by sensation.
Now the question for Kant is how we can represent these things as forming a
world, i.e., as relating to one another in a single whole or some kind of
common framework? Kant himself raises the question in precisely these terms
at the beginning of Section Three of the Inaugural Dissertation. He tells us
that, "The principle of the form of the universe is what contains the reason of
the universal connection [nexus universa/is] whereby all substances and their
states relate to the same whole, which is called a world. The principle of the
form of the sensible world is what contains the reason of the universal
connection of all things insofar as they are phenomena" (2.398.11-14). Kant
goes on to say that, "The world, insofar as it is regarded as phenomenon, i.e.,
with respect to the sensuality of the human mind, admits no other principle of
its form save a subjective one, i.e., a certain law of the mind through which it is
necessary for all things, which can-through their qualities-be objects of the
senses, to be regarded as necessarily relating to the same whole" (2. 398.16-21 ).
Kant later claims that the "law of the mind," which produces "universal
connection" among the things of the sensible world, is, on the one hand, the
pure intuition of space and, on the other hand, the pure intuition of time. It is

126 Towards the Critical Philosophy

important to see that this story about the sensible world is radically incomplete
even on its own terms.
Kant might very well be entitled to say that space is the subjective ground of
all possible relations among possible objects of our senses in the order of
coexistence. He might also be entitled to say that time is the subjective ground
of all possible relations among possible objects of our senses in the order of
succession. Perhaps Kant might very well have succeeded in presenting us with
the necessary conditions of unity in the sensible world. But now we would like
him to tell us something about the sufficient conditions of such unity. We
would like him to tell us, in other words, under what conditions we represent
actual objects of our senses as actually relating to one another in a common
spatio-temporal framework.
An analogous problem had already surfaced in Kant's early general
cosmology. Kant argued in the Beweisgrund of 1763, for example, that God is
the being of highest possible perfection. From this, he concluded that God is the
source of all possible perfection in creatures and thus the source of all possible
harmony, unity and structure in the world. But the problem here is that God's
absolute perfection does nothing more than secure the possibility of harmony,
unity and so forth. In order to explain how these possible perfections actually
come about in the world, Kant had to appeal to something other than God's
being as such, namely a free choice of God's will. The problem and its solution
present themselves to us in more concrete terms if we consider them in light of
Kant's own examples in the Beweisgrund.
Kant took it for granted in the Beweisgrund that geometry is a science of the
possible: geometry precisely describes the possible relations of figures and
bodies in space. Kant also claimed that these possible relations are harmonious
in the highest degree, because, though they proceed from very simple
structures, they express a certain order in a great multiplicity of possible effects.
To clarify his claim, Kant cited the construction of a circle as an example.
The circle is one of the simplest figures in geometry to construct. We have
only to rotate the free leg of a compass around a fixed point. But once we have
produced a circle in this way, its very structure imposes a necessary order on
other figures somehow related to it. In any given circle, for example, we can
construct-in principle-infinitely many pairs of intersecting lines. Kant was
impressed by the fact that every such pair of lines must exhibit the following
relation. For every pair of lines AB and CD intersecting at a point P within the
circumference of a circle, the rectangle formed by AP and PB must be equal to
the rectangle formed by CP and PD. There can be no exception, however many
pairs of intersecting lines we might construct. This is to say, in Kant's words,
that the very structure of the circle imposes order in an infinite manifold.
Now Kant insisted in the Beweisgrund that the examples of necessary order
described by the geometry of circles and the like are possible harmonies. As
such, Kant claimed that they depend one and all on the highest perfection
united in the being of God. For he supposed that God is the ultimate ground of
all possible perfection and harmony. But this assumption raised an important
question for Kant. How is it that the mathematical harmonies studied by Euclid
actually present themselves to us in the physical universe? Why do actually
existing bodies have any geometrical structure at all; why do they have the
structure we have observed in them rather than some other? Kant was
interested in the property of the circle, which I described in the preceding
paragraph, not only for its own sake, but also because Galileo made use of it in

Towards the Critical Philosophy 127

the Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences to establish his law of chords
(2.93-94). By the law of chords, bodies will roll to the end of different inclined
planes in the same time if these planes are chords extending from the highest
point of the vertical diameter of a circle to the circle's circumference. How can
the geometry of circles be relevant to the kinematics of falling bodies? How can
the kinematics of falling bodies be used to describe the motion of actually
existing bodies?
Kant could not answer these questions simply by reminding his reader that
all possible harmony depends on God's nature as the being of highest possible
perfection. After all, the physical universe might have presented harmonies
other than those observed by natural philosophers. But the alternative
harmonies would have depended as much on God's perfection as the ones
currently in vogue. So though God's perfection might be a necessary condition.
it cannot be the sufficient condition of the harmony that we actually observe in
the physical universe. The sufficient condition of such harmony must lie in
something else, namely a free choice of God's will. Kant himself explained as
follows:
Beautiful relations lie in the properties of space, and a wondrous unity lies in the
immeasurable manifold of its determinations. But the existence of all this harmony
[Wohlgereimtheit), insofar as matter is supposed to fill space, is-along with all of its
consequences-to be reckoned to the choice ofthe first cause ... (2.101.29-33).

The physical universe actually presents geometric and kinematic harmony, only
because God decreed that it should do so by a free act of his will. Unless God
had decided to create something that can move, and unless he had decided to
subject his creation to the laws of motion, actually existing bodies would never
obey Galileo's law of chords.
The free choice of God's will was not only supposed to explain the fact that
the physical universe actually presents the various harmonies observed by
natural philosophers. What is more to our point, it was also supposed to explain
the interesting fact that the physical universe constitutes a single world, i.e., a
common framework within which one material particle in a given place at a
given time relates to any and all others.
Kant thought that he could characterize God's free choice more specifically
than I have so far. On Kant's account, God freely chose to create matter; he
freely chose to subject matter to Newton's laws of motion; and, he freely chose
to endow matter with certain forces. Kant was impressed that, of all the
different forces God might have considered bestowing on matter, he finally
settled on a universal force of attraction. This is very significant, from Kant's
point of view. Precisely because every material particle universally attracts
every other (inversely as the square of the distance), all things in the physical
world are connected. A universal connection of this kind is just what Kant took
to be necessary for a single world to emerge out of the original chaos. Thanks
to the universal force of attraction, every material particle relates to every other
in a single whole. No such force would ever have come into effect had God not
exercised the freedom of his choice as he did. Thus the free choice of God's
will is supposed to explain how the physical world constitutes a single world.
Let us now retum to Kant's cosmology of sensation in the Inaugural
Dissertation. The pure intuitions of space and time are to the so-called sensible
world in the Inaugural Dissertation as God's absolute perfection was to the
physical universe in the Beweisgrund. In other words, these intuitions are

128 Towards the Critical Philosophy

supposed to be the ultimate source of any possible hannony in the sensible
world. If the phenomena relate to one another in such a way that they can-in
principle-present any geometrical structure at all, this is due, in the final
analysis, to our pure intuition of space. If the phenomena succeed one another
in such a way that the intervals between them can-in principle-be counted,
this is due, in the final analysis, to our pure intuition of time. But now we want
to ask Kant the following question. What, in the scheme of the Inaugural
Dissertation, can do service as the free choice of God's will had in the scheme
of the Beweisgrumi! How is it in fact possible for us to represent actual objects
of sensation as parts related to one another in a single whole or in some kind of
common, spatio-temporal framework? Kant apparently has nothing to say in
answer to these questions.
It is interesting and instructive, however, to imagine how Kant might have
answered these questions in the Inaugural Dissertation. For one thing, he
might have followed his earlier example in the Beweisgrund and appealed to a
free choice of God's will. So the story might have gone something like this.
Harmony is possible in the sensible world on account of the pure intuitions of
space and time. But God himself always intervenes by coordinating our
sensations in the appropriate way. Whenever we have a sensation of a given
body, for example, God causes us to perceive this body in a certain place at a
certain time relative to other bodies. By successive acts of free will, God adapts
one sensation to another so that the actual objects of our senses appear as parts
of a single, sensible world under the subjective conditions of space and time.
But we can tell from the text of the Inaugural Dissertation that Kant would
not have been very sympathetic to this way of explaining things. For, on this
account, the actual harmonies in the sensible world would be-to use Kant's
expression-"specially established" by God (2.409). Such harmonies " ...
[would have] no place unless any individual states of a substance whatsoever
are adapted [by God] to the state of another ... " (2.409.11-12). Kant contrasts
harmonies of this kind with the ones said to be "generally established" by God.
Harmony is "generally established" by God just in case it proceeds from a few,
divine, universal laws (2.409.1-10). Kant would say that the harmonies in the
physical world described by Newton were generally established by God,
precisely because they are the effect of a community of universal attractive
forces in matter under the divine laws of motion.
Now, having distinguished these two kinds of harmony, Kant reflects on the
kind of world structure produced by each of them, and he claims that a
harmonious world-structure generally established by God is the one somehow
more agreeable to God's infinite wisdom. "As far as I am concerned," he says,
"although it has not been demonstrated, still the first case [the case of generally
established harmony) is abundantly proved on other grounds" (2.409.25-26). It
is not clear what these other grounds might be, but it is clear enough where
Kant's preference lies. Precisely because Kant puts his stock in generally
established harmonies, he would not complete his cosmology of sensation in the
way I suggested in the previous paragraph. As I noted earlier, my suggestion
depends on a specially established harmony in the sensible world. On my
suggestion, we have to imagine that the sensible world takes shape, only
because God is successively adapting each of our sensations to every other.

Kant does not present the grounds sufficient, in his view, to prove that
generally established harmony is more agreeable to God's infinite wisdom. But
it is not difficult to understand why Kant himself would be more partial to the

Towards the Critical Philosophy 129

one kind of harmony than to the other. In Kant's mind, generally established
harmony goes hand in hand with real interaction; specially established
harmonies go hand in hand with the systems of Leibniz and Malebranche
(2.409.10-25). The idea seems to be that the more power God grants to
creatures, the fewer his decrees and so the more generally he establishes
harmony in the world. If God denies creatures any power to act, he must
produce all change in the world by himself God can establish harmony in the
world, on this hypothesis, just in case he specially adapts the state of one
creature to the state of every other. So the system of occasionalism allegedly
gives us specially established harmony. If God grants every creature power over
itself and only over itself, he can let every creature execute the law of its
internal nature all on its own. This is the system of Leibniz. But harmony will
prevail in this system, just in case God specially coordinates the activity of
every creature with that of every other. Harmony is more generally established
for Leibniz than for Malebranche, but it is more specially established for
Leibniz than for Kant. This is because Kant says that God grants every creature
power over every other creature. God issues just a few, simple laws of universal
interaction. Creatures change one another according to these laws, and thus
general harmony prevails throughout the world.
Kant is no less committed to real interaction in the Inaugural Dissertation
than he was in the Nova dilucidatio. But now the challenge in Section Three of
the Inaugural Dissertation is to explain how real interaction and generally
established harmony are possible in the sensible world. Kant cannot expect to
meet this challenge by calling directly on God's will in the way I suggested
earlier. If Kant says that God's will successively adapts our sensations to one
another, the result will be some kind of specially established harmony. But
perhaps Kant could appeal to God's will indirectly. Perhaps Kant could say that
God's will does not so much operate on our sensations as on the objects which
cause these sensations when tltey act on the sensitive faculties of the mind. If
that's the case, we must imagine that God's will legislates laws of real
interaction for these objects. So long as these objects obey the laws of real
interaction, generally established harmony will prevail. So long as they act on
the sensitive faculties of the mind, we can sensibly represent them as forming a
single world-or so the story might go. But the story as such is not especially
helpful. It might very well explain how the objects of our senses actually form a
world amongst themselves. It might also explain how certain regularities
emerge in the order of our sensations, namely as the residual effect of sensibly
apprehensible objects acting on one another under divine laws. But the story
does not yet explain how we actually represent these objects as forming any
kind of a world. How can we infer anything about relations among objectseven be they sensibly apprehensible objects-from the order of our sensations?
Regularities in the order of our sensations will not allow us, of themselves, to
situate sensible objects in a common, spatio-temporal framework.
The preceding reflections tend to show, if anything, that Kant cannot
helpfully appeal to the free choice of God's will in order to complete his
cosmology of sensation. So now we must ask what options are left for Kant.
One of the remaining options is to confer some of the work, previously assigned
to God's will, upon pure understanding. The idea is to make pure
understanding God's vicegerent in the sensible world. If we follow up this
peculiar idea, the task of our understanding will be to legislate laws of real
interaction for the objects of our senses and thus to establish some kind of

130 Towards the Critical Philosophy

general harmony among them. Short of this, it is not clear what else Kant can
do.
Needless to say, Kant does not have the resources to work out this option in
the Inaugural Dissertation, for his conception of our understanding is too
impoverished. Kant says in Section Two of the Dissertation that the use of our
understanding is twofold. First, we can make real use of our understanding
when we apply concepts formed by its means either to things in themselves or
to the relations among them (2.393.18-19). Now the real use of our
understanding is of no great interest to us here, because it concerns the role of
our understanding outside the limits of the sensible world. The matter of
interest to us, on the other hand, is the role of our understanding within the
limits of the sensible world. So now we must consider the second possible use
of our understanding, which Kant describes as logical. We may logically apply
the concepts of our understanding not only to things in themselves, but also to
the objects of our senses. But we do so, says Kant, only to classify these objects.
(2.393.26-29). The problem, though, is that no amount of classifying will make
a world out of our sensations. At best, it might yield a catalogue.
If it is true, as I would like to think, that Kant continued to work on his
cosmology of sensation, even after defending his dissertation in 1770, and if it
is also true that he subsequently assigned a fundamental role to our
understanding in the sensible world, it is not hard to imagine how he must have
supplemented his conception of this, our higher faculty of knowledge, in order
to carry off his project. If our understanding is to do for the cosmology of
sensation what the free choice of God's will had done for Kant's general
cosmology in the Beweisgrund, it must have some kind of power to act. It must
have the power to legislate laws for the sensible world. The problem, of course,
is to specify what kind of power this could possibly be and how it comes into
effect.
One thing to say right away is that the power in question cannot be anything
like the power of God's will. God's will has the power to create matter out of
nothing. Given Kant's definition of "matter" in the Inaugural Dissertation,
God's will has the power to create the constitutive parts of a world (2.389.23).
This is beyond our understanding, which is itself one of God's creatures. So
though our understanding legislates laws for the sensible world, it cannot create
the sensible world. It cannot create matter in the sensible world-the parts of
which this world is composed, i.e., objects insofar as they are known to us by
sensation. These objects must be given to the understanding by an outside
source. Now even if we cannot say much, if anything, about the nature of this
outside source, we can specify the conditions under which it presents matter to
our understanding. Precisely because we are concerned here with the sensible
world, matter must be given to our higher faculty of knowledge under the
conditions of space and time, the formal conditions of human sensibility. These
conditions are some kind of constraint on the active power of our
understanding. The understanding can do nothing to form the sensible world,
unless it subjects itself to these conditions. For, unlike God's will, our
understanding does not have the power to create anything, least of all objects of
our senses.
It should be clear that, as we try to imagine how Kant might have completed
his cosmology of sensation in the Inaugural Dissertation, we are approaching
little by little the position that Kant would later hold in the Critique of Pure
Reason. Having suggested that pure understanding might somehow pull the

Towards the Critical Philosophy 131

sensible world together, we have come to characterize this faculty and its
relationship to sensibility in tenns that recall a famous passage from the
introduction to the Transcendental Logic. Kant writes:
If the receptivity of our mind, its ~wer of receiving representations in so far as it is in any
wise affected, is to be entitled sensibility, then the mind's power of producing representations
from itself, the spontaneity of knowledge, should be called the understanding. Our nature is
so constituted that our intuition can never be other than sensible; that is, it contains only the
mode in which we are affected by objects. The faculty, on the other hand, which enables us
to think the object of sensible intuition is the understanding. To neither of these powers may
a preference be given over the other. Without sensibility no object would be given to us,
without understanding no object would be thought. Thoughts without content are empty,
intuitions without concepts are blind. It is, therefore, just as necessary to make our concepts
sensible, that is, to add the object to them in intuition, as to make our intuitions intelligible,
that is, to bring them under concepts. These two powers or capacities cannot exchange their
functions. The understanding can intuit nothing. the senses can think nothing. Only through
their union can knowledge arise (AS l/B76).

What Kant has to say in this passage has much in common with the completed
cosmology of sensation I described earlier. In both cases, sensibility and
understanding are presented as two separate faculties: the first as laying the
fonnal conditions under which something is given to the senses; the second as
an active power that operates on whatever is given to the senses. In both cases,
moreover, the two faculties, though separate, are presented as having to
cooperate in order to yield anything of interest to us. The question for us now is
whether there is any significance in the points in common here.
On the face of it, the answer would seem to be that there is no significance
at all. The passage I just quoted from the Critique of Pure Reason is a
straightforward account of our cognitive faculties. Kant is apparently trying to
explain what mix of representations will give us knowledge. The language and
concerns of a cognitive cosmology, peculiar to the Inaugural Dissertation, seem
to have dropped away. Kant has apparently decided that it is not very helpful to
treat the conditions of our knowledge as the conditions necessary for building
any kind of cognitive world. This suggests that the task Kant set himself in the
years leading up to the publication of the first edition of the first Critique was
not so much to complete his cosmology of sensation, but rather to remove the
seemingly extraneous metaphysics from his reflections on the limits of our
cognitive powers. But I would like to suggest that world-building is an
important preoccupation in the Critique of Pure Reason and that we may
plausibly think of the new ideas in this work as the result of Kant's continued
reflections on some kind of cosmology.
One thing that apparently stands in the way of my suggestion is that
cosmology as such never seems to be an issue in the first Critique until Kant
begins to discuss the System of Cosmological Ideas. Kant famously tries to
argue here that pure reason inevitably falls into contradiction with itself every
time it reflects a priori on the origin and constitution of the world. Reason
concludes that the world had a beginning in time, as inevitably as it concludes
that the world has existed from eternity. Reason concludes that the cause of the
world is a necessary being, as inevitably as it concludes that no such being
exists, either within the world or without. Kant apparently hopes to discredit
cosmology. Indeed, he writes:
... the antinomy of pure reason will exhibit to us the transcendental principles of a pretended
pure rational cosmology. But it will not do so in order to show this science to be valid and to
adopt it. As the title, conflict of reason, suffices to show, this pretended science can be

132 Towards the Critical Philosophy

exhibited only in its bedazzling but false illusoriness, as an idea which can never be
reconciled with appearances (A408/B435).

Kant's attitude towards this natural antithetic of reason suggests that it would
be misguided to think of the Critique as an exercise in cosmology of any kind.
On Kant's view, cosmology is a dead end.
Nevertheless, I believe that world-building is a central concern to Kant in
the first Critique. My point becomes more plausible once we take note of an
important change in Kant's vocabulary. "World" was a key term for Kant
before the first Critique; now the word "nature" comes into play. But both
words seem to designate roughly the same thing. Kant himself makes this clear.
He tells us in the Critique that, "We have two expressions world and nature,
which sometimes coincide" (A418/B446). For the sake of precision, however,
Kant says that it is useful to set aside the one term to mean one thing and the
other term to mean something else. "World," he says, signifies "the
mathematical sum-total of all appearances and the totality of their synthesis,
alike in the great and small, that is, in the advance alike through composition
and through division" (A418/B446). "Nature" is to be distinguished from
"world" as follows:
This same world is entitled nature when it is used as a dynamical whole. We are not then
concerned with the aggregation in space and time [i.e., with "world" understood as the sum
total of all appearances] ... but with the unity in the existence of appearances (A418
41918446-447).

By contrast with "world," "nature" apparently means the way that appearances,
which actually exist or present themselves to us, connect with one another to
form a single, unified whole.
The distinction here between "world" and "nature" apparently corresponds
to a distinction Kant elsewhere draws between "nature" in the material sense
(natura materia/iter spectata) and "nature" in the formal sense (natura
forma/iter spectata). Kant alludes to this distinction in a footnote to the passage
I just quoted. He also alludes to it in the second-edition version of the
Transcendental Deduction (8163-165). But he draws the distinction more
sharply and more helpfully in Part Two of the Prolegomena. There he defines
"nature" in the material sense as "the totality of appearances"' and "nature" in
the formal sense as "the totality of the rules under which all appearances must
come in order to be thought as connected in an experience." This just goes to
show that Kant can substitute the term "nature" for "world"; indeed, he does so
systematically in the Critique of Pure Reason and related writings. I submit
that some kind of cosmology continues to be a central concern for the later
Kant, if only insofar as he raises questions about "nature" construed in either
sense. I would like now to elaborate on this point.
Kant exclaims portentously in 36 of the Prolegomena that the "highest
point which transcendental philosophy can ever reach and to which, as its
boundary and completion, it must proceed"' is the question, How is nature
possible? Needless to say, the question itself is twofold because of the two-fold
meaning of the word "nature." First, we must determine how nature is possible
in the material sense. Then, we must determine how nature is possible in the
formal sense. Now if we think retrospectively from the summit of
transcendental philosophy reached in the Prolegomena, we can see that part of
the answer to this twofold question about nature-if not the question itself-is

Towards the Critical Philosophy 133

closely related to what Kant has to say in the Inaugural Dissertation about the
sensible world.
To be sure, the question raised in Section Three of the Inaugural
Dissertation is, How can the sensible world be possible? But if we review what
Kant says at the outset of Section Three and if we bear in mind that "nature"
will later substitute for "world," we discover that Kant is apparently trying to
determine in the Inaugural Dissertation how nature is possible in the formal
sense. Remember that the task of Section Three is to identify the "principle of
the form of the sensible world." Kant tells us that, "The principle of the form of
the universe is that which contains the reason of the universal connection
[nexus] whereby all substances and their states relate to the same whole ... "
(2.398.11-13). He tells us, moreover, that, ''The principle of the form of the
sensible world is that which contains the reason of the universal connection of
all things insofar as they are phenomena" (2.398.13-15). To look for the
principle, which effects a universal connection of all phenomena in a single,
unified whole, is indeed to ask how nature is possible in the formal sense, or so
one might conclude in light of 36 in Part Two of the Prolegomena. Now it is
interesting to note that Kant does not answer this question in Section Three of
the Inaugural Dissertation.
Kant tells us in Section Three of the Inaugural Dissertation that the
principles of the form of the sensible world are the pure intuitions of space and
time. But, as we learn from the Prolegomena, the pure intuitions of space and
time do not help us explain tlte possibility of nature in the formal sense. At
most, they can help us answer the question about the possibility of nature in the
material sense. Kant writes as follows in 36 of Part Two in the Prolegomena:
How is nature possible in general in the material sense, i.e., according to intuition, as the
totality of appearances; how are space, time, and that which fills both-the object of
sensation-possible in general? The answer is: by means of the constitution of our
sensibility, according to which it is in its special way affected by objects which are in
themselves unknown to us and totally distinct from these appearances. This answer is given
in the Critique itself in the Transcendental Aesthetic, and in these Prolegomena by the
solution ofthe first main question.

The point here is that all appearances must be given to us under the conditions
of human sensibility, namely the pure intuitions of space and time understood
as the pure form of outer sense and the pure form of inner sense respectively.
Precisely because all appearances are given to us under these conditions, space
and time understood in this way help us explain how nature is possible in the
material sense.
On their own, however, space and time cannot help us explain how nature is
possible in the formal sense. They do not effect any universal connection of
appearances in a single, unified whole. In such a whole, it would presumably be
possible to assign spatio-temporal coordinates to any object actually given to
our senses relative to the spatio-temporal coordinates of any other object of our
senses. Now this presupposes at a minimum that our intuitions of space and
time are themselves related in some way. We can perfectly well say that a
certain event took place at the comer of St. Catherine Street and McGill
College in downtown Montreal on a certain day, three hours before some other
event took place two blocks south of there and three blocks west. But to say all
this is not only to relate different positions in space; it is also to relate these
positions in space with certain moments in a common time. This is possible
only if we can somehow mix space and time together.

134 Towards the Critical Philosophy

Kant himself recognizes in the Inaugural Dissertation that it is very
important to mix space and time together. Unless we do that, he says, we can
give no content to our understanding of simultaneity. The passage I have in
mind is worth quoting in full:
Thus, simultaneous things are so, not because they do not succeed one another. For, by
withdrawing succession, there is somehow removed a certain conjunction, which prevailed
through the series of time. But there does not arise another true relation, such as the
conjunction of all things at the same moment. For simultaneous things are at the same
moment of time, just as successive things are joined at different moments of time. Thus,
though time be only one dimensional, still the ubiquity of time (as Newton would say),
through which all things known by the senses are at some time, adds another dimension to
the quantum of actual things, insofar as they depend, so to speak, on the same point of time.
For if you represent time as a ~1raight line produced to infinity, and simultaneous things at
any point of time by perpendiculars to this line, the surface generated in this way will
represent the phenomenal world, as much with respect to substance as to accident

(2.40 1.28-38).

The states of two things in different places are not simultaneous, just because
they do not follow one another in the temporal order of succession. Just as we
must connect successive events in different places in the passage of time, so we
must connnect the simultaneous states of different things in different places at
one and the same moment. Kant suggests a way of representing these relations.
We can represent the temporal series at a given position in space by producing
a straight line to infinity. We can drop perpendiculars to this line in order to
represent the simultaneous states of different things in different places at the
same moment in time. Thus we mix space and time together, thereby giving a
representation of the sensible world as a spatio-temporal whole.
Kant himself apparently recognizes in the Inaugural Dissertation that space
and time must mix in the sensible world. But his story about the pure intuitions
of space and time does nothing on its own to explain how such a mix might be
possible. At most, Kant has succeeded in specifying the conditions under which
things are given to our senses. At most, Kant has succeeded in telling us how
nature is possible in the material sense. But he has not yet succeeded in telling
us how nature is possible in the formal sense. Kant has given us the right
answer to the wrong question; or rather, he has not yet understood that the
question itself must be taken in different ways and thus answered in different
ways. As I put it earlier, Kant's cosmology of sensation in the Inaugural
Dissertation is radically incomplete, even on its own terms.
The interesting thing to note, however, is that the later Kant does in fact
complete his early cosmology of sensation. First, he explicitly acknowledges, as
he had not in Inaugural Dissertation, that he has two different things to
explain. Then he proceeds to give two different explanations. He tries to
explain how nature is possible, not only in the material sense, but in the formal
sense as well. Needless to say, the possibility of nature in the formal sense
depends on pure understanding. Kant puts it as follows in the Prolegomena:
How is nature possible in the formal sense, as the totality of the rules under which all
appearances must come in order to be thought as connected in an experience? The answer
must be this: it is only possible by means of the constitution of our understanding, according
to which all those representations of sensibility are necessarily referred to a consciousness,
and by which the peculiar way in which we think (viz., by rules) and hence also experience
are possible, but must be clearly distinguished from an insight into the objects in themselves.'

Towards the Critical Philosophy 135

Somehow our understanding unifies appearances given to us under the

conditions of our sensibility.
As I noted earlier, one might be tempted to think that the task of Kant's
later philosophy is to give a sober, straightforward account of our cognitive
faculties without any metaphysical trappings. The temptation is all the greater
when we read passages from the Critique such as the one from the introduction
to the Transcendental Logic, which I quoted earlier. I am thinking of passages,
for example, in which Kant distinguishes our understanding from sensibility as
an active faculty from a receptive one, as a faculty of thought from a faculty of
intuition, as a faculty specialized in combining from a faculty specialized in
manifolds, and so forth. But Kant implies in the passage I just quoted from the
Prolegomena that no complete account of pure understanding can overlook the
role this faculty plays in running the world. No such account can avoid
cosmology. Kant himself makes this point quite clearly in the Transcendental
Deduction in the first edition of the first Critique. Kant writes:
We have already defined the understanding in various different ways: as a spontaneity of
knowledge (in distinction from the receptivity of sensibility), as a power of thought, as a
faculty of concepts, or again of judgements. All these definitions, when they are adequately
understood, are identical. We may now characterise it as the faculty of rules. This
distinguishing mark is more fruitful, and approximates more closely to its essential nature.
Sensibility gives us fonns (of intuition), but understanding gives us rules. The latter is
always occupied in investigating appearances, in order to detect some rule in them. Rules, so
far as they are objective, and therefore necessarily depend upon knowledge of the object, are
called laws. Although we learn many laws through experiencce, they are only special
determinations of still higher laws, and the highest of these, under which the others all stand,
issue a priori from the understanding itself. They are not borrowed from experience; on the
contrary, they have to confer upon appearances their conformity to law, and so to make
experience possible. Thus the understanding is something more than a power of formulating
rules through comparison of appearances; it is itself the lawgiver of nature. Save through it,
nature ... would not exist at all ... (Al26).

Wolff or Leibniz could happily agree that pure understanding is a power of

thought, a faculty of concepts or again of judgements. Kant sets himself apart
from these philosophers precisely insofar he characterizes our understanding as
a faculty of rules or as the lawgiver of nature. Wolff and Leibniz conceive of
our understanding as part of nature and therefore subject to nature's laws.
Kant, on the other hand, represents nature as subject to the laws of our
understanding.
Pure understanding is the lawgiver of nature: all well and good. This
suggests that our understanding does indeed play something like the part of
God's free choice in something like a completed cosmology of sensation. But if
so, we must consider two related questions. First, how does our understanding
provide the "universal connection" of appearances in nature? How do its laws
unify nature, i.e., provide some kind of common spatio-temporal framework?
Second, given that some of Kant's commitments in cosmology seem to have
remained fairly stable from the time of his early works to the publication of the
first Critique, is the unity of nature effected by our understanding characterized
by some kind of "generally established harmony"? If so, how does the
understanding produce such harmony? Remember that, in Kant's early general
cosmology, God generally establishes harmony in the world by legislating a few
simple laws of universal interaction. Does our understanding do anything of the
kind in the scheme of the first Critique?

136 Towards the Critical Philosophy

I propose now to discuss briefly how our understanding is supposed to effect

unity in nature. It should then be obvious that this unity in nature is a form of
generally established harmony.
Kant says that unity in nature is the work of the so-called Analogies of
Experience. "Taken together," says Kant, "the analogies thus declare that all
appearances lie, and must lie, in one nature, because without this a priori unity
no unity of experience, and therefore no determination of objects in it, would be
possible" (A216/B263). Nature is more than a collection of appearances.
Appearances in nature have to be connected with one another, and this
connection has to be necessary. Given that one appearance of a certain kind
exists under certain circumstances, another appearance of another kind must
also exist under certain circumstances. Whether the second appearance must
exist at the same time as the first or at a later time will depend on what kind of
law governs their connection. But either way, given that a law is at work here,
the connection will be necessary. With all of the relevant connections in place,
all the different appearances will be united. Indeed, they will be united in one
nature. The question now is what principles underlie the laws at work here.
Kant replies that the fundamental a priori principles underlying these laws are
the so-called Analogies of Experience.
I cannot possibly discuss the Analogies at length here. I propose rather to
discuss only one of them, namely the Third; and, I propose to discuss it very
briefly.
The Third Analogy secures some kind of necessary connection among
appearances so that, under the appropriate circumstances, appearances exist at
the same moment. The Third Analogy is the fundamental a priori principle of
simultaneous coexistence. Now one might suppose that a principle of
coexistence is superfluous so long as Kant can rely on the Second Analogy. The
Second Analogy is supposed to secure some kind of necessary connection
among appearances so that, under the appropriate circumstances, one
appearance follows another in time. The Second Analogy is the fundamental a
priori principle of succession. So long as no succession takes place, one might
well expect simultaneous coexistence to arise among appearances. But Kant
rightly thinks that this expectation is misguided. Suppose that A, B, C, D, etc.
succeed one another under the Second Analogy. Suppose, likewise, that a, b, c,
d, etc. succeed one another under the same principle. Given that the first
sequence does not itself succeed the second, we may not take for granted the
simultaneous coexistence of A and a; nor may we take for granted the
simultaneous coexistence of B and b, and so forth. In fact, we may not take for
granted that any of the things in the first sequence coexist with any of the
things in the second sequence. An important problem remains, which we may
formulate as follows. How are different temporal sequences united in one
nature? How is it possible to have synchrony among appearances? How, in
general, is simultaneous coexistence possible? Kant had already formulated the
problem in a passage I have already quoted from the Inaugural Dissertation.
This passage is worth quoting a second time:
Thus, simultaneous things are so, not because they do not succeed one another. For, by
withdrawing succession, there is somehow removed a certain conjunction, which prevailed
through the series of time. But there does not arise another true relation, such as the
conjunction of all things at the same moment. Foi: simultaneous things are at the same
moment of time, just as successive things are joined at different moments of time (2.40 1.2838).

Towards the Critical Philosophy 137

Just as a fundamental a priori principle is required to establish a necessary

connection among successive appearances, so a fundamental a priori principle
is required to establish a necessary connection among all appearances
coexisting at the same moment. The Second Analogy must be supplemented by
the Third.
Let us grant for the sake of argument that Kant must supply a principle of
coexistence distinct from his principle of succession. Now we must consider the
following question. Why must the principle of coexistence be a product of pure
understanding? If Kant has an answer to this question, it apparently proceeds
by elimination. The first conjecture to eliminate is that the principle of
coexistence might be a product of human sensibility alone. This is implausible,
precisely because simultaneous coexistence is a spatio-temporal relation, which
associates things in different places at one and the same moment. As I put it
earlier, simultaneity is possible only if we can find a way to mix space and time
together. Now, on Kant's view, space and time are the conditions of sensibility.
But neither these conditions on their own, nor anything given to us under them,
will permit us to mix them in the appropriate way. For sensibility is a purely
receptive faculty, a capacity to be affected by objects. It lacks the requisite
spontaneity for any kind of mixing.
Here is something else to consider. Perhaps the principle of coexistence can
be derived from experience. But this is no more plausible than the first
conjecture. Anyway, the temporal order of appearances cannot be determined
by introspection from the order in which perceptions pass through our mind,
for our perceptions always arise in succession. We will not be tempted to say
that things coexist at the same moment when the successive order of our
perceptions is irreversible-especially considering that the order of our
perceptions is irreversible only when the Second Analogy comes into effect.
When that happens, appearances themselves succeed one another in time. But
sometimes the order of our perceptions is a "matter of indifference." When that
is the case, we might well be tempted to say that simultaneity has indeed arisen
among appearances. But Kant has to caution us against such an inference. For
all we know, we might have been day-dreaming or idly associating ideas. The
order of our perceptions is always a matter of indifference in such cases.
There is only one more conjecture to consider. Since the relation of
simultaneity cannot be given to us in experience, we ourselves must somehow
supply it a priori. Kant wants to say, of course, that this relation is supplied a
priori by our understanding. How so? Pure understanding is a spontaneous
faculty. It exercises its spontaneity by organizing the manifold of intuition in
different ways. One way in which it does this corresponds to the pure concept of
reciprocal influence. Unless we can conceive a priori of things given to us in
space and time as having some kind of reciprocal influence on one another, we
cannot have any empirical knowledge of things as coexisting at the same
moment. This is Kant's claim, in any case.
One virtue of Kant's claim, whatever else one might say about it, is that it
clearly takes us beyond anything in the proof or statement of the Second
Analogy. Kant's claim, in effect, is that we have no reason to infer simultaneity
among objects of possible experience, just because we can tell that the order of
succession has been suspended. We might know that A exists, and we might
know that B exists. We might also know that A does not follow B in time and
that B does not follow A. But, as Kant claims, though we know all this, we still
have no certainty that A and B exist at the same moment. Something else is

138 Towards the Critical Philosophy

required for that, namely the appropriate use of a certain category-the
category of reciprocal influence. Thus Kant writes:
There must, therefore, besides the mere existence of A and B, be something through which A
detennines for B, and also reversewise B determines for A, its position in time, because only
on this condition can these substances be empirically represented as coexisting. Now only
that which is the cause of another, or of its determinations, determines the position of the
other in time. Each substance (inasmuch as only in respect of its detenninations can it be an
effect) must therefore contain in itself the causality of certain determinations in the other
substance, and at the same time the effects of the causality in that other; that is, the
substances must stand, inunediately or mediately, in dynamical conununity, if their
coexistence is to be known in any possible experience. Now, in respect to the objects of
experience, everything without which the experience of these objects would not itself be
possible is necessary. It is therefore necessary that all substances in the [field of] appearance,
so far as they coexist, should stand in thoroughgoing conununity of mutual interaction
(A212-21318259-260).

A and B coexist at the same moment just in case there is some kind of
connection between them. This connection is provided a priori by our
understanding precisely insofar as it represents A and B as engaged in some
kind of reciprocal influence. If the influence is reciprocal, A produces some
effect in B at precisely the same moment that B produces an equal and opposite
effect in A.
Given that simultaneity is not a property of things in themselves, given that
it is not already provided by the conditions of sensibility or derived directly
from experience, Kant concludes that it must be a contribution to nature made
by our understanding. Thanks to the pure concept of reciprocal influence
employed by our understanding, all appearances are unified in a single nature
at any given moment. Moreover, the passage of time in different parts of nature
can be synchronised. This leads Kant to say:
The unity of the world-whole, in which all appearances have to be connected, is evidently a
mere consequence ofthe tacitly assumed principle of the conununity of all substances which
are coexistent. For if they were isolated, they would not as parts constitute a whole
(A21818265).

Together with the First and Second Analogies, the Third Analogy " ...
[declares] that all appearances lie, and must lie, in one nature, because without
this a priori unity, no unity of experience, and therefore no determination of
objects in it, would be possible" (A216/B263).
Precisely because pure understanding employs the Analogies of Experience
to effect unity in nature, it seems to play the role assigned to the free choice of
God's will in the Beweisgrund. Pure understanding apparently completes
Kant's cosmology of sensation. If this is indeed the case, however, one would
expect Kant to say that nature exhibits a certain "harmony" generally
established by our understanding. Now it is interesting to note that the word
"harmony" is seldom used in the first Critique. But this does not affect our
conclusion.
For the early Kant, God specially establishes harmony if he has to issue
separate decrees to adapt one thing to every other. God generally establishes
harmony if his decrees are very simple and very few in number. Generally
established harmony goes hand in hand with universal interaction; specially
established harmony goes hand in hand with either the system of Leibniz or
that of Malebranche. If we think of pure understanding in the first Critique as
doing the work of unifying nature, which was formerly reserved for God, we

Towards the Critical Philosophy 139

might just as well say that it generally establishes hannony. For it legislates a
few, very simple laws of universal interaction-the most fundamental of which
are the Analogies of Experience. Precisely because the Third Analogy involves
the use of our pure concept of reciprocal influence, generally established
hannony prevails throughout nature.
Before I can bring these concluding remarks to an end, I must make one
more observation about the pure concept of reciprocal influence. If we consider
this concept in itself, apart from the conditions of sensibility, we would do
better to speak of the pure concept of community, the title under which it
appears on the Table of Categories. Unlike "reciprocal influence,"
"community" has no spatio-temporal connotations. Now the pure concept of
community has this in common with all the other pure concepts of
understanding. "As a matter of fact, [the pure concepts of understanding] are
nothing but forms of thought," says Kant, "which contain the merely logical
faculty of uniting a priori in one consciousness the manifold given in intuition
... " (B305-306). "Apart, therefore, from the only intuition possible for us," he
continues, "they have even less meaning than the pure sensible forms" (B306).
The pure concepts of understanding are little more than ways of combining
representations. In fact, they correspond to forms of judgement. So unless our
understanding can find ways to apply these formal structures of thought to
manifolds actually given to us in empirical intuition, they tell us nothing about
anything-least of all about things in nature.
Kant himself makes this perfectly clear. He has this to say about our concept
of cause and effect. "If I omit from the concept of cause the time in which
something follows upon something else in conformity with a rule," he says, "I
should find in the pure category nothing further than that there is something
from which we can conclude to the existence of something else" (A243/B301).
"As regards the concept of community," he continues, "it is easily seen that
inasmuch as the pure [category] of ... causality [admits] of no explanation
determinant of the object, neither is any such explanation possible of reciprocal
causality in the relation of substances to one another (commercium)"
(A244/B302). I can perfectly well conceive of community among unspecified
things, without having to think that these things have some kind of reciprocal
influence on one another. The proof lies in the system of Leibniz. Leibniz
denied real interaction, while happily admitting that creatures engage in some
kind of community.
The case of Leibniz in this context is very interesting indeed. Kant goes so
far as to say that Leibniz was perfectly right to espouse pre-established
hannony-at least in so far as Leibniz refrained from applying the pure
concept of community to objects of intuition. It is worth quoting in full the
passage from the Note to the Amphiboly in which Kant makes this remarkable
claim. Kant is speaking here of the universal pre-established harmony among
all true substances or monads in the world:
For this very reason [Leibniz's) principle of possible reciprocal community of substances
had to be a pre-established harmony, and could not be a physical influx [physischer
EinflujJ]. For since everything is merely inward, i.e., concerned with its own representations,
the state of representations of one sub~1ance could not stand in any effective cormection
whatever with that of another. There had to be some third cause, determining all substances
whatsoever, and so making their states correspond to each other, not indeed by an occasional
special intervention in each particular case (systema assistentiae), but by the unity of the
idea of a cause valid for all substances, and in which they must one and all obtain their

140 Towards the Critical Philosophy

existence and permanence, and consequently also their reciprocal correspondence. according
to universal laws (A274-275/B330-331 ).

Kant's idea is something like this. Since Leibniz employed the pure concepts of
understanding apart from the conditions of sensibility, he could only reflect on
things as they are in themselves. All he could do, in other words, was ascribe to
each thing some kind of "internal nature." From the concept of a thing's
internal nature, Leibniz thought that he could explain everything there might
be to explain about this thing. But he could not explain from this concept how
the thing related to other things. So he could conceive of community among
things in themselves only as the effect of a divine decree adapting one nature to
every other.
This passage is interesting for at least two reasons. First of all, it suggests
that Kant had revised the conclusions about the intelligible world which he had
stated in Section Four of the Inaugural Dissertation.
By the time of the first Critique, Kant is wary about speaking of an
intelligible world. He says this about talk of such a thing:
But such a twisting of words is a merely sophistical subterfuge; it seeks to avoid a
troublesome question by changing its meaning to suit our own convenience. Understanding
and reason are, indeed, employed in dealing with appearances; but the question to be
answered is whether they have also yet another employment, when the object is not a
phenomenon (that is, is a noumenon); and it is in this latter sense that the object is taken,
when it is thought as merely intelligible, that is to say, as being given to the understanding
alone, and not to the senses. The question, therefore, is whether in addition to the empirical
employment of the under..1anding ... there is likewise possible a transcendental employment,
which has to do with the noumenon as an object. This question we have answered in the
negative (A257/B313).

Kant claims here to have shown that pure reason and understanding have no
employment outside the realm of experience and that unqualified talk of an
intelligible world-a world of things known only to our higher faculties of
knowledge-is hopelessly misguided. No doubt, Kant would object to Section
Four of the Inaugural Dissertation-the section on the intelligible world-as
wrong-headed precisely insofar as it did not make the relevant qualifications.
For the early Kant claimed to know something about the intelligible world by
pure reason or understanding.
Nevertheless, the later Kant does not exclude every application of the
categories outside the realm of possible experience. He certainly permits us to
apply the categories problematically to the noumena. In any case, he is happy
enough to speculate about the conclusions metaphysicians can reasonably
draw-on their own terms-when they apply the categories to noumena. That
is clearly what Kant is doing in the long passage on pre-established harmony
which I just quoted from the Note to the Amphiboly. From the claim Kant
makes in this passage, we can see that he would now dispute one of the
suggested claims of Section Four of the Inaugural Dissertation. Kant seemed to
suggest in 17 and 22 of the dissertation that some kind of physical influx
prevails in the intelligible world. Kant apparently disputes this claim in the first
Critique. The metaphysician cannot reasonably conclude, even on his own
dogmatic terms, that physical influx prevails in the intelligible world. Leibniz
was right: the intelligible world presents a system of pre-established harmony.
This about-face is interesting for another reason. Given that our faculty of
reason is practical as well as speculative, we have to wonder how we are
supposed to conceive of the Kingdom of Ends-that Kingdom in which each of

Towards the Critical Philosophy 141

us submits to the self-legislated moral law. We represent the Kingdom of Ends

as an intelligible world. Indeed, we are under some kind of practical necessity
to do so. But this intelligible world has many members, and the question is how
we are supposed to conceive of community among them. Going by what Kant
says in the extended passage I just quoted from the Note to the Amphiboly, one
would expect Kant to say with Leibniz that the Kingdom of Ends is a system of
pre-established harmony. Now the Kingdom of Ends is supposed to be a realm
of freedom, and the true substances in a system of pre-established harmony are
certainly free in some sense. They are free from the effects of other substances,
precisely because they do not engage in any reciprocal influence. But Kant says
quite explicitly in the Critique of Practical Reason that the true substances in a
system of pre-established harmony are radically unfree somehow. For they are
apparently "spiritual automata." Each of them acts under a natural law, namely
the law of its "internal nature."
Kant tells us in the second Critique that, "In the question of freedom which
lies at the foundation of all moral laws and accountability to them, it is really
not at all a question of whether the causality determined by a natural law is
necessary through determining grounds lying within or without the subject, or
whether, if they lie within him, they are in instinct or in grounds of
determination thought by reason. " Leibniz himself says very clearly in
different writings that the current state of any given substance in a system of
pre-established harmony is the ground of the subsequent state of the substance.
The one state is necessitated by the other state under the law which governs the
substance and all its determinations. Precisely because of the necessary
connection between the current state of the substance and its subsequent state,
we would expect Kant to deny that the substance has transcendental freedom.
Kant does not disappoint our expectations. Thus he writes:
For this reason, all necessity of events in time according to natuml law can be called the
"mechanism of nature," even though it is not supposed that things which are subject to it
must really be material machines. Here reference is made only to the necessity of the
connection of events in a ternpoml series as they develop according to natural law, whether
the subject in which this evolution occurs be called automaton materiale when the
machinery is impelled by matter, or, with Leibniz, automaton spirituale when it is impelled
by ideas. And if the freedom of our will were nothing else than the latter, i.e., psychological
and comparative and not at the same time also transcendental or absolute, it would in
essence be no better than the freedom of a turnspit, which when once wound up also carries
out its motions of itself."

Kant apparently denies that transcendental freedom is possible in a system of

pre-established harmony. One might be disinclined to take his remarks too
seriously, because he seems to presuppose that the natural law at work in a
spiritual automaton can only take effect in time. Thus he speaks of the
"necessity of events in time," and he speaks of events in a "temporal series." If
Kant supposes that spiritual automata are under the conditions of time, he is no
longer reflecting on any kind of intelligible world; and so it is hard to
understand how his remarks can be true of pre-established harmony, given his
words on Leibniz in the Note to the Amphiboly in the first Critique. But the
weight of Kant's claim in this passage from the second Critique does not seem
to fall on the temporality of an automaton's inner law. The weight of his claim
seems to fall on the necessary connection between ground and consequence,
i.e., between one inner state of a substance and another. Now Kant himself says
in the first Critique that we can perfectly well conceive of a necessary relation
of ground and consequence without presupposing time. The result is one of the

142 Towards the Critical Philosophy

pure concepts of our understanding (A243-244/B301-302). So whether or not

time is presupposed here in this claim from the second Critique, Kant would
apparently deny that freedom is possible in the system of pre-established
hannony. If that's the case, Kant apparently denies that pre-established
hannony prevails in the Kingdom of Ends. But how can he deny this, given his
remarks about the system of Leibniz in the Note to the Amphiboly in the first
Critique? There he says that, if we use our pure concept to represent
community in the intelligible world, we must apparently represent this world as
one in which pre-established harmony prevails. So how might we possibly
conceive of the Kingdom of Ends, if not as a system of pre-established
harmony? How would freedom fare in a system of moral interaction? How
would such a system be possible? These questions seem to be unsettled.
Anyway, they are unsettled in my mind, if not in the mind of Kant.
Let us return now to the sphere of speculative reason. Here at least it seems
that we must make do with pre-established harmony (in our thought of the
intelligible world) unless we can find a way to adapt the pure concepts of
understanding to the conditions of our sensibility. For, in themselves, the pure
concepts are just logical forms of thought with no special competence for
dealing with empirical intuition. Now Kant thinks he has a way of
appropriately adapting our pure concepts, namely the so-called schematism of
our imagination. Kant says in the second Critique, for instance, that, "A
schema is a universal procedure of the imagination in presenting a priori to the
senses a pure concept of the understanding." Imagination is a peculiar faculty.
It has the spontaneity to combine and so forth. But it is somehow related to the
conditions of sensibility. This means that imagination is well suited to effect
unity in the manifold of intuition. For example, imagination is the faculty best
qualified to associate different positions in space not only with one another, but
also with moments in time. Any mix of space in time is first of all the work of
our imagination. Kant's idea now seems to be that our imagination can
somehow adapt our pure concepts for the conditions of sensibility-provided, of
course, that it operates a priori. The method of adaptation employed by our
pure imagination is called the schematism.
I do not wish to say much more about the schematism. But I do think that it
is worth making the following point by way of conclusion. I have suggested that
Kant arrived at some of the most important doctrines of the Critique of Pure
Reason by trying to complete the work he had begun in the Inaugural
Dissertation. Now the task of the Inaugural Dissertation was to expose and
correct the metaphysical error of subreption-the fallacy of representing
intelligible things under the conditions of sensibility. Kant's strategy was to
distinguish the conditions of the sensible world from the conditions of the
intelligible world. This was to remain his strategy for the purposes of his later
moral philosophy, if not for those of his speculative philosophy. I would now
like to suggest that the schematism was supposed to help Kant pull it off.
We know from Kant's moral writings that we represent ourselves as
members of an intelligible world insofar as we recognize the claim of the moral
law. This is because respect for the moral law makes us aware of our own
freedom. But Kant says that the laws at work in the realm of possible
experience are deterministic. If we are under a practical necessity to represent
ourselves as free, we must represent ourselves as members of a realm in which
these laws never come into play. Such a realm must be free from the conditions
of possible experience. This is why Kant calls it the intelligible world.

,
'

Towards the Critical Philosophy 143

Now these claims raise a question for Kant. Why must we deny that the laws
at work in the intelligible world are deterministic? I have already noted that. on
Kant's view, Leibniz's system of universal pre-established harmony among the
monads describes some kind of intelligible world. At least, it purports to
describe an intelligible world. I have also argued that, on Kant's account,
freedom is excluded from a system of pre-established harmony. Every monad is
governed by the law of its internal nature. This law necessarily determines
every state that it assumes. The example of Leibniz goes to show that we may
perfectly well represent ourselves as members of an intelligible world, yet
determined in our volitions by some kind of deterministic, natural law. How
can Kant avoid determinism in the Kingdom of Ends? He presumably thinks he
can show, in the first place, that deterministic laws hold sway in the realm of
possible experience. How does he think that he might show this? The weight of
the argument seems to fall on the schematism.
Kant writes as follows in the Critique of Practical Reason:
A schema is a universal procedure of the imagination in presenting a priori to the senses a
pure concept of the understanding which is determined by the law, and a schema must
correspond to natural laws as laws to which objects of sensuous intuition as such are subject.
But to the law of freedom (which is a causality not sensuously conditioned), and
consequently to the concept of the absolutely good, no intuition and hence no schema can be
supplied for the purpose of applying it in concreto. Thus the moral law has no other
cognitive faculty to mediate its application to objects of nature than the understanding (not
the imagination); and the understanding can supply to an idea of reason not a schema of
sensibility but a law."

Kant apparently argues that natural laws are always represented by the
understanding under a schema of the imagination. Natural laws are
deterministic, so we can apparently conclude that our conception of such laws
depends on one of these schemata. Since the moral law, i.e., the law of
freedom, does not depend on a schema of our imagination, we cannot conceive
of it, when we regard it rightly, as a deterministic law.
The question for us now is under what conditions we may rightly conceive
of this law of freedom. It is not enough to say that our understanding must put
aside all schemata of our imagination. For the unschematized concept of
community seems to give us a system of pre-established harmony .in our
thought of the intelligible world-a system of community governed by
deterministic laws in which transcendental freedom is impossible. In answer to
our question, Kant says that we must use a schema of another kind altogether.
Kant explains:
Here, however, we are concerned not with the schema of a case occurring according to laws
but with the schema (if this word is suitable here) of a law itself, because the determination
of the will through law alone and without any other determining ground (and not the action
with reference to its consequences) connects the concept of causality to conditions altogether
different from those which constitute natural connection."

Kant's claim is obscure. But it seems to depend on the following idea. Natural
laws have a certain form or structure. We discover this form by reflecting on a
natural law in general, and we can use our reflection, or rather what we
discover thereby, as a schema for our thought of the law at work in the
intelligible world. So our reflection on the fonn of a natural law in general
apparently gives us a model for our thought of the law of freedom. Kant himself
puts it as follows:

144 Towards the Critical Philosophy

lbis law [supplied by the understanding to an idea of reason], as one which can be exhibited
in concreto in objects of the senses, is a natural law. But this natural law can, for the
purpose of judgment, be used only in its formal aspect, and it may, therefore, be called the
type of the moral law."

Kant's reasoning here must be something like this. When we reflect on the
"fonnal aspect" of a natural law in general, we focus our attention on its
universal scope. We note, for example, that Newton's laws of motion apply
universally to all material particles, and to all such particles without exception.
Now we can think of a law as universally applicable to a whole class of things
without having to think of the law as deterministic. Kant apparently wants to
say that our thought of the moral law is wholly exhausted by our thought of its
commanding us universally. Just for that reason, we are prevented from
thinking of the moral law as a deterministic law of nature. Thus we may use the
"formal aspect" of a natural law in general as the "type" of the moral law.
When we do so, we represent the moral law as the law of an intelligible realm
whose members have transcendental freedom.
The schematism of our imagination and the type of the moral law together
separate the intelligible world of the Kingdom of Ends from the sensible world
of possible experience. Under the schematism of our imagination, we represent
objects of possible experience as governed by deterministic laws of nature.
Under the type of the moral law, we represent ourselves as subject to a
universally valid imperative of pure reason and so blessed with transcendental
freedom. Kant said in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals that even
the most ordinary understanding conceives of a realm beyond the senses and
indeed itself as a citizen of this realm. But such an understanding also tends to
represent the intelligible realm impurely, as though it could be an object of the
senses after all. Kant himself put it as follows:
A conclusion of this kind must be reached by a thinking man about everything that may be
presented to him. It is presumably to be found even in the most ordinary intelligence, which,
as is well known, is always very much disposed to look behind the objects of the senses for
something further that is invisible and is spontaneously active; but it goes on to spoil this by
inunediately sensif)'ing this invisible something in its tum-that is to say, it wants to make it
an object of intuition, and so by this procedure it does not become in any degree wiser.

The ordinary understanding has a natural tendency to "quibble" with the moral
law, i.e., to find ways of accommodating the moral law to its desires and
inclinations. It seeks an exemption for itself, while recognizing the claim of the
moral law on others. In effect, it is trying to restrict the universal scope of the
moral law. The consequence of this is to deny oneself access to the intelligible
realm and to represent oneself as subject to universal laws of another kind,
namely the universal laws of nature. Insofar as it quibbles with the moral law,
the ordinary understanding pollutes its conception of the intelligible realm and
thus its awareness of its own freedom. For the universal laws of nature are
deterministic. But Kant thought that he had a method of purification. By the
time of the second Critique, the method apparently consisted in employing the
type of the moral law and the schematism of our imagination. Together these
two innovations would permit us to restore and reaffirm the universal scope of
the moral law outside the usual course of material nature. In other words, they
would permit us to distinguish clearly the intelligible world from the sensible
world.

Towards the Critical Philosophy 145

In conclusion, I would like to suggest that we can understand the Critical
Philosophy as the result of Kant's efforts to complete the work he had begun in
the Inaugural Dissertation. The Critical Philosophy completed the cosmology
of sensation, which Kant had barely sketched in 1770, by making our
understanding God's vicegerent in the sensible world. It completed the project
of drawing a sharp distinction between the sensible world and the intelligible
world by offering us an account of the schematism of our imagination and the
type of the moral law.

NOTES
NOTES TO INTRODUCTION
1. Dieter Henrich has llf$Ued. for instance, that we are mistaken to think that the word "deduction"
means a string of syllog~stic inferences for Kant The Transcendental Deduction is not, in the first
instance, a string of such inferences, though a number of such inferences are to be found in it Henrich
argues on the basis of textual and historical evidence that Kant took the so-called Deduktionsschriften
of the fourteenth through eighteenth centuries as the model for his Transcendental Deduction. A
Deduktionsschrift is a kind of legal brief for justifYing a claim to an acquired right. Henrich makes the
point that Kant's contemporary readers would have understood that Kant was using the word
"deduction" in the sense of these Deduktionsschriften. The trouble is just that readers today do not
know what a Deduktionsschrift is. Henrich himself puts it thus, "Kant ... had very good reasons to
assume-given the widespread practice of arguing through deduction writings-that his audience would
understand him when he transferred the term 'deduction' from its juridical usage to a new, philosophical
one. What he could not foresee was that such a widespread usage would very soon become obsolete,
when the Holy Roman Empire was abolished under pressure from Napoleon. With this, the Imperial
Courts and the practice of writing deductions disappeared forever, and the term 'deduction' became
extinct and almost incomprehensible. With regard to the Critique and its deductions, we can thus
understand in a new light the old saying that books, too, have their destiny." See Henrich, "Kant's
Notion of Deduction," in Kant's Transcendental Deductions, ed. Eckhart FOrster, (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, I989), 33.
2. The system of pre-established harmony and the notion that substances cannot be described
mathematically (i.e., geometrically) are some of the mistakes that Kant has in mind here.
3. I would suggest, furthermore, that having discovered some of Kant's original motives for
distinguishing our two faculties of knowledge, we might come to understand better the subsequent
developments leading to the formulation of Kant's mature doctrine of transcendental idealism. I shall
give a sketch of how we might understand these subsequent developments in the concluding chapter of
this study.
4. I develop these ideas in the concluding chapter of this study. For now, it is enough to say that the
lesson ofthe later works is that we can have knowledge of real interaction only as taking place among
the objects of possible experience. We can have no knowledge of real interaction among things in
themselves. I would venture to say, moreover, that the later Kant leaves room for the system of preestablished harmony as the system of causes prevailing among the noumena. At any rate, he says
explicitly in the Note to the Amphiboly that Leibniz was right to go for pre-established harmony, at least
insofar as Leibniz was reasoning from the unschematized concept of conununity (A274-27S/B330-331).
I cannot help but think that the Kingdom of Ends, described in the Groundwork and the Critique of
Practical Reason, is a system of pre-established harmony. But, of course, speculative reason, has no
right to claim that it has scientific knowledge of such a system. For we can have knowledge only of the
objects of possible experience. Again, I develop these ideas in the concluding chapter.

S. The matter has to be more complicated than this, if only because Kant thinks that the principle of
succession is the metaphysical foundation of the law of inertia. Let me also emphasize right now that
Kant does not think, by reason of the principle of succession or any other principle, that the proper
objects of metaphysics-inunaterial substances such as the rational soul or the monads underlying all
matter-are subject in any straightforward way to the laws of motion. I have more to say about this in
Chapter Two.
6. I shall discuss these points at the end of Chapter Two.
7. This is a fundamental thesis of the Physical Monadology, an academic dissertation of 1756. I shall
discuss this work at length in Chapter Three.

NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE

1. Cassirer, Kant's Life and Thought, trans. James Haden, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981),
77.
2. See the Untersuchung aber die Deutlichkeit der Grundsatze der natQrlichen Theologie und der
Moral in the second volume of the Academy edition. Hereafter, I shall refer to this work as the
Preisschrift.

148

Notes

3. Indeed, the public would have to wait until 1786 for the ex-pected Metaphysical Foundations of

Natural Science, and 1797 for the expected Metaphysics ofMorals.

4. Mendelssolm, Gesammelte Schriften, second series, volume 4, ed. G. B. Mendelssolm, (Leipzig: F.
A Brockhaus, 1844), 529.

5. Bacon, The Advancement of Learning, in Selected Writings, ed. Hugh G. Dick, (New York.:
Random House, 1955), 160.
6.1bid., 251-252.
7. More, The Immortality of the Soul, ed. Alexander Jacob, (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhof, 1987), 12.
8. Ibid., 12-13.
9. Of course, it is still a further question whether the soul sloughs off all corporeal raiment after death.
Though Leibniz was as keen as anyone on the inunortality of souls (human and brutish alike), he
believed that souls never entirely disassociate themselves from bodies (See 6 of the Principles of
Nature and Grace, Based on Reason). This is not to say that he was committed to metempsychosis, the
belief that the soul passes from one body to another. He seemed to think instead that every body is
composed of smaller and smaller bodies, animated by more and more primitive souls. When the body of
an animal dies, it breaks up into parts. The primitive souls that animate these parts continue to live,
though they are no longer governed by the dominant soul that used to orchestrate the whole, during the
course ofthe animal's life. That dominant soul sinks into a state of torpor. Its perceptions are confused,
just as we experience when we sleep soundly without dreams. The torpid soul can revive again if the
parts of its dissolved body are reassembled and the harmony ofthe souls formerly under its dominion is
thus re-established. Now this is a heterodox view, according to which the human soul slumbers until the
day of resurrection. Wolff rejects it, because he insists that, to prove the immortality of the soul, we must
demonstrate not only that the soul survives the body, but also that its perceptions are distinct, even in
this state, and that it conserves its memory. Given Wolff's concern for orthodoxy, it is more than likely
that he would deny that the soul continues to be associated with bodies after death, and that he would
insist on its separability. But, characteristically, he does not explicitly state or defend his views on this
matter.
10. One might perhaps be tempted to say that Wolff's reticence on this score is just a sign of the times.
After all, the Psychologia rationa/is was first published in 1734, slightly more than fifty years after
Henry More's death, as the witch-craze in Europe was subsiding and people became more and more
critical of speculations about supernatural phenomena. Now it is certainly true that critical voices were
louder in Wolff's time (not that they were silent in More's either). But it should be noted that debates on
the matter were still very lively. Henry Charles Lea notes in his Materials Toward a History of
Witchcraft, volume three, ed. Arthur Howland, (New York: Thomas Yoselotf, 1957) that the
Disputatio juridica de jure spectrorum, a thesis for the Doctorate of Laws presented to the faculty at
the University of Jena by Andreas Becker, was reprinted as late as 1745. This is a perfectly serious piece
in which the author argues for the existence of ghosts and separate spirits, after which he proceeds to
consider the legal implications of haunted real estate and the like. Lea also notes that Valentin
Volckerling defended his thesis on the demon Rilbezahl (said to be haunting the Riesengebirge between
Bohemia and Silesia}-De Spiritu in Monte Gigantaeo Si/esiorum apparente, vulgo Rabe-Zahl-at
the University of Wittenberg in 1740.
11. Cassirer, Kant's Life and Thought, 78-79.
12. He reports, for instance, that he would send parts of his work to the printer one at a time, so that he
did not always see how a given section would come out in the end (10.68).
13. See Hans Vaihinger, Kommentar zu Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunfl, second edition, volume two
(Stuttgart: Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1922).
14. See, in particular, Tafel's Supplement zu Kants Biographie und zu den Gesammtausgaben seiner
Werke, oder die von Kant gegebenen Erfahrungsbeweise .filr die Unsterblichkeit und fortdauernde
Wiedererinnerungskrafl der Seele, durch Nachweisung einer groben Flilschung in ihrer
Unverflilschtheit wiederhergestel/t, nebst einer Wurdigung seiner fraheren Bedenken gegen, sowie
seiner spliteren Vernunjlbeweise for die Unsterblichkeit, (Stuttgart, 1845). See the introduction to
Karl du Prel's edition of Kant's lectures on rational psychology as transcribed by Politz, Kants
Vorlesungen aber Psychologie, (Pforzheim: Rudolf Fischer, 1967). See the commentary appended by

Notes 149
Ooerwitz to his English-language translation of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, (New York: Macmillan,
1900). Also see the commentary appended by John Manolesco to his more recent English-language
translation of Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer and Other Related Writings, (New York: Vantage Press, 1969).
15. Vaihinger, Kommentar, 513.
16. Manolesco, Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer, 17.
17. The emphasis is mine.
18. It should be clear, however, that Swedenborg cannot be the only target of Kant's criticism in this
passage. Kant is at least as worked up about the rational psychology of Wolff and company as he is
about Swedenborg's spirit-seeing.
19. Vaihinger himself describes the crypto-Swedenborgian theory of spiritual intercourse that appears in
Part One, Chapter Two of Dreams ofA Spirit-Seer as "half in earnest, half in jest" (see Vaihinger,
Kommentar, 512). But Vaihinger thinks that it is earnest enough (in light of the Plllitz lectures on
rational psychology) that it might have served as the prototype for Kant's account of the intelligible
world in the Inaugural Dissertation. (See Vaihinger, Kommentar, 5 13).
20. This is not to say that, on Kant's view, either the concepts of God and the other world or
Swedenborg's visions could ever give us the right reason to live VIrtuously. The good heart seeks virtue
for its own sake, not for the sake of life in the hereafter. "Can he, who would rather abandon himself up
to his favorite vices were it not for the fear of future punishment, be properly called honest or virtuous;"
exclaims Kant in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, "will we not have to say rather that he fears the practice of
wickedness, though he nurtures a vicious disposition in his soul, and that he loves the advantages of
virtuous-like action, while hating virtue itself?" (2.372.29-34). The point in the Plllitz lectures on
rational psychology is just that Swedenborg 's visions, like the usual concepts of God and the other
world, can at least give us a picture or an idea of moral perfection.
21. Fischer, Geschichte der neuern Philosophie, volume four, (Heidelberg: Carl Winter's
Universitiitsbuchhandlung. 1898), 141.
22.1bid.
23. Though Cassirer does not see the history of Kant's intellectual development as the outcome of "real
opposition" between negative magnitudes, his reading of Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer is essentially the same
as that of Kuno Fischer's. In Kant's Life and Thought, he suggests that Kant was a very sophisticated
partisan of the "philosophy of the Enlightenment," a philosophy that"... rejected the supersensible and
limited reason to the 'here-and-now' and to what can be apprehended empirically ... " (83). This
partisanship compelled him to reject dogmatic metaphysics. "Metaphysics is still science for [Kant),"
writes Cassirer, "however, it is no longer a science of things in a supersensible world, but of the limits of
human reason" (Ibid). Moreover, as a partisan of the Enlightenment, Kant naturally found
Swedenborg's claim to have direct communication with the spirit world quite preposterous. Cassirer
claims that Kant used Swedenborg as a caricature for the dogmatic metaphysician in order to cast the
science of supersensible things into doubt (80).
24. Of course, it is not at all obvious that Swedenborg's claims to communicate with the angels on high
and the spirits of the dead are necessarily absurd from the standpoint of the empiricist. After all,
Swedenborg sees himself as an empiricist of sorts. He thinks that he can persuade those who doubt or
who have lapsed in their faith that there is indeed a life to come by bringing back eye-witness accounts
of the things he saw f!rsl hand in heaven and hell. The ordinary empiricist might have doubts about
Swedenborg's experiences in these other realms, but he cannot simply object that it is impossible.
25. De Vleeschauwer, The Development of Kantian Thought, trans. A R C. Duncan, (London:
Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd, 1962), 40.
26.1bid.
27. Ibid
28. Of course, there is an important difference between the Preisschrift and Dreams of a Spirit-Seer,
namely the tone. The later work is much harsher than the earlier one. De Vleeschauwer suggests that
this is due to Kant's reading of Rousseau and his new found understanding that speculative metaphysics
is useless in the moral conduct oflife (Ibid., 41 ).

150 Notes
29. De Vleeschauwer, The Development ofKantian Thought, 34.
30. See Beck, Early German Philosophy, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969), 441-445.

31. Butts, Kant and the Double Government Methodology, (Dordrecht: Reidel Publishing Company,
1984). See especially the Introduction and Chapter Three. Butts himself puts it this way, "The question
of data, the question of evidence ... the divide that finally cannot be crossed, the limit of the knowable.
The philosophical crucifix. Kant was putting Swedenborg to the philosophical experiment of the cross.
That, as I read the evidence, is the message of Traume. It is a message fully consistent with Kant's
philosophical worries throughout his career. It is a message revealing the enthymematic premise that
functions as the meta-reason for Kant's troubled attitudes toward Swedenborg and the paranormal"
(Ibid, 81).
32. Butts, Double Government Methodology, 82-86.

33. One of the more helpful works on Dreams of a Spirit-Seer is C. D. Broad's "Immanuel Kant and
Psychical Research." This article has been published in Broad, Religion, Philosophy and Psychical
Research (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Limited, 1953), 116-147. The paper offers a detailed
and very careful synopsis of Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer.
NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO

1. Notice that this is not supposed to exclude the concurrence of divine causation. On the contrary, the
creature produces change in itself, with the assistance of God's power. This is very clear in the work of
Leibniz. When Leibniz says that every true substance acts on itself, he does not mean to say that the
change in the substance is the effect of the creature and the creature alone. He means to say, rather, that
God and the creature produce the change together. Thus Leibniz is prepared to say in the Essays of
Theodicy, for example, that "... God concurs with evil in the actual execution that introduces the
possible forms [which are the ultimate source of evil, even prior to God's will] into matter ... " (381).
While Leibniz scolds Bayle for over-emphasizing creaturely dependence on God and apparently for
denying creatures the power to act under their own steam, he also scolds Bernier, Durandus and some
others for over-emphasizing human freedom and God's goodness. The mistake of Bernier, he says, is
that,"... having given creatures the power to act, [God] is content to [do nothing more] than conserve it
[i.e., the power to act]" (381). However, Wolff's position on this, judging from the Theologia
natura/is 1.2, is closer to Bernier than to Leibniz. Thus Wolff argues that, "God concurs with the
actions of single natures and the actions of single creatures, indeed the actions of souls-those of beasts
as well as those of men-and all actions of men whatsoever through conservation" (874). God
contributes to the action of creatures by conserving their power for acting (869). So God does not
concur with the evil actions of men insofar as they are evil (883).
2. Let me point out again that, though mruJY more philosophers in history have believed in real
interaction than in pre-established hannony, none seems to have believed that real interaction involves
anything like a stream ofbeing. See note 32 of this chapter.

3. Physical influx, occasional causes and pre-e~1ablished harmony all do double duty as systems of
rational psychology and systems of general cosmology. That said, I should also say that, historically, the
war of systems arose in the first, if not in the last, instance as a debate in rational psychology. Or better
yet, I should say that Wolff's remarks about philosophical hypotheses in his own rational psychology set
the terms and the tone of the debate for both of these branches of special metaphysics.
4. Kant himself tries his hand at cosmology in the Physical Monadology, a work of 1756. I shall discuss
this work at some length in Chapter llll'ee.
5. If the legends are to be believed, the old Soldier King was most impressed by the objection that,
according to the system of pre-established harmony, he could not justly punish deserters and mutineers.
On November 8, 1723, he gave Wolff twenty-four hours to remove himself from Prussia----{)n pain of
death. The history of Wolff's conflict with the theologians at Halle is recorded in obsessive detail in

Recueil de nouvelles pieces philosophiques concernant le different renouvelle entre messieurs

Joachim Lange, Dr et professeur en theologie et Chretien Wolf. professeur a Marbourg, second
edition (Leipzig: n.p., 173 7).
6. Leibniz says at 18 oftheMonadology, for exan1ple, that, "One could give the name 'Entelechies' to
all sinlple substances or created monads, for they have within themselves a certain perfection (echousi
to enteles); there is a sufficiency (autarkeia) that makes them the source of their internal actions ... "

Notes 151
7. ~ Leibniz explains at 42 of the Monadology, "Creatures owe their perfections from the influence of
God, but ... they owe their imperfections to their own nature ... This original imperfection of creatures is
observable in the natural inertia of bodies." Since the power to act is a perfection a creature owes to
God, it is natural tn understand the creature's imperfection, which it owes to its own nature, as being
some kind of passivity. Given that Leibniz ultimately equates original imperfection with inertia in
bodies, it is interesting to note that he conceives of inertia as a kind of passive resistance to motion. This
is clear, for example, in 30, Part One of the Essays ofTheodicy. Speaking of inertia, Leibniz explains
there that, "Matter is naturally inclined to tardiness or to the privation of speed, not so as to diminish this
speed all by itself once it has received the speed (for that would be to act), but rather so as to modifYby its receptivity-the effect of the impression when it must receive it" Speaking in more general tenns,
Leibniz goes on to say in the same paragraph that, "God is the cause of perfection in nature and in the
actions of the creature, but the limitation of the creature's receptivity is the cause of the defects in its
action."
8. It is worth pointing out right now that Kant seems to conceive of inertia-in the context of his
discussion of the principle of succession in the Nova dilucidatio-along the same lines as Euler, namely
as a fundamental impotence of a thing with respect to self-inflicted change of state.
9. Thus Leibniz writes: "From what has been said it also follows, remarkably, that every passion of a
body is spontaneous or arises from an internal force, though upon an external occasion. But I mean
by this the passion proper to it, which arises from percussion, or which remains the same whatever
hypothesis may be chosen or to whatever body we may ascribe rest or motion. For since the percussion
is the same regardless of what body the true motion belongs to, it follows that the effect of percussion
will be equally distributed between both, and thus that both act equally in the collision, so that half of
the effect comes from the action of one, the other half from the action of the other. And since half of the
effect or passion is also in one and half in the other, it suffices to derive the passion which is in one from
the action which is in it, so that we need no influence of one upon the other" (L.448). Notice that the
conclusion of this argument is quite weak. Leibniz does not conclude that every body produces all
change of state in itself. He concludes rather that a body's production of its own change of state is
compatible with appearances. Whether we adopt the hypothesis that bodies produce their own change of
state or the hypothesis that they produce change of state in one another will presumably depend on
which hypothesis turns out to be the simplest It would seem that our choice of hypothesis will not
depend on any real thing in the nature ofbodies as such.
10. Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, ed. and trans. Ariew and Garber, (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1989),
176-177.
11. See for example Wolffs Cosmologia generalis arid his Vernilnftige Gedancken von Gott, der
Welt, der menschlichen Seele und auch allen Dingen Qberhaupt (544-600).
12. There is an interesting point of difference between Wolff and Leibniz as far as general cosmology
goes. Leibniz thinks of the world as a swarm of animals, ranging in size and sophistication from
elephants and humans to microscopic vermin. On Leibniz's view, every part of matter is just teeming
with life. As Leibniz himself puts it in the Monadology, "Every part of matter can be understood as a
garden full of plants and as a pond full of fish. But every shoot of the plant, every limb of the animal,
every drop of its humors is again such a garden or such a pond. And though the earth and the air
between the plants oft'Je garden, or the water between the fish in the pond is itself neither plant nor fish,
they contain still more such creatures-though more often than not these creatures are so subtle that they
are imperceptible to us" (67-68). Every living creature, however so small, has powers of
representation, however so modest. Universal pre-established harmony consists simply in the order
established by God among the successive representations in all animal-life of creation. We can indeed
think ofl..eibniz as describing the dog's revenge. The lines of Swift put it nicely, "So naturalists observe
a flea/ Has smaller fleas that on him prey;/ And these have smaller still to bite 'em,/ and so proceed ad
infinitum ..." (as quoted by Loemker in his introduction to Leibniz, Philosophical Papers and Letters,
Second Edition, (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers,1989), 31).
Leibniz's vitalism is just a bit too much for Wolff, who prefers to think of the world as a machine
instead of a vast termite mound Wolff politely suspends judgement in the Vernilnftige Gedancken von
Gott, der Welt, der Seele des Menschen, auch allen Dingen ilberhaupt on one of the key principles in
Leibniz's system of universal pre-established harmony, namely the power of representation in the
constitutive elements of the world. Wolff prefers to speak generically of the inner states of these
elements, whatever these states might consist in. Instead of a power of representation, he prefers to
assign these elements some kind of generic inner force. And Wolff prefers to avoid the word "monad"
altogether, favoring the antiseptic "element," precisely because he fears that "monad" carries the
connotation of life and powers of representation. So Wolff describes universal pre-established harmony

152 Notes
in the followin~ terms: since no real interaction takes place among the elements, the inner state of any
given element Js "directed towards" (sich richten auf) the inner states of every other element (S44600). What this actually means is very difficult to determine. It would seem that the price of sobriety is
total vacuousness. Perhaps one might say, on Wolff's behalf; that the inner state of an element consists
in different views or perspectives; that an element faces other elements, as the eastern side of the State of
Illinois Center faces the tohacco shop that boasts the world's largest humidor; that inner force is just the
power by which an element changes its perspective. One might then imagine that inner force causes the
elements to spin, so that, at every instant, the view from the standpoint of any given element changes
with respect to all the others. But even this idea is no help to Wolff, who denies that anything like
spinning-a form of inner motion, as he would call it-is possible for elements. Little wonder that
Crusius should argue with a note of exasperation in the Anleitung Qber natarliche Begebenheiten that
Wolfrs conception of the elements is quite barren. See 72 in Chapter Two of this work as reproduced
in Volume Four, Part One of Crusius, Die Philosophischen Hauptwerke, ed. Giorgio Tonelli,
(Hildesheim: Olms, 1987).
13. It is unreasonable, I say, to argue that the elements have inertia ju~1 because bodies have inertia. On
the other hand, the conclusion that the elements have inertia is attractive in the historical context.
Consider that Leibniz attributes a power of representation to the monads. As I pointed out in the
previous note, a lot of philosophers-including Wolff-found this hard to take. To ascribe inertia to the
elements, following Euler's example, is in effect to offer a new and clever way out of Leibniz's
panpsychism. Euler himself stresses in the Gedancken von dem Elementen der CtJrper that the
elements are radically distinct in nature from minds on precisely these grounds. He says that, "Now we
recognize in particular an infinite difference between the elements of bodies and the essence of souls and
spirits: for though the former are endowed with a force for persevering in their state and for resisting all
change, we have every right to grant the latter a force for changing their state, and so we place the latter
in a class of real things from which the elements of bodies are in all cases excluded" (2.2.359).
I 4. Euler tries to show on grounds other than the law of inertia that the system of Wolff and Leibniz in
rational psychology is at once absurd and impious. He tries to expose the absurdity of the system in his
letters to the German princess. He notes that, for people like Wolff and Leibniz, the body is united to the
soul only by a certain harmony. Every wish of the soul perfectly corresponds to a bodily motion,"... so
that, if the organization of my body were disrupted and it were no longer in accord with my soul, this
body would no more belong to me than the body of a rhinoceros in the middle of Africa. And, in the case
of a deregulation of my body, if God adju~-ted the body of a rhinoceros so that its motions were so much
in accord with the orders of my soul that it raised its hoof when I wanted to raise my hand, and so with
other operations, this would then be my body. I would suddenly find myself in the form of a rhinoceros
in the middle of Africa. But in spite of that, my soul would continue the same operations. I would also
have the honor of writing to Your Highness, but I do not know how she would then receive my letter"
(3. I 1.187-1 88). As far as Euler is concerned, the system of pre-established harmony is absurd on more
than one count. It supposes that the soul owes nothing to the body or the senses for its knowledge and
representations. So, when I read in the papers that the Pope is dead, the physical act of browsing through
the paper contributes nothing to the knowledge I have of a death in the Vatican. Reading the paper is an
act of the body. But, according to the system of pre-established harmony, the soul develops its ideas
under its own power. "It [the soul) judges from its own constitution," says Euler, ''that he [the Pope)
must absolutely be dead, and happily this knowledge comes to it just as I read the paper, so that I
imagine reading the paper conveyed this knowledge to me, although I drew it from the depths of my
soul" (3. I I. I 89). Euler might well have pointed out that, even if he did not sit down to read the paper on
the day the Pope died, he would still have learned all about it, for his soul is fated from all eternity to
know on a certain day that a certain Pope passed away.
Euler's efforts to show that the system of Wolff and Leibniz is absurd in rational psychology are not
really new. Nor are they especially telling. But Euler's remarks are noteworthy for their heavy-handed
irony. Euler never pulled any rhetorical punches when campaigning against pre-established harmony.
Euler's efforts to show that pre-established harmony is as impious as absurd are no more original.
They call on objections already raised by the Pietist theologians at the University of Halle. Euler argues
that, according to Wolff and Leibniz, we are all "double machines" insofar as body and soul
automatically carry out their operations in common accord: they exercise no real influence on one
another. Euler concludes that this picture of things abolishes human freedom. My soul cannot be
responsible for the motions of my body, since it does not produce them voluntarily. This is impious, for
the faults of men must be laid to the charge of God who created them in this manner. The argument is
not new, but Euler proves to be much more forgiving than the Pietist theologians. In a spirit of
conciliation, Euler abjures the Princess from thinking that the Leibnizian philosophers would really
want to endorse all the impious consequences of their unholy system (3.11.191 ).
IS. Evidence for this way of thinking can be found in Kant's first work of any importance, the True

Estimation of Living Forces of 1747. For exrunple, Kant appeals in the opening few sections of the

Notes 153
work to the law. of mechanics in order to comet the view. of metaphysicians about the union of body
and soul. He arguea in effect through 6 that Leibniz and his followers misunderstood the laws of
mechanics and the nature of motion, and he argues in effect that this misconception stood in the way of
their understandin~ the union of body and soul. It is only because of their misconceived dynamics, he
says, that these philosophers denied that body and soul really act on one another. Kant goes so far as to
say that once we understand rightly the laws of mechanics and the nature of motion, real interaction
between body and soul receives "no small light" (1.20.26-27). See below.
16. See below. This is especially clear in the opening discussion of Kant's True Estimation of Living
Forces. I shall have things to say about this discussion in the following pages.
17. See Section Two of the next chapter.
18. I shall argue in Chapter Three that Kant found it difficult to avoid the conclusion that souls are
present in space by original forces of repulsion.
19. See the following chapter.
20. From the fact that the external relations among substances never change in a world in which
everything is at rest, Kant concludes that their inner states always remain the same. No doubt, he would
say that this also follows for a world in which all substances move in the same direction with the same
uniform speed: in such a world, the external relations substances bear to one another would not change.
(Notice, however, that this raises the question how we could tell the difference between a world in which
everything is at rest from a world in which everything moves in the same direction with the same
uniform speed). What would Kant say about a world in which all substances move with inertial motion,
but with different speeds and in different directions? Let us suppose, moreover, that the substances never
collide or otherwise cause one another to undergo acceleration. What would he say about that? Under
these conditions, the external relations the substances bear to one another would certainly change, and so
one might expect Kant to say that their iMer determinations do so as well. And yet Kant would in fact
deny that change of iMer determinations must occur in this scenario. For he thinks that change of inner
state is always the result of interaction by external forces; in other words, all change of inner state is an
acceleration. We can see, then, that Kant disregards motion or change of position as an effect of true
interaction. Indeed, Kant takes motion to be purely phenomenal. Cf. also Gedancken von der wahren
SchiJtzung der lebendigen KriJjle, 3 ( 1.18.18-36). This is quite peculiar, because, as a corollary of the
principle of co-existence, Kant argues in the Nova dilucidatio that place, position and space are the
result of real interaction among substances ( 1.414.1 0-20). Since motion is supposed to be purely
phenomenal, substances can apparently move without being in space. They can also apparently move
without being in time, because Kant thinks that time is also grounded on real interaction (1.410.27-28).
21. I am especially indebted to Michael Friedman for stressing the peculiar relation between the
principle of succession and the law of inertia. This is something he stresses in the introduction to Kant
and the Exact Sciences, (Can1bridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), 6.
22. Notice that, in the presentation of the principle of succession, Kant conceives of inertia in the same
way as Euler, namely as a natural and fundamental impotence, i.e., as the inability of a thing under any
circumstance to produce change of state in itself.
23. It should be noted that, for Kant, the words "cOMection" (commercium, nexus or Verbindung) and
"mutual dependence" (dependentia reciproca, gegenseitige Abhtingigkeit or Wechselwirkung) all
mean basically the same thing. namely real interaction.
24. The emphasis is mine.
25. It is worth noting. however, that, although Kant musters arguments to show that spontaneous change
in a substance is impossible and that all change in a substance is the effect of an external agency, he does
nothing to establish that the "dependence of determinations" of substances on one another is always
mutual. This is a peculiar omission, on the face of it. But on the other hand, Kant tries to establish the
reciprocity of the influence created substances have on one another with the principle of co-existence. I
shall discuss the principle of co-existence in the following section of this chapter.
26. I take it that Kant would want to say that the laws of mechanics somehow follow from the principle
of succession, together with the other principle of his system. namely the principle of co-existence. But
Kant gives no indication how.
27. At the very least, they presuppose relative space and relative time.

154 Notes
28. Defmition Four.
29. Actually, the question concerning Kant's attitude towards Newton's concept of force is much more
complicated than this. Perhaps, as I have suggested, Kant thinks Newton's concept of force is all right,
so far as it goes, and that it presupposes or rests on Kant's more fundamental metaphysical concept of
force. On the other hand, perhaps Kant thinks that Newton's concept is somehow confused and that his
own metaphysical concept of force is the required corrective. One reason for thinking this might be the
case is that Newton's system of the world presupposes the concepts of absolute space, time, motion and
rest. The concept of force is of great importance to Newton, because he says that forces are the cause of
absolute motion (and judging from the concluding words of the General Scholium appended to the
defmitions, the avowed purpose of the Principia is to distinguish the absolute from the relative motions
in the world). Since absolute motion is just the translation of a body from one inunovable place in
absolute space to another, the concept of absolute space (and also that of absolute time) is presupposed
by Newton's concept of force. Now Kant seems to have been critical of the concepts of absolute motion,
rest, space and time during the 1750s. A1 least, this is the impression one has from reading the New
Doctrine o[Motion and Rest. Kant argues in that work that all motion and rest is purely relative, and he
concludes that we cannot defend the concept of absolute motion by appeal to absolute space. (Kant does
not actually use the words "absolute space" in this context; he speaks rather of "a mathematical space
empty of all creatures" (2.17.23-27).) Since Kant is suspicious of absolute space and motion (and
presumably absolute time and rest as well), he would no doubt reject Newton's concept of force. Or
rather, he would strip that concept bare and define force in the purely metaphysical terms of the Nova
dilucidatio as the effect produced by the agency of one substance in another. This definition would
appeal in no way to either space or time at all, taken either in the absolute or the relative sense. If this is
Kant's attitude, then he must think his own metaphysical concept of force corrects the mistakes in
Newton's concept of force.
30. It is of course debatable whether the principle of succession alone is enough to show that body is the
cause of all change of state in the soul. Why couldn't God or other souls be the cause? Kant tries to
argue that the principle of succession is all he needs to make the case for bodies. See Usus 1 (1.411.32412.5). Whatever we may think ofthis argument, it is clear that the principle of succession-if trueundermines pre-established hannony as a system of rational psychology. For obviously all change of
state in the soul must be produced by another substance, whether that substance is a body or is
something else.
31. In a paper of 1763 called Attempt to Introduce Negative Magnitudes into Philosophy, Kant
explicitly raises the question how the mind can freely associate ideas without anything acting on it from
without How is it possible first to imagine a tiger, then to stop thinking about the tiger, and then to
begin imagining a jackal? Kant argues as one would expect: precisely the same sort of thing that
produces a change of state in a body produces the change of state in my mind when 1 engage in such free
association, namely a "veritable active force" (eine wahrhaftig thtJtige Kraft). There is just one
important difference, he goes on to say: the force that produces change of state in a body must come
from a source external to the body, but the force that produces change of state in a mind can sometimes
come from the mind itself. Kant is thus making an important qualification here about the principle of
succession (2.191.29-192.5). He comes round to the position of Euler and others: the soul differs from
the body insofar as it can occasionally produce change of state in itself.
32. Kant's diagnosis ofwlgar influxionism is perhaps fine, as far as it goes. But it is not clear whose
errors he is trying to correct. The picture of physical influx as being flowing from one substance to
another seems to have been Leibniz's invention. I have always assumed that Leibniz invented wlgar
influxionism to make pre-established harmony more attractive. A1 least one thing going for physical
influx is that it squares nicely with ordinary experience. I have the distinct impression that my will is the
cause of the voluntary motions in my body and that the motions of bodies are the cause of perceptions
that pass through my mind. Though Leibniz might summon up the most telling arguments for preestablished hannony, he will always have difficulty overcoming this natural, if naive, confidence in what
ordinary experience teaches us. In order to undermine our confidence, Leibniz dreamed up the
influxionist-a cartoon philosopher who holds a barely intelligible doctrine: natural change in body and
soul is the effect of being flowing from one substance to the other. A1 least this is what I have always
supposed that Leibniz was up to. But Eileen O'Neill has a more complicated and more interesting story
to tell. She suggests that Leibniz invented the system of physical influx to raise the level of discussion
about natural change in bodies and souls. She argues that Leibniz's predecessors and contemporaries
might throw their lot in with the Scholastics, the Neo-Piatonists, the Corpuscularian Philosophers or the
Optical Men. But ultimately they all make a final appeal to an obscure transmission theory of natural
change: either because they really have nothing better to offer; or because they have not understood the
limits ofthe mechanical philosophy. Eileen O'Neill argues that Leibniz invented the system of physical

Notes ISS
influx in order to expoae thia common failing. Her work ia valuable, not only for the liJP!t it sheds on
Leibniz, but abo for her reconatruction of the hiato~ of influxionism. She is the first, I think, to aUcmpt
such a reconatruction. See her "lnfluxus Physicus ' in Causation In Early Modern Philosophy, ed.
Steven Nadler, (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993), 27-57. Now, whoever
or whatever might have been the object of Leibniz's criticisms, it is clear that Leibniz had laid down a
challenge for anyone who might want to defend physical influx. The challenge was to show how real
interaction is possible, without descending into the absurdities Leibniz attributes to the wlgar
influxionist committed to the transfusion theory. When Kant speaks of the superiority of his own system
of physical influx over that of the wlgar influxionists, he makes it clear that he is responding to
Leibniz's challenge. Indeed, an important lesson of Kant's Nova dilucidatio is precisely that we will
descend into the absurdities of wlgar influxionism if we do not emphasize that the possibility of real
interaction among created substances depends on God's universal concourse. This is the point that Kant
is trying to make in the demonstration and discussion of the principle of co-existence.
33. Ameriks, "The Critique of Metaphysics: Kant and Traditional Ontology," in the Cambridge

Companion to Kant, ed.Paul Guyer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 263.
34. Kant's commitment to universal gravitation is quite radical and most unusual. He seems always to
have believed that bodies can act immediately upon one another at any distance as through empty space.
See the UniVersal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens of 1755 (1.308.27-34). the Nova
dilucidatio also of 1755 (1.415.5-16) and the Physical Monadology of 1756 (1.475.26-27). This is
rather surprising, because the notion of universal and immediate gravitation was hotly contested on the
continent, even by those otherwise sympathetic to Newton. I'm not sure why Kant was won over to the
idea. He says in the Physical Monadology that it has been demonstrated rigorously in geometry, but he
does not elaborate. Michael Friedman has argued that this commitment to universal gravitation was of
central importance to the development of Kant's Critical Philosophy. See Kant and the Exact Sciences,
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992).
35. Kant would later re-use precisely these arguments in the Metaphysical Foundations of the Natural
Sciences. Cf. Observation One, Proposition Seven in Chapter Two, "The Metaphysical Foundations of
Dynamics" (4.513-514).
NOTES TO CHAPTER THREE
1. As Kant puts it, "If the external phenomenon of the universal action and reaction through all space in
which bodies relate to one another be the mutual approach of these bodies, it is called attraction-which
attraction extends through any distance, when it is effected by the mere compresence of bodies, and is
called Newtonian attraction or universal gravitation. Therefore it is probable that this attraction is
effected by the same connection of substances whereby they determine space ... " (1.415.8-13). Notice
how circumspect Kant is here. He does not say that the universal action and reaction of bodies as
through empty space is the effect of universal attraction; rather, he says that, if the universal action and
reaction of bodies through space is the mutual approach of one body to another, then it must be the
effect of universal attraction. He states it as a verisimilitude, not as the truth itself, that substances
determine space by the same nexus which makes possible their mutual attraction. Contrary to the
misleading impression of John Reuscher's English translation of the Nova dilucidatio in Kant's Latin
Writings, ed Lewis White Beck., trans. Becket al., (New York: Peter Lang, 1986, Kant does not say
dogmatically that universal attraction is the most primitive law to which matter is subject. This he also
states as a verisimilitude. And whereas one expects Kant to say that universal attraction of bodies is
made possible by God, he says simply that this is an opinion of Newton's followers.
2. 1 shall discuss the Physical Monadology in some detail in the second section of this chapter.
3. Nowhere do the notions of spiritual inertia and spiritual acceleration appear more fanciful than in the

third section of the Theory of the Heavens. Kant seems to think that the rational perfection of a soul is
inversely proportional to its spiritual inertia. The natural tendency of every soul is always to preserve the
same perception, to resist drawing any inference from the evidence presented to it during the course of
expenence and to adhere to the s."Une resolutions and the same course of action. A soul is more perfect
the more susceptible it is to change of inner state: the more readily its perceptions succeed from one to
the next, the more swiftly it comes to conclusions and the more promptly it makes up its mind. Kant
goes so far as to claim that spiritual inertia is directly proportional to the specific density of the matter
that constitutes the body of a rational being. In other words, the greater the material inertia of the body,
the more the soul is sluggish and dull: "The perfection of creatures endowed with reason, insofar as it
depends on the constitution of the matter in which they are fettered, is very much established by the
subtleness of the matter whose influence upon them determines how they shall represent, and react to,
the world. Inertia and the resistance of matter very much restricts the freedom of action of spiritual

156 Notes
beings and the distinctness of their sensation of outer things; it dulls their capacities, since it does not
obey their motions with becoming ease" ( 1.330.11-19). The rational soul is just as resistant to change of
will and perception as its body is resi~1ant to change of speed and direction. This is quite useful for Kant,
because it gives him a way to measure very precisely the forces impressed on a soul by surrounding
bodies. These forces must equal the mass of a soul's body times the soul's spiritual acceleration, i.e., the
time-rate change of its inner states.
4. The argument was to appear all over the place. It is, indeed, the center-piece of Martin Knutzen's
Philosophische Abhandlung der immateriellen Natur der Seele, (KOnigsberg: J. H. Hartung, 1744).
Martin Knutzen was Kant's teacher at the University of KOnigsberg.

S. I shall argue in what follows that, because Kant apparently does away with the distinction between
the rational soul and the constitutive elements of matter, he ascribes a material nature to the rational
soul. I should note that, on the face of it, doing away with the distinction in question need not lead to
this. Consider the example of Leibniz. Leibniz thinks that the constitutive elements of matter are the
souls of very primitive animals. Leibniz thinks that these souls all have a power of representation, even
if they are too primitive to reason in accordance with the law of non-contradiction and the principle of
sufficient reason. On Leibniz's account, the constitutive elements of matter have as much right to the
title of soul as the rational soul of men and angels. For these elements or monads, to use Leibniz's term,
have a power of representation, and they are inunaterial. On Leibniz's account, there is no difference in
kind between rational souls and the primitive monads underlying matter. But since these primitive
monads do not have a material nature, there is no danger of ascribing a material nature to rational souls.
The difference between Kant's monadology and that of Leibniz, however, is that Kant-like Wolff and
just about everybody else at the time-was eager to deny the elements of matter any soul-like features.
Leibniz's panpsychism was more than anybody could swallow. As we shall see, Kant ascribes a material
nature to the constitutive elements of matter. See notes 12 and 13 in Chapter Two. To the extent that
Kant blurs the distinction between souls and elements, he raises the expectation in us that souls have a
material nature too.
6. Hereafter, I shall refer to this work as the Physical Monadology.
7. This recalls Roger Cotes' criticism of one of the corollaries to Book Three, Proposition Six that
appeared in the first edition of Newton's Principia. Proposition Six states that all bodies gravitate
towards every planet, and that the weights of bodies towards any given planet, at equal distances from
the planet's center, are proportional to their mass. Newton concluded in the first edition that space must
be absolutely empty, because-as he had shown in Book Two-bodies cannot move freely if space is
absolutely full. Cotes observed that Newton took the mass of a body to be proportional to its inertia, and
that he must also have assumed that the inertia per unit volume in every body is the same. Cotes
objected very astutely that we have no reason to think this is so. Why should it be unreasonable to think
that inertia per unit volume cannot vary from body to body? If it can, we may not conclude that space is
absolutely empty. See Cotes' letter to Newton of 16 February 1712 in the Correspondence ofSir Isaac
Newton and Professor Cotes, ed. J. Edleston, (London: John W. Parker, 1850), 65-66. It was in
response to this objection that Newton qualified his conclusion in the second edition as follows, "If all
the solid particles of all bodies are of the same density, and cannot be rarefied without pores, then a void,
space or vacuum must be granted. By bodies of the same density, I mean those whose inertias are in the
proportion of their bulks" (Newton, Principia, 414). Now Kant seems to refer directly to this
qualification of the second edition of the Principia, because Proposition Twelve of the Physical
Monadology states that specific differences in the density of bodies must be explained by the specific
differences in the inertia of the elements, w1d Kant then goes on to say that, "If all the elements enjoyed
the same force of inertia and the same volume, absolute void intermixed with their parts is needful for
understanding the difference in density of bodies. For according to the demonstrations of Newton, Keill
and others, there is no place for free motion in a perfectly filled medium" (1.486.8-11). Since Kant
assumes that inertial force does indeed vary from element to element, he is free to conclude in
Proposition Thirteen that the elements of a body possess a perfectly elastic force which is different in
different things and that they constitute a primordial el~1ic medium without any pockets of empty
space. Thus, for Kant, bodies gravitate towards one another as iftiU'ough empty space. In other words,
they gravitate towards one anot11er not by t11e agency of the primordial elastic medium, but by the
universal force of their attraction alone.
8. As I pointed out in the previous chapter, Euler makes a very controversial assumption about the
constitutive elements of matter. He reasons tiJat, if tl1e constitutive elements of matter are the sufficient
reason of the fundan!ental properties of bodies, then the elements must have these same fundan!ental
properties. If mass, inertia, volume or what-have-you are fundan!ental properties of bodies, they must
also be properties of the elements. It is clear that Kant buys this picture of things in the Physical
Monadology. Part of the attraction oftl1is picture, as I argued in note 13 of the previous chapter, is that

Notes 151
it does away with Leibniz'a panpaychi11111, which moat everybody found unpalatable. See alao note 12 of
the previous chapter and note~ of this chaP.ter. Still, the disadvantage of this picture is precisely that the
Leibnizian metaphysicians-even those, hke Wolff, who are put off by Leibniz's panpsychism-need
not accept it Kant is as open to criticism on this score as Euler. The difference, however, is that, unlike
Euler, Kant grants the metaphysicians that the constitutive elements of mater are "true, substantial
unities." Though the elements are in fact parts of bodies, they are nonetheless true substances. Kant will
make a special effort in the Physical Monadology to establish this point To do so, he must call on
principles independent of the laws of mechanics. In what follows, I shall try to show that his argument
depends on the principle of IXHlxistence.
9. Kant seems to be drawing on an argument-such as it is--formulated by Euler in his polemical
Gedancun von den Elementen of 1746. If the elements were infinitely small parts of bodies, they
would not really be elements. For bodies would be infinitely divisible. But to say that a body is infinitely
divisible is just to say that the resolution of a body into parts can never come to an end. If it were indeed
the case that bodies are infinitely divisible, we could never expect to encounter parts that are not further
divisible into parts. Elements are not supposed to have parts, because they are simple substances.
Consequently, if the elements were infinitely small parts of bodies, we could not properly say that they
are elements. As Euler puts it, "To say that one reaches simple things only after an infinite division is
just like saying that bodies cannot be resolved into such simple things through any division, however far
it is continued; and thus the existence of simple things is denied" (3.2.3~23~3).
10. This presupposes that the universe is infinite. If the universe were finite, all matter would disperse to
its outer limits, and so it would form a hollow shell.
11. Interestingly, this analogy figures rather prominently in Part One, Chapter One of Dreams of a
Spirit-Seer.
12. Notably in the so-called Herder metaphysics from roughly 1762 to 1764 and the so-called L1
metaphysics transcribed by POlitz sometime in the 1770s.
13. Again, Kant, like Euler, is prepared to admit that bodies and the constitutive elements of matter have
all aorts of properties in common: inertia, volume, forces of repulsion and attraction. To that extent,
Kant is prepared to admit with Euler that the constitutive elements of matter are governed by the Jaws of
motion, which govern bodies. But, again, Kant, unlike Euler, is prepared to give the Leibnizian
metaphysicians their due. He is as keen as these metaphysicians to show that the constitutive elements
are "true substantial unities." They are true sub~1antial unities on account of their so-called "inner
determinations." These inner determinations are surely exempt from the laws of motion. For these are
the properties that the elements would have had under the hypothesis that God created them in isolation
from one another, so as to be incapable ofany real interaction. Kant would later write in the Amphiboly
section ofthe fli'St Critique that the only properties we can imagine that would fit this description are the
properties of thought. Thus he would write, following the line of reasoning developed in the Physical
Monadology, "Substances in general must have some internal nature, which is therefore free from all
outer relations, and consequently also from composition. The simple is therefore the basis of that which
is inner in things-in-themselves. But that which is inner in the state of a substance cannot consist in
place, shape, contact, or motion (these determinations being all outer relations), and we can therefore
assign to substances no inner state save that through which we ourselves inwardly determine our sense,
namely, the state of representations" (A274/B330). Now the early Kant did not want to say that the
constitutive elements of matter could think.. But his later self is right to insist that the inner states of these
elements would have to be absolutely non-relational. His later self also makes an interesting point when
he insists that we ourselves know no such non-relational properties except perhaps the properties of
thought itself. For since thought is not governed by the laws of motion, he brings home the point that the
laws of motion seem to govern only relational properties. Since the inner states of the elements are not
relational, the elements must be exempt from the laws of motion insofar as they have inner, as well as
outer, determinations. The other interesting point that the later Kant is making here is that the
monadologists like Kant and Wolff, who were trying to eliminate panpsychism from Leibniz's system of
general cosmology, were bound to fail. The point is that every such cosmology makes a distinction
between the inner and the outer determinations of the monads and that this distinction necessarily grants
the monads a power of representation. It would be worth reflecting on this claim. See notes 12 and 13 of
the previous chapter.
14. Newton, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, trans. Motte and Cajori, (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1946), 398.
1~.

Ibid.

158 Notes
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid, 398-399.
18. Crusius denies we must conclude that the soul is material just because it resists penetration. For he
says in the Entwurf der nothwendigen Vernunfl-Wahrheiten that impenetrability is a general property
all fmite substances have in conunon, and there are plenty enough specific differences to preserve the
important distinction between mind and body (365). For example, Crusius says that minds have
powers of thought and volition, but bodies do not (471 ); and he insists on these grounds that minds
must be absolutely inunaterial. "Every mind is immaterial," he writes, "i.e., it is impossible that a mind
be matter, or matter a mind ... " (471). Obviously, this argument is not very satisfYing. Crusius uses the
defining characteristics of bodies to define the general class of finite things. So it would seem that all
fmite things must be material just to the extent that they are finite. In other words, it would seem that
souls simply constitute a species ofbody. Ferrets and polecats are species of weasels, but they are no less
weasels for all that.
Indeed, since the soul has impenetrability and moving forces besides thought and volition, it would
seem to be some kind ofthinking matter on Crusius' account Interestingly, Crusius himself raises the
question whether God could have created matter that thinks, and he says he can see no reason why not,
"For the arrangement of contingent being and the original power of a metaphysical subject depends on
the will and the omnipotence of God" (4 72). Yet Crusius denies that God would have thereby created a
material soul. He says that first God would have brought something material into existence, then God
would have transformed that something into something inunaterial, then he would have fashioned an
immaterial mind out of it. In other words, Crusius denies that God could create a material mind, but he
is willing enough to ascribe to God the power to tum something material into something immaterial.
This might seem a false subtlety, but Crusius is clearly stuck somewhere between Scylla and Charybdis.
On the one hand, he wants to secure God's omnipotence; on the other hand, he wants to secure the
immaterial nature ofthe human soul.
19. Of course, Kant was later and famously to find fault with this argument. In the second-edition of the
Paralogisms in the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant tries to refute Mendelssohn's proof of the soul's
immortality in the Phadon. Kant credits Mendelssohn with the insight that the simplicity of the soul
does not guarantee its permanence. For a simple thing could simply vanish. Now Mendelssohn himself
tries to show in the first dialogue that nature never. permits anything to vanish suddenly. Kant tries to
argue that, even if this is true, we cannot deny the sou)--{)r anything else in existence, for that matteran intensive quantity. The soul must have an intensive quality, even if we deny it has extensive
quality-i.e., even if we say that it "contains no manifold of constituents external to one another"
(8414) in view of the fact that it is supposed to be a simple thing. Kant characterizes the intensive
quantity of the soul as "a degree of reality in respect of all its faculties, nay, in respect of all that
constitutes its existence," and he points out that this-like any intensive quality-"may diminish
through all the infinitely smaller degrees" (8414). At most this shows that the traditional proof of the
soul's immortality does not prove what it is supposed to prove. Kant's argument does not show that the
soul perishes with the body. On Kant's account, the death of the soul has the same status as empty space:
it is no object of experience. As Kant explains in the section on the anticipations of perception, "If all
reality in perceptions has a degree, between which and negation there exists an infinite gradation of ever
smaller degrees, and if every sense must likewise possess some particular degree of receptivity of
sensations, no perception, and consequently no experience, is possible that could prove either
immediately or mediately ... a complete absence of all reality in the (field of] appearance. In other
words, the proof of an empty space or of an empty time can never be derived from experience. For, in the
ftrst place, the complete absence of reality from a sensible intuition can never be itself perceived; and,
secondly, there is no appearance whatsoever and no difference in the degree of reality of any appearance
from which it can be inferred" (A 17218214).
20. Thus Leibniz claims, in the correspondence with Arnauld for example, that the Jews believed that
the soul is somehow present in a tiny, indivisble, indestructible bone someplace in the body. The soul is
incorruptible, because this little bone is indestructible. It does not dissolve with the rest of the body. See
the letter to Arnauld dated April 30, 1687. On the account of the soul that Kant wants somehow to
exclude from his rational psychology, we can think of the soul/physical monad as being just like this
tiny bone: simple and incorruptible.
21. Of course, it is certainly Descartes' view that, though the soul is intimately joined to the body, the
soul itself is inunediately affected not by all parts of the body, but only by the pineal gland. Descartes
obviously doesn't believe that his position lends to the conclusion that the only pain we can feel is a kind
of pineal-gland ache. I'm not sure what Kant would say about this.

Notes 159
22. It is important to note, in view of the fact that the puaage of the Herder lectures on metaphysics to
which I refer here is 10 obscure and in view of the fact that these lectures survive only in the notes of
Kant's student, that Kant takes up these same considerations in a parallel and almost contemporary
passage in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer (the Herder lectures are probably from the years 1761-1764, while
the latter work was published in 1766). It is worth quoting the passage in full: "Now suppose that we
had proved that the human soul is a spirit ... The ne"1 question would be this: where is the place of this
human soul in the world of bodies? I would answer: that body whose changes are my changes is my
body; and the place of that body is at the same time my place. If one pursues the question further by
asking. Where then is your place (of the soul) in this body?, I would suspect something fishy here. For
one easily observes that something is already presupposed in it which is not known through experience,
but which rests rather on imagined conclusions, namely that my thinking I is in a place distinct from the
places of the other parts of this body which belong to my Self. But no one is immediately aware of a
particular place in his body, but rather only of that which he occupies as a human being with respect to
the world around him. So I would stand by the conunon experience and say for now: I am where I have
sensation. I am just as immediately present in my fingertips as I am in my head. It is I who feels pain in
my heel and whose heart beats with emotion. When my com hurts, I feel the impression of pain not in a
nerve in my brain, but in the tips of my toes. No experience teaches me to avoid any parts of my
sensation, or to lock up my indivisible Self into a microscopically small place in the brain so as to put
into motion from there the lever of my body-machine or in order thereby to encounter myself. Thus I
would require a strong proof before I would find absurd what the School-men say: My soul is wholly in
the whole body and wholly in every one ofits parts" (2.324.1.5-325.5).
23. Cf. also 28.281.2-282.31 in the Ll lectures on metaphysics (1770s).
24. There is no evidence that the early Kant renounced either of these conunitments in the face of this
difficulty.

NOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR

I. Gottfried Leibniz, "Letter to Pierre Coste, 19 December 1707" in Philosophical Essays, trans. Ariew
and Garber (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1989), 19.5-196.
2. See, for instance, Kant's remarks about Leibniz in the section of the Critique ofPure Reason devoted
to the amphiboly of the concepts of reflection (A274-275/B330-331 ). See also Kant's remarks about
Leibniz in the Metaphysical Foundations ofNatural Science ( 4.507.32-508.10).
3. I do not claim that Kant acquired any new insight into his own work by reading the Arcana coelestia.
I do not claim, for instance, that, upon reading the Arcana coelestia, Kant came to the conclusion that
his own metaphysics somehow unwittingly conunitted him to any particular vision reported by
Swedenborg or even to the over-all picture of heaven and hell. That's just not the case. So my claim is
the following. Kant seems to have already been pre-occupied by the questions raised by the
impenetrability of the soul (2.293. 7-18). On Kant's own view, it would seem that the soul is an object of
sensation inasmuch as we could collide with one. Now Swedenborg also represents inunaterial thingsangels and departed spirits-as objects of sensation; and he does so in the moll extravagant way. Kant
was struck by this when he read the Arcana coelestia. He was impressed by the general fact that he
could not reasonably dismiss Swedenborg's reported conversations with angels and departed spirits so
long as it was possible on his own view to collide with spirits who had passed on to the hereafter.
Swedenborg mull have represented to him the extravagance of his own metaphysics. Swedenborg was
therefore the occasional, if not the true, cause ofthe harsh self-appraisal penned by Kant in Dreams of

a Spirit-Seer.
Note again that Kant did not find Swedenborg's work problematic just because it is all about angels
and spirits. Kant himself was not troubled by admitting that it might be possible for such things to exist.
Even in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, he is refuses to say that the existence of angels and spirits is
impossible (2.349.26-350.6; cf. also 10.69). The problem with Swedenborg was rather that the spiritseer of Stockholm represents inunaterial things as though they could be subject to the conditions of
sensibility. I shall have more to say about this later.
4. Emanuel Swedenborg. The Letters and Memorials of Emanuel Swedenborg, ed. and trans. Alfred
Acton (Bryn Athyn: Swedenborg Scientific Association, 1948), 90 .
.5. Ibid., 57.
6.lbid.
7.lbid., .58.

160 Notes
8. Signe Toksvig.Emanuel Swedenborg (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948), 61.
9. Emanuel Swedenborg. Le Livre des reves (DrtJmboken), trans. Regis Boyer, Berg International
(Paris, 198S), S4.
10. Quoted in Toksvig. Emanuel Swedenborg, IS6.
II. It also became general knowledge around 1761 that Swedenborg was the author of some very
strange theological works which had been published anonymously.
12. Kant relates all three ofthese stories-the story of the Gotenborg fll"e, the Queen of Sweden, and the
missing receipt-in a letter to Miss Charlotte von Knoblauch of I 0 August 1763.
13. Emanuel Swedenborg. Heaven and its Wonders, and Hell, trans. J. C. Ager (New York:
Swedenborg Foundation, 1969). 2-3.
14. See the preface to Emanuel Swedenborg's Apocalypse Revealed, trans. John Whitehead (New
York: Swedenborg Foundation, 1931-19S6).

IS. Emanuel Swedenborg. Soul-Body Interaction, trans. George F. Dole (New York: Paulist Press,
1984), 227-228.
16. Ibid., 2SS.
17. Emanuel Swedenborg. Arcana coelestia, as presented in The Universal Human and Soul-Body
Interaction, trans. George F. Dole (New York: Paulist Press, 1984), S4.
18. Ibid, SS.
19.lbid.
20.lbid.
21. Ibid.
22. It is very interesting to note that, in the Principia or the First Principles ofNatural Things, trans.
James R. Rendell and Isaiah Tansley (London: Swedenborg Society, 1912)--a work first published in
1734--Swedenborg adopts a rational cosmology much like that of Wolff. So it would have been quite
natural for him to take something like universal pre-established harmony as the governing principle of
heaven, with angels as elements or simple sub~1ances.
23. Leibniz, "From the Letters to de Voider" in Philosophical Essays, 177. Strictly speaking. Leibniz is
not talking about monads as such in this passage, but rather about "entelechies." However, to the extent
that a monad has such an entelechy, a primitive active force, it can surely be considered a "concentrated
world."
24. Leibniz, "Comments on Spinoza's Philosophy" in Philosophical Essays, 280.

2S. It should be noted likewise that Swedenborg seems to share with Leibniz the idea that the orders of
nature and grace are harmoniously pre-established. Consider the following passage from Swedenborg's
Arcana coelestia: "No man ... can live (that is, be affected by good, exercise will, be affected by truth or
think), unless in like manner he is conjoined with heaven through the angels who are with him ... For
every man while living in the body is in some society of spirits and angels ... There is, therefore, an
equilibrium of all and of each with respect to celestial, spiritual and natural things ... And therefore no
evil can befall any one without being instantly counterbalanced; and when there is a preponderance of
evil, the evil or evildoer is chastised by the law of equilibrium ... but solely for the end that good may
come. Heavenly order consists in such a form and the consequent equilibrium, and that order is formed,
disposed, and preserved by the Lord alone, to eternity" (687-688). Compare that passage with the
following passage from Leibniz's Principles of Nature and Grace, Based on Reason: "All minds,
whether of men or genies, entering into a kind of society with God by virtue of reason and eternal truths,
are members of the City of God, that is, members of the perfect state, formed and governed by the
greatest and best of monarchs. Here there is no crime without punishment, no good action without
proportionate reward, and finally, as much virtue and happiness as possible. And this is accomplished

Notes 161
without disordering nature ... ConJequently, nature /Uelf lead! to grace, and grace perfect! nature by
making U!e ofit." Leibniz, Phllo!ophical Essay!, 212.
26. Swedenborg. The Universal Human, S6.
27. Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, 280.
28. Swedenborg. Soul-Body Interaction, 236.
29. lbid., 241-242.
30.lbid.
31. Notice the irony here. Swedenborg claims that metaphysicians are tempted by pre-established
hannony, because they are too much impressed by the phenomena of their inner life: it seems to them
that soul and body act simultaneously. The irony here is that Leibniz and the other advocates of preestablished harmony say that people are tempted by physical influx and real interaction, for precisely
this reason: they are too much impressed by the phenomena of their inner life. They believe in real
interaction between body and soul, because it seems to them that body and soul really act on one
another. Leibniz and company recognize, moreover, that common, every-day, personal experience is one
of the chief obstacles to a commitment to pre-established harmony. Swedenborg is the only one that I
know of who argues that common, every-day, personal experience might make pr~lished harmony
attractive to us.
32. Swedenborg. op. cit, 227.
33. Though generally sympathetic to Swedenborg, Emerson could not help but express his exasperation
on the subject of these correspondences, for it all seems so arbitrary. Emerson writes in the following
passage: "[Swedenborg] fastens each natural object to a theologic notion;-a horse signifies carnal
understanding; a tree, perception; the moon, faith; a cat means this; an ostrich that; an artichoke, this
other; and poorly tethers every symbol to a several ecclesiastic sense. The slippery Proteus is not so
easily caught In nature, each individual symbol plays innumerable parts, as each particle of matter
circulates in tum through every system. The central identity enables any one symbol to express
successively all the qualities and shades of real being. In the transmission of the heavenly waters, every
hose fits every hydrant." Ralph Waldo Emerson, Representative Men, new and revised edition (Boston:
Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1879), 100.
34. Emanuel Swedenborg, Arcana coelestia, trans. John Faulkner Potts, fourth American edition (New
York: Swedenborg Foundation, 1949), 137.
3S. Quoted inSigne Toksvig's Emmanuel Swedenborg (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948),
328.
NOTES TO CHAPTER FIVE
1. It should be emphasized that Kant is especially reluctant to admit the possibility of separate spirits so
long as we assume that they disturb the natural order of things. lf we admit that such spirits are possible,
then, to the extent that we are philosophers, we must admit that they are governed by some kind of
natural law. As philosophers, we must extend the en1pire of nature as far as possible.
2. The assumption is that we cmmot perceive intelligible substances through sensibility. The spirit-seer
sees no spirits; rather, spirits act on his own spirit, and this unleashes his imagination. Since the body
cannot put a check on the imagination, this creative faculty invents sensations which represent nothing
in either the spirit world or nature. These sensations are all illusory.
3. I must emphasize that Kant was already thinking about the problem of subjecting immaterial things to
the conditions of sensibility before he read the Arcana coelesria. l do not claim that his reading of the
Arcana coelestia was what first made him think about these things; I claim rather that the similarities
between his metaphysics and Swedenborg's visions, combined with the special extravagance of
Swedenborg's claims, impressed on him the great importance of careful reflection on these problems.
4. l would not be surprised if Kant is thinking especially of the story which Swedenborg relates in the
Arcana coelestia about the newly departed spirit who attended his own funeral in Swedenborg's
company and who watched all of the proceedings through Swedenborg's eyes (4622).

162 Notes
.5. Swedenborg has, of course, a reply to this sort of objection. He claims in Heaven and Hell that angels
are not disembodied minds. Angels are not pure intellect; they have sensibility just like natural men. It
may be far more acute than ordinary human sensibility, but it is sensibility none the less. Kant would no
doubt take this to be further evidence that Swedenborg's conception of spiritual nature is too low. But
Swedenborg charges that our conception of spiritual nature is too low when we hastily assume that
spirits are disembodied minds. Obviously, it is not a simple thing to determine what constitutes a "low"
conception of something.
6. It should be noted that this insight is not original to Dreams of a Spirit-Seer. Kant had already made
the point in the essay on negative magnitudes of 1763. For he raised the following question: "How I
ought I to understand that because Something Is, there Is something else as well? A logical
consequence is given only because it is one with the ground ... The will of God contains the real ground
of the existence of the world. The divine will is something. The existing world is something quite else.
However, through the one, the other is given ... Now you may analyze the concept of the divine will as
much as you please, you will never find an existing world in it, as if it were contained therein and given
through identity ..." (2.202.20-37). I should also like to point out that the insight is already a
consequence of the principle of co-existence in the Nova dilucidatio. The principle of co-existence states
that, "Finite substances bear no relations by their existence alone; and, plainly they take part in no
interaction unless they are sustained in an arrangen1ent of reciprocal relations by the common principle
of their existence, nan1ely the divine intellect" (1.412.37-413.2). We can reformulate the principle of coexistence as follows: substances are not the cause of change in one another, just because they happen to
exist. Hence community anJong substances is not already contained in our concept of them. For once
God resolved to create substances, he still had to decide whether he would sustain them in an
"arrangement of reciprocal relations."
7. Now one wonders how Kant can preserve any commitment to real interaction between body and soul.
Anything we know about the relationship between body and soul, we learn from experience. But
experience teaches us at most that there is a constant conjunction between what my soul wants my body
to do and the motion of my limbs. This is compatible with pre-established hnrnlony and occasionalism,
as well as with physical influx.
8. Cf. the letter to Moses Mendelssolm of 8 April 1766. Kant writes: "As far as I anJ concerned,
everything depends on searching for the data of the problem how the soul is present in the world, as
well in material natures as in other natures of its own kind. So one ought to look for that force of
external efficacy and that receptive faculty for suffering effects produced from without whereof the
union with the human body is ju~t a special instance. Now since we have no experience through which
we can Jearn of such a subject in its different relations (and which alone can reveal its outer force or
capability), and since the harmony of the soul and the body discloses only the coincidence (das
gegenverhllltnis) of the inner state of the soul (of thought and volition) with the outer state of the
matter of our body, but no relation thereby of one outer activity to another outer activity and is thus
useless for resolving the questio, one wonders whether it is possible in itself to determine these forces of
spiritual substances a priori through judgements of reason. This enquiry resolves itself into another,
nanJely whether one can discover through inferences of reason a primitive force, i.e., the first
fundanJental relation of cause to effect; and since I am certain that this is impossible, it follows that,
unless these forces are given to me in experience, they can only be feigned" (I 0.68-69).
9. See, for eXanJple, Lewis White Beck, "A Prussian Hume and a Scottish Kant," in Essays on Kant
and Hume, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978), 114-115; Kuno Fischer, Immanuel Kant und
seine Lehre, Erster Theil, Entstehung und Grundlegung der kritischen Philosophie, (Heidelberg: Carl
Winter's Universitatsbuchhandlung, 1898), 293.
10. Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing
Company, 1977), 43.
11. Hume's Enquiry was fir..t translated into German in 1755 under the editorship of Johann Georg
Sulzer. Moses Mendelssohn tried to confute Hume's skepticism in an essay on probability of 1755, and
he says in this essay that the Enquiry was "in everyone's hands." For these and further details of
Hume's reception in Germany, see Manfred Kuehn, "Kant's Conception of 'Hume's Problem'" in the
Journal of the History of Philosophy, vol. 21, number 2, April 1983, 177-178n. See also Kuehn's
Scottish Common Sense in Germany, 1768-1800, (Montreal: MeGill-Queen's University Press, 1987).
Given that Part Two, Chapter Three of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer parallels passages in Hume's Enquiry
and given Kuehn's discovery that the German translation of the Enquiry had such a wide readership in
Germany, it seems very likely that Kant himself had read Hume's work.

Notes 163
i2. Other pasaages in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer also recall Hume's Enquiry. In Part Two, Chapter
Three, Kant writes, "One must fu"St make acquaintance with the dispensable, nay the impossible; but
finally science reaches the determination of the limits set by the nature of human reason; but all
groundless projects, which perhaps might not be unworthy in themselves except that they lie outside the
sphere ofthe humanly possible, fly to the limbo of vanity. Then shall metaphysics itself become ... the
companion of wisdom" (2.369.14-21). Note also his words a few pages earlier, "The other advantage
[of metaphys1cs) is better adapted to the nature of human understanding, and it consists in this: to see
whether the task is also determined from what we can know, to see what relation the question bears to
the concepts of experience, the concepts on which all our judgements must always repose. To that
extent, metaphysics is a science of the limits of human reason" (2.367.31-368.2). It is interesting to
compare these passages with the following from Hume's work, 'The only method of freeing learning, at
once, from these abstruse questions, is to enquire seriously into the nature of human understanding, and
show, from an exact analysis of its powers and capacity; that it is by no means fitted for such remote and
abstruse subjects. We must submit to this fatigue, in order to live at ease ever after: And we must
cultivate true metaphysics with some care, in order to destroy the false and adulterate" (Enquiry, 6).

13. There is, however, at least one important respect in which Kant departs from Hume. Hume is as
unwilling to ascribe forces or powers to bodies as he is to ascribe them to souls. Thus he writes, "We are
ignorant, it is true, of the manner in which bodies operate on each other: Their force or energy is entirely
incomprehensible ..."(Enquiry, 48). In fact, Hume seems to think that it is somehow easier to admit that
the force of bodies is incomprehensible than it is to admit that the force of souls is incomprehensible. For
his strategy here is to break down our resi~1ance (or rather that of the occasionalists and their
sympathizers) to these considerations about souls by showing that we have no greater understanding of
their agency than we have of the agency of bodies. Thus he immediately raises the question, "But are we
not equally ignorant of the manner or force by which a mind, even the supreme mind, operates either on
itself or on body?" (Enquiry, 48). So Hume is debating with someone who thinks that knowledge of
God and souls will give us an understanding of agency before knowledge of bodies will. But Kant is
looking at this from another angle. For he himself apparently thinks just the reverse, namely that
knowledge of bodies will give us an understanding of agency or forces before knowledge of souls will.
Kant is prepared to grant Hume's case that we are ignorant of the force in minds. But he is not at all
prepared to deny force to bodies. In fact, he says that experience aided by mathematics has shown in no
uncertain terms that bodies do have forces, namely a force of gravitational attraction, " ... observations
have lately revealed to us, after having been resolved by mathematics, the force of attraction in matter
..." (2.371.22-24). There is an interesting asymmetry here: as far as the soul is concerned, experience
reveals only a constant conjunction between our volitions and the movement of our limbs; but as far as
bodies are concerned, experience provides evidence of an attractive force in matter. Kant is not satisfied
to say that Newton's law of gravitation-as derived from the phenomena-belt describes certain effects
or constant conjunctions; he believes that this law says something about the very nature of matter itself,
namely that matter has a certain active power. Note Hume's reticence on this score, "We find by
experience, that a body at rest or in motion continues for ever in its present state, till put from it by some
new cause: And that a body impelled takes as much motion from the impelling body as it acquires itself.
These are facts. When we call this a vis inertiae, we only ma!X these facts, without pretending to have
any idea of the inert power, in the same manner as. when we talk of gravity, we mean certain effects
without comprehending that active power'' (Enquiry, 48n; the emphasis is mine).
The difference between Kant and Hume on the question of forces in boc;lies suggests that there must
be another point of difference between them. Indeed, it is interesting to observe that, for all the Humean
echoes in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, Kant never once says that the idea of necessary connection is the
result of a habit of thought or a "customary transition" from the idea ofthe cause to the idea of the effect
induced by repeated instances of a certain conjunction. Hume himself cannot escape this conclusion,
because he has no other way to explain the origin of our idea of necessary connection. He certainly
cannot say that we come to this idea by considering the active powers of things. Now Kant does not
address the question of the origin of this idea in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer. But precisely because he is
willing to ascribe forces to bodies (if not to minds), he is not compelled to say with Hume that the idea
of necessary connection is the result of a habit of thought
14. Indeed, the language, content and order of presentation in the discussion led by this persona seems to
follow lectures on this very subject which Kant himself planned to deliver around 1762-1764. Cf. Loses
Blatt XXV.40 from the Herder Lectures on Metaphysics (28.145-148).

1S. Cassirer, Kant's Lifo and Thought, trans. James Haden (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981),
79.
16. See the letter from Kant to Mendelssolm, 8 April 1766 (I 0.68).

164 Notes
I7. One wonders why all abstraction has to begin with experience. Why couldn't we abstract the
concept of spirit from pure concepts of the intellect?
I8. Cf. Loses Blatt XXV.40 (28.145-I48).
I9. Pope, letter to Arbuthnot in Literary Criticism ofAlexander Pope, ed. Bernard Goldgar, (Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press, I965), 40.
20. Kant says that" ... my attempt to give an analogy of a real, moral influence in spiritual natures with
universal gravitation is not really a serious opinion of mine, but rather an example of how far one can
proceed unhindered in philosophical fictions where there are no data ..." (I0.69).
21. Hume does not have the same optimism on this score. See note I3 above.
22. Kant, Philosophical Co"espondence, 57.
NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX

I. Immanuel Kant, Philosophical Correspondence, 1759-1799, ed. and trans. Amulf Zweig (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, I986), 55.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid., 56.
4. Ibid., 55.

5. Ibid.
6. Ibid., 55-56.
7. Perhaps it would be better to say that everything now depends on distinguishing the conditions that
govern the objects of sensibility from the conditions that govern the objects of the understanding.
8. See in particular Leibniz's letter to de Voider of June 30, I704. Thus, Leibniz wrote, "However,
properly speaking. matter isn't composed of constitutive unities, but results from them, since matter, that
is extended mass is only a phenomenon grounded in things ... and all reality belongs only to unities ...
Substantial unities aren't really parts, but the foundations of phenomena" Gottfried Leibniz,
Philosophical Essays, ed. and trans. Ariew and Garber (Indianapolis: Hackett, I989), I79. Leibniz has
to deny that the monads-true substantial unities-are parts of bodies, because he must absolutely
refuse them any extension. The monads are perfectly simple substances; simple substances cannot have
extension, because space is infinitely divisible. If a simple substance filled space, it would not be simple.
Kant's argument that the elements can be both simple and spatially extended is not available to Leibniz,
who denies of course that the elements can really act on one another. Remember that Kant's argument in
the Physical Monadology depends on the distinction between an element's sphere of activity and its
inner detenninations. The element's sphere of activity is just that region in space through which its
forces of repulsion and attraction can have effect on other elements. Though the element's sphere of
activity is spatially extended, its inner determinations are not. Thus, we need not call into question the
element's simplicity just because it has extension. Unless the elements really act on one another by
forces of attraction and repulsion, this does not make sense. If we follow Leibniz's example and deny
real interaction among the elements, we must also deny that the elements are spatially extended and that
they are actually parts of bodies. Now Leibniz also argues that every monad is somehow associated
with a body. To the extent that the body is situated in space, he says that we may assi~ certain spatial
detenninations to its constitutive monads. But the monads do not have these detenninations through
themselves but only through the body. Properly speaking, the monads are not spatially detennined.
Thus, Leibniz wrote to de Voider on June 20, 1703, "For even if they are not extended, monads have a
certain kind of situation in extension, that is, they have a certain ordered relation of C~H:xistence to other
things, namely, through the machine in which they are present. I think that no finite substances exist
separated from every body, and to that extent they do not lack situation or order with respect to other
coexisting things in the universe. Extended things contain many things endowed with situation. But
things that are simple ought to be situated in extension, even if they don't have extension, though it may
be impossible to designate it exactly, as, for example, we can do in incomplete phenomena." Leibniz,
Philosophical Essays, 178.

Notes 165
9. It might seem a little odd to say that we could describe the soul mathematically. But, apin, if the soul
has a repulsive force just like that of bodies, it should be possible in principle to measure 1l Kant himself
ventures to say in the Physical Monadology that repulsive forces vary mversely with the cube of the
distance. I should also point out that, from Leibniz's point of view, it would be at least as strange to say
that monads can be described mathematically as it is to say this of souls. Since monads do not have
extension, properly speaking, they are not subject to the propositions of geometry. We might very well
measure the repulsive force of something, but how could we ever measure a monad's appetite or its
power of representation?
10. Of course, God is still the object of natural theology, because there is no reason to think that Kant's
early system of physical influx subjects the divine being to the conditions of sensibility. To be sure, God
acts on creatures; and, to that extent, he has a "place"-God is everywhere. One might worry that
Kant's natural theology runs into the same difficulties that we encountered in his theory of the soul. God
is a simple substance; he acts on things, and he has a place. So there seems to be no difference between
God and the constitutive elements of matter. Indeed, Kant himself says in the Physical Monadology that
the simplicity of the elements is no more doubtful in view of their presence in space than God's
simplicity is doubtful in view of his presence throughout creation. So Kant is apparently conscious of the
analogy between God and the elements. Since he also argues that the elements can only fill space by
forces of repulsion, must he not conclude the same of God as well? That would be disastrous, because
no two impenetrable things can occupy the same place. If God has repulsive force, he must be
impenetrable. If God is in1penetrable, there can be no room for creatures in the world. However, the
worry here is groundless. God acts on creatures, but creatures can never act on God. Action by repulsive
forces is always reciprocal. Since creatures cannot act on God, God cannot be impenetrable. But even if
Kant has not subjected God to conditions of sensibility, it is not obvious that God can be the object of
natural theology in the same way that we would expect the soul to be the object of rational psychology
or the elements to be the object of general cosmology. After all, it is doubtful that we can know God
except through his works and negation. But the metaphysician claims to have positive knowledge of the
nature of souls and elements. It is more or less uncontroversial that this kind of knowledge of God is
unavailable to us in this life. If the metaphysician has to give up souls and elements as the object of his
science, then he is pretty much out of business, even if he can still claim God as the object of natural
theology.
11. ln what follows, I shall discuss Kant's distinction between the principles of the form of the sensible
world and the principle of the form of the intelligible world, and I shall do so in detail. But there is
something relevant worth pointing out right now, though I cannot develop it here or in this book in the
detail that it deserves. The distinction between the two worlds-the world of sensible things and the
world of intelligible things----4:orresponds to a real distinction between two separate faculties: sensibility
and the intellect. ln the passage from the dissertation that I just quoted, Kant characterizes sensibility as
a "receptive faculty." Thus he says that, "Sensibility is the receptivity of the subject through which it is
possible that the subject's representative state be affected in a definite way by the presence of some
object" Kant contrasts sensibility and the intellect in the following terms. He says that, "Intelligence is
the faculty of the subject through which it can represent what cannot-by its very quality-fall under
the senses." What Kant has to say about the intellect here is obviously quite vague. One thing that he
might have in mind is that the intellect, unlike sensibility, is an active faculty-a faculty that can
spontaneously represent things that are not immediately present to the senses. Kant does not say
explicitly that this is what he has in mind. But by the time of the first Critique, he makes a point of
insisting on the spontaneity of pure unden:tanding. Pure under..tanding is a spontaneous faculty, while
sensibility is a purely receptive one. "If the receptivity of our mind, its power of receiving
representations in so far as it is in any wise affected, is to be entitled sensibility, then," says Kant, "the
mind's power of producing representations from itself, the spontaneity of knowledge, should be called
the understanding" (AS l/B75). I have argued elsewhere that this distinction between the mind's
"spontaneity" and its "receptive faculty" is at the basis of Kant's distinction in the first Critique between
sensibility and pure understanding. I have argued, moreover, that it is the basis of Kant's charge in the
section of the first Critique on the amphiboly of pure reason that Wolff and Leibniz "intellectualized
appearances," failed to recognize sensibility as a faculty really di~1inct from the understanding, and
treated sensation as nothing more than a confused concept. See my "Intellectual Appearances"
forthcoming in the British Journal of the History of Philosophy. It is tempting to suppose that the
receptivity of sensibility and the spontaneity of the intellect are even here in the Inaugural Dissertation
the basis of Kant's distinction between our two faculties and his complaints about Wolff. But Kant does
not yet make anything of it. He will, as I say, make something of it in the first Critique.
12. I think that Kant must have in mind ideas such as he presented in the Bewels'-rund of 1763. It ia
impossible that notl1ing at all should exist, for then notl1ing at all would be pou1ble. Therefore, It Ia
necessary that something should exist. Indeed, it is necessary that the real in every pouibility ahould
exist united in a single being.

166 Notes
13. The emphasis is mine.
14. What I have to say about Kant's conception of space should apply to his conception of time. So I
will not say anything about time as such.
15. This is a brief statement of the argument in the Preisschrift: "The chief concept that presents itself
here to the metaphysician is that of the absolutely necessary existence of a being. In order to arrive at
this concept, he could first ask whether it is possible for absolutely nothing at all to exist. If now he
ascertains that absolutely no existence is given, nor is there anything to think and that no possibility
occurs, he need only investigate the concept of the existence of that which must lay the ground of all
possibility. This thought will extend itself, and it will pose the determinate concept of the absolutely
necessary being" (2.296.33-297. 7).
16. Beck's translation of this passage (2.413.9-11) in the Academy edition contains a contresens,
because it does not properly observe Kant's italics. Beck has: "What cannot be known through any
intuition whatever is not thinkable, and thus is impossible." But the line appears in the Academy
edition as follows, "Recte enim supponimus: quicquid ullo plane intuitu cognosci non potest, prorsus
non esse cogilabile, adeoque impossibile." Now Kant makes it clear that the principle as stated in
italics is perfectly true. The hasty inference that, whatever cannot be known by any intuition is
impossible ("... adeoque impossibile"), he leaves in bold type, precisely in order to distinguish it as
misguided. But, because Beck puts " ... and thus is impossible," in italics, the bewildered reader is left
with the impression that Kant holds this inference to be as true as the stated principle. And so it would
seem that Kant is at odds with himself. Fortunately, the dependable Kerferd and Walford get this right.
17. See, for example, the Beweisgrund (2.76-77).
18. And yet for all that, Kant hazards an account of the soul's presence in space-an account which he
attributes to Euler-in a note appended in fine print at the very end of the Inaugural Dissenation. The
idea seems to be that the place of the soul in the world is mediate or derived, rather than immediate or
primitive. Kant wants to deny, after all, that the soul is subject to the conditions of the external senses,
namely space. In other words, he wants to say that the soul has a place not by virtue of its own activity,
but rather by virtue of its association with a certain body. It has a place not per se, but per accidens.
We can understand perfectly well what Kant is trying to accomplish here, though it is not obvious at all
that he has the resources in the Inaugural Dissertation to carry it off. His early rational psychology ran
into difficulties, because he assumed that the soul had a place as the immediate effect of its interaction
with bodies. But since Kant could not conceive of the soul in any other way except by analogy with the
elements, it seemed as if the soul could only fill space by forces of repulsion. Thus the soul seemed to be
subject to the conditions of material things insofar as they are sensible. Now Kant wants to deny in the
Inaugural Dissertation that the place of the soul is the immediate effect of its own activity. Since the
soul is an immaterial substance, it cannot act under the conditions of space or time. So it cannot act by
forces of repulsion, nor can its own activity possibly determine its place in the world. The soul can only
have a place, then, by virtue of the fact that it is the soul of a certain body. Thus, Kant writes, "So those
things which are laid forth in 27 about the location of immaterial things are wanting in explanation,
which you will seek, if it please you, in Euler (Lettres aune princesse d'Allemagne) chap. I. vol. 2, pp.
49-52. For the soul is not in interaction with the body because it is detained in a certain place in the
body; but a determinate place in the universe is attributed to it, because it is in mutual interaction with a
certain body, and all its positus in space is removed when this interaction comes to an end. And so its
location is derivative and contingently imparted to it, and this location is not a primitive, necessary
condition adhering to its existence-on account of which whatever cannot be objects through the
external senses (such as the senses of a man), i.e., immaterial things, are absolutely exemptql from the
universal condition of things which are externally sensible, namely space. Hence the absolute and
immediate location of the soul can be denied, and yet a hypothetical and mediate location can be
attributed to it" (2.419.15-25).
19. Kant really seems to mean indefinite when he speaks of an infinite series. He would not admit the
possibility of an actual infinite here.
20. Kant, Philosophical Correspondence, 56.
21. Thus, it is not clear in these passages from 1766 whether Kant would say that the principle of
contradiction can be formulated temporally for the world of sensible things and absolutely for the world
of intelligible things.

Notes 167
22. Immanuel Kant, Kant: Select11d PrB-Crltlcal Writings, Kerferd and Walford (New Yoric.:
Manchester University Press, I 968), 112-113.

NOTES TO THE CONCLUSION

l. Francis Thompson, '"The Kingdom of God," in the Complete Poems of Francis Thompson, (New
Yoric.: Random House), 356.
2. The common spatia-temporal frameworic. Kant apparently has in mind is just a coordinate system in
which one could-in principle-plot the position in space (along x, y and z axes) and time of one
actually existing body with respect to the position in space and time of any other actually existing body.
Sometimes Kant seems to have more than this in mind. But this is all that I shall have m mind in what
follows.
3. Kant, Prolegomena in Philosophy of Material Nature, trans. James Ellington, (Indianapolis:
Hackett, 1985), 60.
4.1bid.
5.1bid.
6.1bid.
7.1bid.
8. Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, trans. Lewis White Beck, (Indianapolis: Bobhs-Merrill
Educational Publishing, 1956), 100.
9.1bid, 100-101.
10. Ibid, 71.
1I.Ibid, 71-72.
12. Ibid, 71.
13. Ibid, 72.
14. Kant, Groundwork ofthe Metaphysics ofMorals, trans. H. J. Paton, (New Yoric.: Harper and Row,
1956), 119.

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INDEX
Acceleration, 5, 28, 97, 102; spiritual,
44, 155, 156. See also Change of
state
Action, 5, 20, 30, 34-36, 39, 120; at a
distance, 5, 41, 42; by contact, 41,
42
Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek, 12
Ameriks, Karl, 40
Amphiboly of the Concepts of
Reflection,39, 139,140,142,147,
157-159, 165
Analogies of Experience, 4, 136-139.
See also Coexistence, Reciprocal
Influence, Succession
Analogy of nature, 50, 51, 54
Analysis, 20
Angel, 7, 13, 19, 55, 56, 64-66, 69,
71, 80, 149, 160, 162. See also
Immaterial substance, Monad, Spirit
Appearance, 4, 9, 20, 106, 116, 118,
135,136, 140;asthoughtas
connected in experience or in a single
whole, 132-134, 137, 138 (see also
Nature in the formal sense);
mathematical sum-total, 132, 133.
See also Nature in the material sense
Aristotle, 62, 63, 80
Anempt to Introduce Negative
Magnitudes into Philosophy, 41, 154,
162
Baumgarten, 75
Bacon, Francis, 13, 148
Beck, Lewis White, 21, 22, 166
Being, 26, 38
Berlin Academy, 11
Benzelius, Eric, 58
Beweisgrund, 11, 112, 126-128, 130,
138, 165, 166 Bilfinger, 62
Body, 3-9, 20, 23,25-30, 32, 34-37,
41, 42, 44, 45, 47, 49-55, 94, 102,
118, 120-123, 126, 127, 151, 152,
154, 156-158, 162, 163, 164 (see
also Matter); death, 13, 14;
impotence of, 34 (see also Inertia,
Laws of motion); nature and/or
properties of, 27, 28, 30, 31, 45, 46,
51, 156
Butts, Robert, 23, 24, 150
Cassirer, Ernst, 15, 19, 86, 147, 148
Cause,3,21,28, 89,120,123,139,
162 (see also Force); final, 23;
necessary connection between cause
and effect, 8, 9, 163; occasional

causes, 3, 25, 26, 150 (see also

Occasionalism); system of, 3, 4, 25,
27, 29, 30, 50. See also
Occasionalism, Physical influx, Preestablished harmony, Real interaction
Change of state, 5, 28-30, 34-36, 45,
97, 121, 122. See also Acceleration
Charles XII of Sweden, 7, 58
Coexistence, 42, 65, 126, 138 (see
also Space); principle of, 5, 7, 3543,45,48,49,106,108,136,137,
153, 155, 162. See also Analogies of
Experience
Community (concept of), 138-140,
147; among bodies, 81; law of, 48
(see also Principle of coexistence); of
body and soul, 3, 25, 83, 95, 96; of
forces, (external, impressed or
Newtonian), 5, 6, 31, 41, 44, 50, 84,
124; of spirits, 75, 96, 97, 98; of
substances (immaterial or of souls or
of spirits), 18, 39,76-78,80, 83, 84,
90, 91, 100, 110, 112, 120, 142, 162
Correspondence, 70; Swedenborg's
theory of, 69, 79, 80
Coste, Pierre, 55
Cotes, Roger, 156
Critical Philosophy, 9, 10, 23, 25, 40,
145
Critique of Practical Reason, 141-144,
147, 158
Critique of Pure Reason, 1-4, 16, 17,
18, 25, 39, 40, 112, 122-124, 130132, 135, 138, 140-142, 147, 157159, 165
Crusius, Christian August, 51 , 117,
152, 158
Democritus, 19
Density, 46, 156
Descartes, Rene, 44, 45, 62, 63, 158
Determination; dependence in, 35, 36,
153 (see also Force); inner, 31, 48,
49, 157, 164
Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, 5, 8, 10, 1224,50,54,55,57,72, 74,78, 79,
82-86, 88, 89, 91-96, 98-106, 108,
120, 149, 157, 159, 162, 163
Discipline of Pure Reason, 25
Element of matter, 6, 9, 26, 27, 2931,36,37,41,44-50,52,53, 65,
75, 88, 94, 95, 97, 100, 103, 104,
119, 151, 152, 156, 157, 160, 164,
165. See also Monad, Physical

174

Index

monad, Substantial unity

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 161
Empiricism, 15, 16, 19, 20, 22, 23
Entelechy, 41, 150, 160
Euler, Leonhard, 27-34,36,37,50,
53, 117, 121, 151-154, 156, 157,
166
Experience,9,20, 22,23,26,30,37,
53, 54, 71, 78, 79, 82-85, 87, 88,
93, 97-104, 106, 108, 120, 123, 135,
137, 138, 140, 142, 144, 147, 162164
Fischer, Kuno, 19, 20, 21, 23, 149
Force, 5-7, 20, 21, 25, 29, 34, 35,
38, 41' 51' 89, 101' 106, 108, 120,
156, 162, 163 (see also Dependence
in determination); of attraction, 31,
42,47,48,53,94,97,99, 100,102,
103, 120, 155, 157, 164; external, 4,
5, 8, 9, 28, 35-37, 44, 45, 53, 77,
97, 98, 99; Newtonian, 33, 37, 82,
83, 154; of private interest, 97, 98;
of public interest, 97, 98; of
repulsion, 6, 7, 31, 41, 42, 47-50,
52, 53, 77, 85, 89, 90, 93-95, 97100, 102, 103, 108, 117, 120, 157,
164-166; spiritual, 9, ~3, 54, 84, 85,
90, 98, 99, 102; universal attractive
or gravitational, 5, 9, 41, 42, 44, 82,
83,97,98, 127,155,156,163,164
Folkes, Martin, 70
Frederick the Great, 60, 72
Frederick of Hesse, 7
Friedman, Michael, 153, 155
Friederike Charlotte, 28
Friedrich Wilhelm I, 26
Galilei, Galileo, 126, 127
General cosmology, 3, 4, 26, 27, 29,
37, 125, 150, 151, 157, 165; Kant's,
9, 126, 130; Kant's cosmology of
sensation, 128-131, 134, 135, 138,
145; Wolfrs, 30
Geometry, 31, 47, 126, 165. See also
Mathematics
God, 9, 21, 25, 26, 30, 31,37-41,43,
44, 48, 65, 66, 109, 112, 116, 126130, 135, 138, 151, 157, 158, 162,
165; as principle of the form of the
intelligible world, 106, 108, 110,
115; as sufficient-reason of
community of forces, 5, 37, 42, 107,
117, 122; beneficence of, 22;
concursus of, 39, 66, 67, 150;
eternity of, 21; justice of, 22, 26,
110; moral attributes of, 22;

necessary existence of, 21, 22, 109,

110, 112, 113; omniscience of, 21;
omnipotence, 21; providence of, 9,
22, 11 0; wisdom of, 40
Gotenborg, 60, 74, 160
Gottsched, Johann Christoph, 26
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of
Morals, 122, 144, 147
Halley, Edmund, 57
Harteville, Madame, 60, 61
Heaven, 7, 8, 13, 18, 64, 65,68-71,
77, 79,80,160
Henrich, Dieter, 147
Herder, 19, 20, 40, 52, 53, 75, 77,
78, 81, 85, 88, 89, 91, 92, 157, 159,
163. See also Kant's lectures on
metaphysics
Herz, Marcus, 2, 122
Hobbes, Thomas, 14
Hume, David, 8, 9, 84, 85, 89, 99,
101, 162, 163
Imagination, 21, 91, 142-145, 161
Impenetrability, 7, 41, 42, 47,49-52,
54, 158; spiritual, 51, 77, 89, 101
Inaugural Dissertation, 2, 3, 8-10, 1618, 24, 38, 103-115, 117, 120-122,
124, 125, 127-131, 133, 134, 136,
140, 142, 145, 149, 165, 166
Inertia, 5, 28-30, 33, 35, 46, 151-153,
156, 157; force of, 46; law of, 4, 2736, 50, 147 (see also Laws of
motion); material, 5, 44; spiritual, 5,
44, 155
Influence; demonic, 14; reciprocal
(concept ot) 43, 96, 137-139, 141,
153, (see also Analogies of
Experience, Physical influx, Real
interaction); spiritual, 80
Influx, 68; divine, 66, 67, 79, 80;
physical, 3, 25, 26, 28, 30-32, 38,
40,42,43,45,49,51,55,57,62,
63, 68, 77, 84, 85, 102, 117, 118,
121' 123, 140, 150, 154, 155, 161'
162, 165 (see also Analogies of
Experience, Real interaction,
Reciprocal influence); spiritual, 62,
63, 66, 67; vulgar, 38, 154, 155
Interaction, 26, 38, 40, 42, 47, 48,
107, 108, 121; angelic, 78; causal,
21; mutual, 43, 106, 111 (see also
Reciprocal influence); natural laws
of, 20, 21, 44; Newtonian, 43; real
interaction, 3-6, 8-10, 11, 13, 24, 26,
28-30, 32, 33, 35-39, 41, 42, 44, 53,
54, 75, 125, 129, 139, 147' 150,

Index
153, 155, 161, 162, 164 (see also
Analogies of Experience, Physical
influx); spiritual, 20, 21, 24, 90, 91,
96, 97; universal interaction, 4, 10;
law of universal interaction, 4, 9,
129, 135, 139
Intuition, 2, 106, 115, 117, 122, 124,
131. See also Pure intuition of space,
Pure intuition oftime
Keill, John, 156
Kingdom of Ends, 140-144, 147
Knoblauch, Charlotte von, 16, 72-74,
78, 160
Knowledge, 23; a priori, 4; conditions
of, 125, 131; faculty of, 1-4, 9, 104,
124, 165 (see also Sensibility,
Understanding); human, 1; of causal
interaction, 22, 84; of supersensible
things, 20, 22; of things as they are
in themselves, 2, 124; origins of, 2;
scientific, 23
Knutzen, Martin, 156
Kuehn, Manfred, 162
Lambert, J. H., 11, 12, 88
Lea, Henry Charles, 148
Leibniz, G. W. F., 5, 6, 11, 23, 24,
25, 28-31, 33, 34, 36, 38-42, 55, 56,
62, 63-68, 77, 89, 103, 104, 129,
135, 138-143, 147, 148, 150-161,
164, 165
Lileraturbriefe, 11
Locke, John, 88
Louisa Ulrika, 60, 72
Liitzow, Baron, 72
Malebranche, Nicolas, 40, 41, 129,
138
Manolesco, John, 17
Materialism, 30, 45
Mathematics, 21, 41, 57, 99, 104,
163. See also Geometry
Matter, 6, 20,28-31,42,45,49-51,
102, 121, 127, 130, 151, 164 (see
also Body); essence (nature) of, 27,
28, 163; impotence of, 29 (see also
Inertia); material particle, 23, 41, 42,
47 (see also Physical monad); subtle,
34; thinking, 31
Mechanics, 28, 36, 50, 57; laws of,
27, 28, 30, 31, 33,35-37, 153;
Leibniz', 29; object of, 31
Memory, 14, 21
Mendelssohn, Moses, 11-15, 17, 86,
88, 92, 93, 96, 99, 101-104, 120,
148, 158, 163,
Metaphysical Foundations of Natural

115

Philosophy, 12
Metaphysical Foundations of Natural
Science, 148, 155, 159
Metaphysical Foundations of Practical
Philosophy, 12
Metaphysical error of subreption, 9,
24, 115, 116, 118, 119, 121, 142,
Metaphysics, 1-3, 5, 8, 9, 11, 12-16,
18, 21-25, 27-29, 50, 54, 61, 86, 92,
101, 108, 119, 121, 122; agenda of,
31, 82; as science of the limits of
human understanding, 19, 82, 149,
163; as science of supersensible
things, 15, 19, 21, 23, 149; Kant's,
8, 9, 31, 37, 43, 55, 75, 77, 106,
109, 112, 115, 117, 124, 159; Kant's
lectures on, 19, 20, 40, 50, 52, 53,
74, 75, 77, 78, 81, 85, 88-92, 157,
159, 163 (see also Herder); object of,
5, 30-32, 36, 50, 104, 147; principles
of, 27, 31, 33, 35, 50; propaedeutic
to, 103, 115; relation to natural
philosophy, 26, 31; significance of
Swedenborg for, 79; Swedenborg's
criticism of, 63, 64,
Method, 23; synthetic, 21 analytic,
21, 22
Miracle, 20
Monad,6,8,26,29,39,45,51,55,
57, 65, 67, 68, 103, 139, 143, 147,
151, 152, 156, 157, 160, 164, 165
(see also Element of matter, Simple
substance, Substantial unity);
physical, 6, 7, 51, 52, 53, 54, 90,95
(see also Material particle);
More, Henry, 13, 14, 148
Motion, 23, 28, 29, 34, 35, 44, 51,
97, 153, 154; as change of position,
32; laws of, 5, 26, 31, 35, 36, 50,
147, 157; Newton's laws of, 4, 5,
11, 34, 35, 97, 127, 144 (see also
Inertia); relativity of, 29; uniform,
36; voluntary, 25, 26
Mundus intelligibilis, 16. See also
Intelligible world
Mundus sensibilis, 16. See also
Sensible world

Nature, 4, 64, 80, 136; as used in the

Critique, 132, 133, 138; human, 22,
97; in the fonnal sense, 132-134 (see
also Appearances thought as
connected in experience); in the
material sense, 132-134 (see also
Mathematical sum-total of
appearances); material, 7, 49, 50, 51,
156; laws of, 25; order of, 20; state

176

Index

of, 25
Natural philosophy, 32; as related to
metaphysics, 26; Leibniz', 29; object
of, 5, 31; principles of, 31 (see also
Laws of mechanics); Newton's, 5, 22
Natural religion, 26
Natural theology, 11, 21, 165;
Leibniz', 68
New Doctrine of Motion and Rest, 154
Newton, Isaac, 21, 36, 41, 50, 51, 54,
81, 97, 99, 134, 154-156, 163; his
rules of reasoning, 50
Noumenon, 104, 105, 140, 147
Nova dilucidatio, 4, 5, 8, 11, 31, 33,
35, 37, 39-45, 48, 75, 79, 83, 84,
93, 106-113, 117, 121, 122, 129,
151, 153-155, 162
Occasionalism, 3, 25, 40, 41, 62, 66,
129, 162, 163
O'Neill, Eileen, 154
Passion, 29, 39
Phantast, 76-78, 81, 90-92, 98, 99,
101
Phenomenon, 37, 83, 104, 106, 111,
125, 128, 133, 140; of change of
connection, 32; physical, 23; wellfounded, 29, 47
PhysicalMonadology, 11, 31, 41, 42,
44, 46-49, 93, 94, 97, 103, 104, 119,
147. 150, 155-157' 164, 165
Pietists, 26, 64
Pneumatology, 85, 87, 98 (see also
Rational psychology); pneumatic or
pneumatologicallaws, 20
Polhem, Christopher, 58
Politz, 16, 18, 148, 149, 157. See also
Kant's lectures on metaphysics,
Kant's lectures on rational
psychology
Pre-established harmony, 3, 4, 7, 8,
11, 24-31, 33, 36, 37, 39-42, 55-57,
62-65,67,68,71, 77, 124, 139-143,
147, 150-152, 154, 160-162
Preisschrift, 6, 21, 22, 42, 49-51, 88,
92, 95, 109, 110, 112, 147, 149, 166
Prolegomena to Any Future
Metaphysics, 132-135
Proper Method ofMetaphysics, 11
Prophet, 55, 56, 80
Rational psychology, 3, 14, 15, 20,
25-27,30,31,61, 84, 86, 94, 121,
150, 152, 154; Crusius', 51; Kant's,
7, 8, 49, 50, 53, 85, 158, 166;
Kant's lectures on, 16, 18, 148, 149

(see also Politz); Leibniz', 29; object,

30, 50, 165; Wolffs, 29, 160
Reason, 8, 21, 25, 54, 120, 131, 140;
antinomy of, 131, 132; ideas of, 2,
23; light of, 14, 81, 85; limits of,
25, 54, 78, 82, 88, 90, 93; pure, 84,
123
Rest, 27-29, 32, 35, 36, 44, 97
Robsahm, Carl, 59
Satire, 10, 22, 23, 79, 89, 93
Schema of the divine intellect, 5, 3639, 42, 43, 48, 107, 110, 111
Schematism, 142-145
Sensation, 21, 52, 57, 128, 129
Sensibility, 1-4, 9, 23, 24, 54-57, 77,
81, 88, 90, 98, 105, 106, 115, 119,
122, 124, 131, 133, 135, 161, 164
(see also Faculty of knowledge);
conditions of, 57, 68, 71, 77, 78,
103, 104, 109-112, 116-118, 120,
121, 123-125, 130, 135, 138, 142,
165; human, 8, 9, 54, 111, 137;
limits of, 54, 100; pure forms of, 39,
40; receptive faculty, 131, 137, 165
Simultaneity, 42, 134, 137, 138. See
also Coexistence
Skepticism, 19, 20, 21, 22
Sloane, Hans, 70
Soul, 3, 5-7, 9, 13, 14, 18, 20, 21,
25,27,30,31,35,37,41,43,4953, 76, 84, 91, 103, 104, 108, 109,
111, 121-124, 152, 154, 158, 163,
165 (see also Immaterial substance,
Spirit); animal, 55; embodied, 20,
45;human,36,44,50,51,55, 105,
121; immortality of, 13, 14, 23, 158;
moral condition of, 18; perceptions
of, 25, 36; place in the world
(material), 26, 43, 44, 45, 52, 117;
present in the body, 7, 52, 53, 90,
94-96, 101, 159; rational, 34, 37, 55,
147, 156; separate (from the body),
7, 13
Space, 1,2,6,36,41-44,47,48,
116, 120, 121, 124, 134, 155 (see
also Coexistence); absolute
(Newtonian), 33, 154; as principle of
the form of the sensible world, 111,
112, 114, 115, 133; conditions of,
24,35,36,54,55,81, 122,130,
166; empty, 41, 42, 46; infinitely
divisible, 6, 47, 164; Kant's early
theory of, 43; non-Euclidean, 44;
presence of the soul in, 6, 7, 49, 50,
52, 77,85,89,90,94,95, 100, 166;
pure intuition of, 125, 127, 128; pure

Index
form of sensibility, 39, 40 (see aLso
Sensibility); spatial relations, 5, 43,
44
Spinoza, 67
Spirit, 13-15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 24, 31,
53, 56, 63, 71,79-81, 87, 88, 91,
93, 94, 108, 109 (see aLso Immaterial
substance, Soul); seeing, 8, 12, 15,
16, 18,20,23,24, 74, 77,82,92,
149, 161 (see aLso
Phantast); separate, 7, 8, 13, 14, 21,
28, 50, 57, 75, 91, 149, 161; world
of, 13, 17, 20, 90, 96,98
Stockholm, 8, 57, 60, 72, 73
Substance, 4, 5, 10, 25, 26, 32, 33,
35-38, 39, 41-43, 106, 107, 157;
corporeal, 47 (see aLso Body,
Matter); immaterial, 5, 9, 21, 24, 51,
54-57' 68, 75, 81' 85, 93, 102-104,
111, 112, 115, 117, 120-122, 147,
166 (see aLso Element of Matter,
Monad, Soul, Spirit); impotence of,
35 (see aLso Inertia); simple, 6, 26,
29, 31' 32, 37' 46-49, 51' 94, 95,
119, 160, 164. See aLso Element of
Matter, Monad, Soul, Spirit
Succession, 32, 35, 118, 121, 126,
134; of inner states, 30, 65; order of,
32, 33, 42 (see aLso Time); principle
of, 4, 5, 32, 33, 35-37, 39, 42, 44,
75, 136, 137, 147, 151, 153, 154.
See aLso Analogies of Experience
Sufficient reason; principle of, 33, 56,
103
System of the Cosmological Ideas,
131
Swedenborg, Emanuel, 7, 8, 10, 1320,21, 23, 24, 54, 55-74, 76-78, 80,
81, 85,92, 93,98,100-102,105,
120, 149, 159-162
System of Principles, 4
Thought, 20, 40, 44, 48
Thoughts on the True Estimation of
Living Forces, 34-36, 43-45, 53, 83,
84, 152, 153
Time, 1, 2, 35, 36, 116, 118, 119,
124, 134; absolute (Newtonian), 33,
154; as order of succession, 32, 33,
42; as principle of the form of the
sensible world, 111, 112, 114, 115,
133; conditions of, 24, 35, 36, 54,
55, 81, 120, 122, 130, 166; interval,
35; ordering of, 35, 42 (see aLso

Analogies of Experience); pure form

of sensibility, 39, 40 (see aLso
Sensibility); pure intuition of, 121,

177

12i, 127, 128

Transcendental Aesthetic, 16, 112
Transcendental Deduction, 123, 132,
135, 147
Transcendental idealism, 3, 4, 39, 40,
55, 112, 124, 125, 147
Transcendental Logic, 131, 135
Transcendental Topic, 1-3

Understanding, 21, 22, 88, 103, 118,

119, 120-122, 131, 135, 138, 143145, 164 (see aLso Faculty of
knowledge); concepts (pure) of, 2,
123, 124, 139, 140, 142; human, 8;
lawgiver of nature, 135; limits of, 24,
55, 57, 86; logical use of, 130; pure,
1-4, 9, 104, 129, 130, 134, 137; real
use of, 130; spontaneous faculty, 1,
131, 135, 137, 165
Union of body and soul, 26, 29, 61,
68, 76,83,84, 102,153
Unity, 64, 108; in nature, 136, 138;
substantial, 31, 46, 157, 164. See
aLso Element of matter, Monad,
Physical monad
Universal Natural History and Theory
ofthe Heavens, 40, 75, 155
University of Halle, 26, 152
University of Konigsberg, 3, 19, 23,
25, 74, 75, 78, 85, 156
University of Leyden, 58
University of Tiibingen, 62
University of Upsala, 57, 58

Vaihinger, Hans, 16-19, 148, 149

Vleeschauwer, Herman de, 21, 22,
149
Volume, 31,46-49, 103, 157
Wolff, Christian, 5, 6, 11, 13, 14, 20,
22,24-26,28-31,33,36-38,45,49,
51, 55, 61, 62-66, 68, 75, 92, 104,
135, 148-152, 156, 157, 165
World, 26, 29, 32, 37-40, 64, 132;
intelligible, 79, 107, 108, 119-122,
125, 126, 141' 142, 143, 144, 145,
149, 165 (see aLso Mundus
intelligibilis); physical, 28, 51, 64;
sensible, 4, 9, 79, 111, 119, 120,
122, 125-130, 133, 134, 142, 144,
145, 165, 166 (see aLso Mundus
sensibilis); system of, 29 (see aLso
General cosmology); what and how
possible, 125