Kant on Swedenborg · Dreams of a Spirit-Seer & Other Writings (Swedenborg Studies)

Träume eines Geistersehers, erläutert durch Träume der Metaphysik (Königsberg: Johann Jakob Kanter, 1766), 128pp. [Ak. 2:317-73] Published anonymously. “Dreams of a Spirit-Seer Elucidated by Dreams of Metaphysics.” Translated by David Walford Ralf Meerbote in Immanuel Kant, Theoretical Philosophy 1755-70 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, '92), pp.305-59.

The publisher Kanter submitted the published book to the university censor on 1/31/1766.[1] The work appeared anonymously, altho Kant didn't keep his authorship secret, sending copies to Moses Mendelssohn others in Berlin. Mendelssohn responded negatively to the writing in a no longer extant letter, Kant’s reply of 4/8/1766 (#37, Ak. 10:69-73; English translation in Zweig '99, 89-92) offers insights into his understanding of the work.

Walford ('92, lxviii) notes that, apart from the above printing, thought the most reliable, this work was also printed twice more in 1766 by Johann Fridrich Hartknoch (Riga Mitau).

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[1] This led Kanter being fined 10 rthl., since he'd failed to submit the written ms for censoring prior to printing as required. In his appeal to the Academic Senate, Kanter noted the difficulties of submitting a written ms, since it was nearly illegible, because it had been sent to him (from Goldap, where Kant was vacationing), sheet by sheet, for typesetting, such that the work, in its present form, hardly existed until after it was printed [Dietzsch '03, 91, quoting from the minutes]. Kant thus appears to have finished this work during Xmas break—which usually lasted all of December—on the estate of Daniel Friedrivh von Lossow (Ibid.).