Abstract
Kant’s Dreams of a Spirit-Seer (1766) did not provide the sole perspective through which Emanuel Swedenborg’s work was known in Germany in the eighteenth century. Before Kant, another German philosopher was interested in Swedenborg from a completely different perspective: Christian Wolff. On the one hand, this paper analyzes the meaning of Wolff’s anonymous reviews of Swedenborg’s early writings published in Acta Eruditorum, the authorship of which was only recently discovered, in order to show Swedenborg’s intertwinement with German scholars during the 1720s. On the other, I juxtapose Kant’s and Wolff’s evaluations of Swedenborg’s work at the origins of their different attitudes towards fundamental problems such as the nature of the soul and immortality.
Bibliography
Primary sources
Acton, Alfred, ed., “Swedenborg and His Scientific Reviewers”. The New Philosophy 106 (2), 2003, 449–498, 535–574; 107 (1), 2004, 53–85, 129–159; 109 (1), 2006, 345–364; 109 (2), 2006, 453–491; 113 (1), 2010, 1017–1042.Search in Google Scholar
Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb: Metaphysics: A Critical Translation with Kant’s Elucidations, Selected Notes, and Related Materials. Translated and edited with an introduction by Courtney D. Fugate. London 2013.10.5040/9781350244016Search in Google Scholar
Haller, Albrecht von: Bibliotheca anatomica, qua scripta ad anatomen et physiologiam facientia a rerum initiis recensentur. Tiguri 1777.Search in Google Scholar
Henckel, Johann Friedrich: Pyritologia oder Kiess-Historie. Leipzig 1725.Search in Google Scholar
Herder, Johann Gottfried: Briefe. Gesamtausgabe (1763–1803). Hrsg. von Wilhelm Dobbek und Günter Arnold, 10 vols. Weimar 1984.Search in Google Scholar
Herder, Johann Gottfried: “Review of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer by Immanuel Kant”. Translated by Glenn Alexander Magee. In: Kant on Swedenborg: Dreams of a Spirit-Seer and Other Writings. Edited by Gregory R. Johnson. West Chester 2002, 114–119.Search in Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel: The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant: Lectures on Metaphysics. Translated and edited by Karl Ameriks and Steve Naragon. Cambridge 1997, repr. 2001.10.1017/CBO9781107049505Search in Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel: “Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, Elucidated by Dreams of Metaphysics”. In: The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant: Theoretical Philosophy, 1755–1770. Translated and edited by David Walford in collaboration with Ralf Meerbote. Cambridge 1992, 301–59.Search in Google Scholar
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm: New Essays on Human Understanding. Translated and edited by Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett. Cambridge/New York 1996.10.1017/CBO9781139166874.006Search in Google Scholar
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm: Monadology. In: Discourse on Metaphysics and Other Writings. Translated by Robert Latta, edited by Peter Loptson. Peterborough 2012, 115–34.Search in Google Scholar
Mendelssohn, Moses: „Rezension von Träume eines Geistersehers von Immanuel Kant“. Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek 4 (2), 1767, 281. Trans. “Review of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, by Immanuel Kant”. Translated by Glenn Alexander Magee. In: Kant on Swedenborg: Dreams of a Spirit-Seer and Other Writings. Edited by Gregory R. Johnson. West Chester 2002, 123 f.Search in Google Scholar
Mendelssohn, Moses: Phädon oder über die Unsterblichkeit der Seele: In drey Gesprächen. Berlin 1767.Search in Google Scholar
Oetinger, Friedrich Christoph: Swedenborgs und anderer Irrdische und himmlische Philosophie. Frankfurt/Leipzig 1765.Search in Google Scholar
Rohr, Julius Bernhard von: Physikalische Bibliothek. Leipzig 1724. New edition by Abraham Gotthelf Kästner. Leipzig 1754.Search in Google Scholar
Swedenborg, Emanuel: The Economy of the Animal Kingdom, Considered Anatomically, Physically, and Philosophically. Translated by August Clissold, 2 vols. Boston 1903.10.5962/bhl.title.154718Search in Google Scholar
Swedenborg, Emanuel: “Fragment on the Soul, and the Harmony between the Soul and the Body”. In: Posthumous Philosophical Tracts, Now First Translated from the Latin. Translated by James John Garth Wilkinson. London 1847, 111–150.Search in Google Scholar
Swedenborg, Emanuel: A Philosopher’s Notebook. Translated and edited by Alfred Acton. Bryn Athyn 1931, repr. 2009.Search in Google Scholar
Swedenborg, Emanuel: Principia, or, The First Principles of Natural Things, Being New Attempts toward a Philosophical Explanation of the Elementary World. Translated by August Clissold, 2 vols. London 1846.Search in Google Scholar
Swedenborg, Emanuel: Psychologica: Being Notes and Observations on Christian Wolff’s Psychologia Empirica. Translated by Alfred Acton. Bryn Athyn 1923.10.1037/13537-000Search in Google Scholar
Swedenborg, Emanuel: The Spiritual Diary of Emanuel Swedenborg, Being the Record During Twenty Years of His Supernatural Experiences. Translated by James P. Bush and J. Smithson. London 1889.Search in Google Scholar
Tafel, Rudolph Leonhard, ed.: Documents Concerning the Life and Character of Emanuel Swedenborg, 3 vols. London 1875–77.Search in Google Scholar
Wolff, Christian: Cosmologia Generalis, methodo scientifica pertractata, qua ad solidam, inprimis Dei atque naturae cognitionem via sternitur. Francofurti 1731.Search in Google Scholar
Wolff, Christian: Elementa matheseos universae, 3 vols. Halae Magdeburgicae 1713–15, repr. 1732.Search in Google Scholar
Wolff, Christian: Philosophia prima sive Ontologia methodo scientifica pertractata. Francofurti/Lipsiae 1730.Search in Google Scholar
Wolff, Christian: Philosophia rationalis sive Logica, methodo scientifica pertractata et ad usum scientiarum atque vitae aptata; praemittur discursus praeliminaris de philosophia in genere. Francofurti/Lipsiae 1728.Search in Google Scholar
Wolff, Christian: “Rezension von Artificia nova mechanica construendi receptacula navalia et aggeres aquaticos von Emanuel Swedenborg. Acta Eruditorum (1722), May: 269”. In: Wolff, Christian: Gesammelte Werke: Sämtliche Rezensionen in den Acta Eruditorum (1705–1731). Hrsg. Hubert A. Laeven und Lucy J.M. Laeven-Aretz. Hildesheim/Zürich/New York 2001, 38.3: 1303.Search in Google Scholar
Wolff, Christian: “Rezension von Methodus nova inveniendi longitudines locorum, terra marique, ope Lunae bei Emanuel Swedenborg. Acta Eruditorum (1722), May: 266–68”. In: Sämtliche Rezensionen, 38.3, 1300–1302.Search in Google Scholar
Wolff, Christian: “Rezension von Miscellanea observata, pars. I–III von Emanuel Swedenborg. Acta Eruditorum (1722), April: 262–66”. In: Sämtliche Rezensionen, 38.3: 1296–1302.Search in Google Scholar
Wolff, Christian: “Rezension von Modus mechanice explorandi virtutes et qualitates diversi generis et constructionis navigiorum von Emanuel Swedenborg. Acta Eruditorum (1722), May: 270.” In: Sämtliche Rezensionen, 38.3, 1304.Search in Google Scholar
Wolff, Christian: “Rezension von Nova observata et inventa circa ferrum et ignem et praecique circa naturam ignis elementarum; una cum nova camini inventione von Emanuel Swedenborg. Acta Eruditorum (1722), April: 225 f.” In: Sämtliche Rezensionen, 38.3, 1290 f.Search in Google Scholar
Wolff, Christian: “Rezension von Pars Quarta Miscellanearum Observationum circa res naturales et praecipue circa mineralia, ferrum, et stallactitas in cavernis Baumannianis bei Emanuel Swedenborg. Acta Eruditorum (1723), March: 96 f.”. In: Sämtliche Rezensionen, 38.3, 1358 f.Search in Google Scholar
Wolff, Christian: “Rezension von Prodromus principiorum rerum naturalium, sive novorum tentaminum chymiam et physicam experimentalem geometrice explicandi von Emanuel Swedenborg. Acta Eruditorum (1722), Februar: 83–87”. In: Sämtliche Rezensionen, 38.3, 1276–80.Search in Google Scholar
Secondary Literature
Adler, Hans: Die Prägnanz des Dunklen: Gnoseologie, Ästhetik, Geschichtsphilosophie bei Johann Gottfried Herder. Hamburg 1990.10.28937/978-3-7873-3045-4Search in Google Scholar
Benz, Ernst: Emanuel Swedenborg: Visionary Savant in the Age of Reason. Translated by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke. West Chester 2002.Search in Google Scholar
Benz, Ernst: Swedenborg in Deutschland: F.C. Oetingers und Immanuel Kants Auseinandersetzung mit der Person und Lehre Emanuel Swedenborgs. Frankfurt am Main 1947, 2. Aufl. 1969.Search in Google Scholar
Cassirer, Ernst: Gesammelte Werke. Hamburger Ausgabe. Hrsg. von Birgit Recki, Bd. 8: Kants Leben und Lehre, bearbeitet von Tobias Berben. Hamburg 2001.Search in Google Scholar
Cassirer, Ernst: Kant’s Life and Thought. Translated by James Haden. New Haven/London 1981.Search in Google Scholar
Crasta, Francesca Maria: La filosofia della natura di Emanuel Swedenborg. Milano 1999.Search in Google Scholar
Décultot, Élisabeth: “Die Schattenseiten der Seele: Zu Johann Georg Sulzers Theorie der dunklen Vorstellungen”. In: Formen des Nichtwissens der Aufklärung. Hrsg. von Hans Adler und Rainer Godel. München 2010, 263–278.10.30965/9783846750360_018Search in Google Scholar
Dunér, David: The Natural Philosophy of Emanuel Swedenborg: A Study in the Conceptual Metaphors of the Mechanistic Worldview. Dordrecht 2013.10.1007/978-94-007-4560-5Search in Google Scholar
Hanegraaff, J. Wouter: Swedenborg, Oetinger, Kant: Three Perspectives on the Secrets of Heaven. West Chester 2007.Search in Google Scholar
Heinz, Marion: Sensualistischer Idealismus: Untersuchungen zur Erkenntnistheorie des jungen Herder (1763–1778). Hamburg 1994.10.28937/978-3-7873-3041-6Search in Google Scholar
Johnson, Gregory R.: “Kant, Swedenborg and Rousseau: The Synthesis of Enlightenment and Esotericism in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer”. In: Aufklärung und Esoterik: Wege in die Moderne. Hrsg. von Monika Neugebauer-Wölk, Renko Geffarth und Markus Meumann. Berlin 2013, 208–223.10.1515/9783110297836.208Search in Google Scholar
Johnson, R. Gregory: “Swedenborg’s Positive Influence on the Development of Kant’s Mature Moral Philosophy”. In: On the True Philosopher and the True Philosophy: Essays on Swedenborg. Edited by Stephen McNeilly. London 2003, 21–38.Search in Google Scholar
Jonsson, Inge: Visionary Scientist: The Effects of Science and Philosophy on Swedenborg’s Cosmology. West Chester 1999.Search in Google Scholar
Kant und Swedenborg: Zugänge zu einem umstrittenen Verhältnis. Hrsg. von Friedemann Stengel. Berlin/New York 2008.Search in Google Scholar
Laeven, A. Hubert – Laeven-Aretz, Lucy J.M.: The Authors and Reviewers of the Acta Eruditorum 1682–1735. Molenhoek 2014. http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/16568/1/Laeven_Acta_Eroditorum.pdf.Search in Google Scholar
Martinelli, Riccardo: “Kant, Mendelssohn e l’immortalità dell’anima”. In: Studi Kantiani 15 2002, 93–126.Search in Google Scholar
Nemitz, P. Kurt: “Christian Wolff, Steppingstone to Swedenborg’s Heaven: Christian Wolff’s Influence on the Substance, Style and Development of Emanuel Swedenborg’s Philosophy”. In: Christian Wolff und die Europäische Aufklärung. Hrsg. von Jürgen Stolzenberg und Oliver-Pierre Rudolph. Hildesheim/Zürich/New York 2010, 275–286.Search in Google Scholar
Nemitz, P. Kurt: “The German Philosophers Leibniz and Wolff in Swedenborg’s Philosophic Development”. In: The New Philosophy 97 (3–4), 1994, 411–425.Search in Google Scholar
Nuzzo, Angelica: Kant and the Unity of Reason. West Lafayette 2005.Search in Google Scholar
Rukgaber, Matthew: “Immaterial Spirits and the Reform of First Philosophy: The Compatibility of Kant’s pre-Critical Metaphysics with the Arguments in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer”. In: Journal of the History of Ideas 79 (3), 2018, 363–383.10.1353/jhi.2018.0022Search in Google Scholar
Rumore, Paola: “La prima ricezione tedesca della psicologia empirica di Wolff”. In: Christian Wolff tra psicologia empirica e psicologia razionale. Edited by Ferdinando Luigi Marcolungo. Hildesheim/Zürich/New York, 2007, 177–193.Search in Google Scholar
Schwaiger, Clemens: Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten: Ein intellektuelles Porträt; Studien zur Metaphysik und Ethik von Kants Leitautor. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 2011.Search in Google Scholar
Stengel, Friedemann: Aufklärung bis zum Himmel: Emanuel Swedenborg im Kontext der Theologie und Philosophie des 18. Jahrhunderts. Tübingen 2011.10.1628/978-3-16-151745-7Search in Google Scholar
Stengel, Friedemann: “Kant: ‘Zwillingsbruder’ Swedenborgs?”. In: Kant und Swedenborg: Zugänge zu einem umstrittenen Verhältnis. Hrsg. von Friedemann Stengel. Tübingen 2008, 35–98.10.1515/9783484970854.35Search in Google Scholar
Uhlig, Ingo: Traum und Poiesis: Produktive Schlafzustände 1641–1810. Göttingen 2015.Search in Google Scholar
© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
