In his early work Dreams of a Spirit-Seer Illustrated by the Dreams of Metaphysics, Kant addresses the mysticism of Emanuel Swedenborg. Why, then, did Kant write a book about this Swedish mystic? Kant's motivation for writing this book is a very controversial issue among Kant scholars. In this study, I have first presented two main interpretations of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer which are based on two different understandings of the relation of Kant to Swedenborg. According to what I call a standard interpretation, we must understand Dreams of a Spirit-Seer in terms of Kant's criticism of Swedenborg's mysticism. But according to another interpretation, which I label as a mystical interpretation, we must understand this work in terms of Kant's interest in Swedenborg's mysticism. Those who support the latter view insist that Kant's idea of the intelligible world in his critical philosophy was influenced by Swedenborg.

Instead of strictly following one or the other of these two interpretations of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, in this study I propose a middle path between them. That is, through a close examination of the texts of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer and other relevant documents, such as Kant's Lectures on Metaphysics, some correspondence, and the Critique of Pure Reason, I argue that Kant's attitude toward Swedenborg's mysticism is ambivalent. First of all, contrary to the standard interpretation, but in agreement with the mystical interpretation, I make the case that we can understand Dreams of a Spirit-Seer in terms of Kant's interest in Swedenborg's idea of the intelligible world. However, contrary to the mystical interpretation, I also stress the difference of Kant's position from that of Swedenborg. That is, I argue that, although Kant had an interest in Swedenborg's idea of the intelligible world, the peculiarity of Kant's position is that he introduced the idea of the intelligible world into his philosophy in a moral context. According to Kant, only reason can provide moral laws which determine the will of every rational being. The reason Kant needs the idea of the intelligible world in his philosophy is that we would follow the commands of the moral law completely, only as a result of the assumption that we are free, that is, that we are noumenal (intelligible) beings. In proposing a middle path between the standard and the mystical interpretations of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, I have examined not only the current debates on this work but also the heated debates in the late 19 ^th century, which were first inaugurated by Carl du Prel's interpretation of the Dreams of a Spirit-Seer.