Hasse Hamalainen

Among the readers of Swedenborg, the Swedish thinker’s ‘theory of correspondences’ is often interpreted as treating empirical realities as only imperfect manifestations of spiritual realities. This interpretation that ascribes idealism to Swedenborg was originally proposed by Kant in the Dreams of a Spirit-Seer. Although Kant criticizes Swedenborg’s theory, he considers it no inferior to the theories of Leibniz and Wolf, which can entice a reader of Swedenborg to take Kant’s interpretation at face value: even if Kant did not agree with Swedenborg, at least he took him to be on par with these ‘serious’ philosophers. However, this paper attempts to show that unless a reader of Swedenborg is willing to endorse Kant’s disdain towards ‘enthusiasm’, Swedenborg should not be interpreted as a Platonic idealist, because he devised his theory of correspondences precisely in order to avoid such idealism. As few scholars have recently pointed out, Swedenborg, like Kant, thinks that all our cognitive abilities operate in the limits of time and space, i.e. in the empirical world, but for Swedenborg, as opposed to Kant, this does not imply that we cannot acquire knowledge of the spiritual world. According to these scholars, Swedenborg thinks that such knowledge can only be acquired mystically, which would render him a Platonic idealist, just as Kant claimed. However, this paper claims that pace the aforementioned scholars, this is not the only or even the default way of coming to know the spiritual world according to Swedenborg. The paper argues that when positing that every empirical and spiritual reality ‘correspond’ with one another, Swedenborg uses the Latin word correspondere in a technical sense. In other words, he thinks that any human cognition is both spiritual in the sense of involving a logical relationship between extension and spirit, and empirical by occurring in time and space. Thus, by cognising something in the empirical world, we also cognise something in the spiritual world, even if we were not capable of knowing spiritual realities in themselves. This element of Swedenborg’s theory distances him from Platonic idealism. The paper concludes with a suggestion that Kant might have perceived the limitations of his interpretation of Swedenborg later on, as signalled by the fact that in the early 1780s, Kant extended his conception of Platonism to include all philosophy other than his own. However, taking this road would make Platonic idealism an uninformative concept for an interpreter of Swedenborg and apt to be replaced by the term ‘enthusiasm’–the concept that Kant used when describing those with whom he disagreed.

Among the readers of Swedenborg, the Swedish thinker’s ‘theory of correspondences’ is often interpreted as treating empirical realities as only imperfect manifestations of spiritual realities. This interpretation that ascribes idealism to Swedenborg was originally proposed by Kant in the Dreams of a Spirit-Seer. Although Kant criticizes Swedenborg’s theory, he considers it no inferior to the theories of Leibniz and Wolf, which can entice a reader of Swedenborg to take Kant’s interpretation at face value: even if Kant did not agree with Swedenborg, at least he took him to be on par with these ‘serious’ philosophers. However, this paper attempts to show that unless a reader of Swedenborg is willing to endorse Kant’s disdain towards ‘enthusiasm’, Swedenborg should not be interpreted as a Platonic idealist, because he devised his theory of correspondences precisely in order to avoid such idealism. As few scholars have recently pointed out, Swedenborg, like Kant, thinks that all our cognitive abilities operate in the limits of time and space, i.e. in the empirical world, but for Swedenborg, as opposed to Kant, this does not imply that we cannot acquire knowledge of the spiritual world. According to these scholars, Swedenborg thinks that such knowledge can only be acquired mystically, which would render him a Platonic idealist, just as Kant claimed. However, this paper claims that pace the aforementioned scholars, this is not the only or even the default way of coming to know the spiritual world according to Swedenborg. The paper argues that when positing that every empirical and spiritual reality ‘correspond’ with one another, Swedenborg uses the Latin word correspondere in a technical sense. In other words, he thinks that any human cognition is both spiritual in the sense of involving a logical relationship between extension and spirit, and empirical by occurring in time and space. Thus, by cognising something in the empirical world, we also cognise something in the spiritual world, even if we were not capable of knowing spiritual realities in themselves. This element of Swedenborg’s theory distances him from Platonic idealism. The paper concludes with a suggestion that Kant might have perceived the limitations of his interpretation of Swedenborg later on, as signalled by the fact that in the early 1780s, Kant extended his conception of Platonism to include all philosophy other than his own. However, taking this road would make Platonic idealism an uninformative concept for an interpreter of Swedenborg and apt to be replaced by the term ‘enthusiasm’–the concept that Kant used when describing those with whom he disagreed.

Baron d’Holbach has a reputation of being one of the most radical Enlightenment critics of religion. The author attempts to show, however, that although he harshly criticizes the religion of his day, he nevertheless makes a heavy use of the concepts of medieval religious philosophy—most centrally, the conception of the will as a rational desire. The author shows, moreover, that the modern, Cartesian conception of the will as an independent mental faculty would not be even compatible with the baron’s materialism. Far from trying to overturn the medieval philosophy, the author argues that d’Holbach attempts to use an originally Aristotelian conception of the will for undermining the Cartesian conception of the will—which the baron associated with his contemporary theology. Apart from suggesting that d’Holbach’s radicalism was more ideological than philosophical, this observation implies that the attempts to accommodate modern philosophy must have been a part of theological mainstream in the eighteenth century France.

How to become morally virtuous? Among the students of Aristotle, it is often assumed that the philosopher does not have a fully worked-out theoretical answer to this question. Some interpreters have, however, recognised that Aristotle may have a comprehensive theory of moral development. However, even those interpreters have made only scarce attempts to study Aristotle’s theory in connection with the questions about his moral psychology. Unlike Aristotle’s theory of moral development as such, several of those questions are among the most debated issues in current Aristotle scholarship - for example, whether we need reason to identify good actions or whether habituated non-rational affects suffice; what makes us responsible for our actions, and how the philosopher conceives the relationship between phronesis and moral motivation. In my thesis, I aim at connecting these important questions with Aristotle’s theory of moral development. I hope to show that this approach will yield a picture on which Aristotle’s theory is divisible into two steps that one has to choose to take in order to become morally virtuous. I argue first that identifying good ends, and actions, requires reason. In order to become morally responsible, a person has thus to develop a rational ability to identify good actions. I show that Aristotle’s term for such ability is synesis. The first step to virtue, I conclude, is to use this ability well, to choose to become virtuous and habituate one’s character into acting well. The second step is to acquire phronesis, understanding why good actions are good, to complement a habituated character. Developing of phronesis requires both considerable experience in acting well and philosophical teaching about ethics, but it is necessary for moral virtue. Although a finely-habituated person is invulnerable to akrasia with regard to pleasures even if he did not have phronesis, Aristotle allows, I show, that he might still be prone to impetuous akrasia, whereas phronimos could avoid akratic behaviour in any situation.

This article argues that contrary to a received interpretation, Emanuel Swedenborg’s doctrine of correspondences, according to which each empirical reality has a corresponding spiritual reality, is closer to Spinozistic monism than Neoplatonic idealism. According to the former, there is only one substance: God, which we can cognize through its spir­itual and material aspects. According to the latter, the material world consists of substances that receive their form through participation in the ideas of the spiri­tual world. The article will show that although some of Swedenborg’s claims can appear as expressing Neoplatonic idealism, his reading of the Bible as a guide for moral improvement, his rejection of the religious mysteries that cannot be rationally understood, his various examples of correspondences, his view that we can cognize God by studying the correspondences, and his definition of God as the only substance, make evident that he does not consider the spiritual realities ideas in the Neoplatonic sense. The article will interpret Swedenborg to think that the spiritual realities are learned concepts that enable us to describe and experience the world as having spiritual significance and thus acquire a fuller cognition of God.