Abstract

Michael Forster has proposed that the _Dreams of a Spirit-Seer_ represent Kant’s engagement with a Pyrrhonian skepticism about metaphysics, and correspond to the first awakening from dogmatic slumber which Kant attributes to the Antinomy. This chapter supports Forster’s proposal by considering a suggestion by Ezequiel de Olaso that the Antinomy was inspired by the Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar in Rousseau’s _Émile_. For the Profession of Faith clearly inspired Kant’s _Dreams_, which can be seen as Kant’s first sketch of the antinomy of freedom. Forster denies that the Pyrrhonism of the _Dreams_ was inspired by Hume, but the Pyrrhonian defense of freedom in the _Dreams_ was inspired by Hume as well as by Rousseau—by Hume’s argument in _Enquiry_ 7 that we are not entitled to the principle of sufficient reason.