Dogmatic Slumber

The comic frames Kant’s “dogmatic slumber” as a response to Hume. It says that, after reading Hume’s skepticism about causation and morality, Kant turned from trying to reconcile empiricism and rationalism toward explaining morality and the structure of conscious experience.

Reading notes

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• The strip addresses the idea that Hume would have “woken” Kant from his dogmatic slumber.
• Before reading Hume, Kant would have been writing a more common philosophy, aimed mainly at reconciling empiricism and rationalism.
• After encountering Hume’s skepticism about causation and morality, Kant would have been led to seek a rational foundation for morality.
• The text also says that he then began trying to explain the structure of conscious experience in order to account for space, time, and causation.
• The caption ends by suggesting, in a humorous tone, that Hume irritated him enough to make him become the greatest philosopher of all time.