Kant’s Engagement with Hume’s Enquiry: 1762–1765

Abstract There is still no consensus on the meaning of Kant’s admission within the Prolegomena’ s Preface that Hume was responsible for interrupting his “dogmatic slumber.” This article attempts to shed new light on this issue by arguing that this admission refers to a point in Kant’s career when he turned away from the dogmatic metaphysics of the Leibnizian-Wolffian school and appropriated Hume’s skepticism. It argues that this ‘turn’ occurred in 1763 and is evidenced by the content of his essay on Negative Magnitudes . It also argues that the content of Sulzer’s German-language edition of Hume’s first Enquiry was all that was needed to inspire such a turn.