 In this engagement with Kant, Hamann returns and deepens the lesson he had learnt much earlier in his reading of Hume: that belief or faith is an essential precursor for knowledge. Everything is dependent or grounded on faith; there is no privileged position for any kind or form of knowledge (a priori, scientific, etc.) In Hamann’s epistemology, the hard division between ‘knowledge’ and ‘belief’ or ‘faith’ becomes eroded. Both knowledge and faith rest on a foundation of trust; neither rest on a foundation of indubitability. “Every philosophy consists of certain and uncertain knowledge, of idealism and realism, of sensuousness and deductions. Why should only the uncertain be called belief? What then are—rational grounds?” (ZH 7, 165:33–37) ‘Sensuousness’ translates Sinnlichkeit (Kant’s ‘sensibility’). Belief and reason both need each other; idealism and realism are a fantasized opposition, of which the authentic use of reason knows nothing. The unity that lies in the nature of things should lie at the foundation of all our concepts and reflection (ZH 7, 165:7–17).