Kant, Reichenbach, and the Fate of A Priori Principles
European Journal of Philosophy 19 (4):507-531 (2011)
| Abstract | Abstract: This article contends that the relation of early logical empiricism to Kant was more complex than is often assumed. It argues that Reichenbach's early work on Kant and Einstein, entitled The Theory of Relativity and A Priori Knowledge (1920) aimed to transform rather than to oppose Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. One the one hand, I argue that Reichenbach's conception of coordinating principles, derived from Kant's conception of synthetic a priori principles, offers a valuable way of accounting for the historicity of scientific paradigms. On the other hand, I show that even Reichenbach, in line with Neo-Kantianism, associated Kant's view of synthetic a priori principles too closely with Newtonian physics and, consequently, overestimated the difference between Kant's philosophy and his own. This is even more so, I point out, in the retrospective account logical empiricism presented of its own history. Whereas contemporary reconstructions of this history, including Michael Friedman's, tend to endorse this account, I offer an interpretation of Kant's conception of a priori principles that contrasts with the one put forward by both Neo-Kantianism and logical empiricism. On this basis, I re-examine the early Reichenbach's effort to accommodate these principles to the paradigm forged by Einstein | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,709 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesSami Pihlström & Arto Siitonen (2005). The Transcendental Method and (Post-)Empiricist Philosophy of Science. Journal for General Philosophy of Science 36 (1):81 - 106.
Seung-Kee Lee (2009). The Synthetic a Priori in Kant and German Idealism. Archiv für Geschichte Der Philosophie 91 (3):288-328.
Steffen Ducheyne (2011). Kant and Whewell on Bridging Principles Between Metaphysics and Science. Kant-Studien 102 (1):22-45.
Michael Friedman (2002). Kant, Kuhn, and the Rationality of Science. Philosophy of Science 69 (2):171-90.
Kenneth R. Westphal (1995). ‘Kant’s Proof of the Law of Inertia’. In H. Robinson (ed.), Proceedings of the 8th International Kant Congress. Marquette University Press.
Marian David (1997). Two Conceptions of the Synthetic A Priori. In L. E. Hahn (ed.), The Philosophy of Roderick Chisholm (The Library of Living Philosophers).
Sandy Berkovski (2011). Reichenbach and Weyl on Apriority and Mathematical Applicability. Synthese 181 (1):63-77.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2010-02-19Total downloads66 ( #13,663 of 550,917 )Recent downloads (6 months)2 ( #37,450 of 550,917 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
