Kant: Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science

In the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (MFNS) Kant develops a conception of matter that is meant to issue in an alternative to what he takes to be the then reigning empiricist account of density. However, in recent years commentator after commentator has argued that Kant’s attempt on this front is faced with insuperable difficulties. Adickes argues that the MFNS theory of density involves Kant in a vicious circle; Tuschling argues that the circle is part of what led Kant to (...) abandon the theory of matter developed in the MFNS; Förster argues that recognition of this circularity played a significant role in Kant’s development of the project now known as the Opus Postumum; and Westphal argues that the circularity problem serves to demonstrate the “untenability of Kant’s metaphysical method” and therefore helps to explain “the radical revision of the relation between mathematics and metaphysics Kant undertakes in his opus postumum.” Indeed, even Kant seems to think that his theory of density is circular: as noted by all of these commentators, in correspondence with one of his former students Kant declares that this theory “seems to lead however to a circle out of which I am not able to come.” Against this growing tide (and even, it seems, against Kant himself) I defend Kant’s theory of density. I argue that the suspicion of a circle results from a confusion of logical relations with causal conditions, and I argue that even Kant seems to have been taken in by this confusion. (shrink)

This essay explores Kant’s concept of absolute space in the Metaphysical Foundations from the perspective of the development of the relationist interpretation of bodily interactions in the center-of-mass reference frame, a strategy that Huygens had originally pioneered and which Mach also endorsed. In contrast to the interpretations of Kant that stress a non-relationist, Newton-inspired orientation in his critical period work, it will be argued that the content and function of Kant’s utilization of this reference frame strategy places him much closer (...) to Huygens’ relationism than the absolute notions of space and motion favored by Newton and Euler. (shrink)

This paper explores the scientific sources behind Kant’s early dynamic theory of matter in 1755, with a focus on two main Kant’s writings: Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens and On Fire. The year 1755 has often been portrayed by Kantian scholars as a turning point in the intellectual career of the young Kant, with his much debated conversion to Newton. Via a careful analysis of some salient themes in the two aforementioned works, and a reconstruction of the (...) scientific sources behind them, this paper shows Kant’s debt to an often overlooked scientific tradition, i.e. speculative Newtonian experimentalism. The paper argues that more than the Principia, it was the speculative experimentalism that goes from Newton’s Opticks to Herman Boerhaave’s Elementa chemiae via Stephen Hales’ Vegetable Staticks that played a central role in the elaboration of Kant’s early dynamic theory of matter in 1755. (shrink)

It is well known that Kant claims that causal judgments, including judgments about forces, must have an a priori basis. It is less well known that Kant claims that we can perceive the repulsive force of bodies through the sense of touch. Together, these claims present an interpretive puzzle, since they appear to commit Kant to both affirming and denying that we can have perceptions of force. My first aim is to show that both sides of the puzzle have deep (...) roots in Kant's philosophy. My second aim is to present three potential solutions to the puzzle and show that each faces problems. (shrink)

his paper explores the relationship between Kant’s views on the metaphysical foundations of Newtonian mathematical physics and his more general transcendental philosophy articulated in the Critique of pure reason. I argue that the relationship between the two positions is very close indeed and, in particular, that taking this relationship seriously can shed new light on the structure of the transcendental deduction of the categories as expounded in the second edition of the Critique.Author Keywords: Kant; Mathematical physics; Transcendental deduction.

This book highlights Kant's fundamental contrast between the mechanistic and dynamical conceptions of matter, which is central to his views about the foundations of physics, and is best understood in terms of the contrast between objects of sensibility and things in themselves.

In his Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, Kant presents the “pure part” of natural science – that is, the a priori principles holding of matter. This special metaphysics of matter is, Kant claims, grounded on the general metaphysics of nature described in the System of Principles of his first Critique. This chapter develops a comprehensive account of Kant’s framework for natural science that touches on interpretive issues that arise in the transition from general to special metaphysics and that outlines his (...) dynamics and its limitations. (shrink)

Kant’s preoccupation with architectonics is a characteristic and noteworthy aspect of his thought. Various features of Kant’s argumentation and philosophical system are founded on the precise definitions of the various subdomains of human knowledge and the derivative borders among them. One science conspicuously absent from Kant’s routine discussions of the organization of knowledge is chemistry. Whereas sciences such as physics, psychology, and anthropology are all explicitly located in the architectonic, chemistry finds no such place. In this paper, I examine neglected (...) passages from Kant’s corpus as well as texts regarding chemistry that Kant himself read in order to unveil his views on the definition of chemistry and its relations with the other sciences. These considerations reveal chemistry to be the science that studies the changes of matter into new kinds. Yet Kant idiosyncratically believes that such a change requires an infinite division of matter, effected by chemical forces. Although this understanding of chemical change dovetails with Kant’s dynamical, continualist theory of matter, it implies that chemistry cannot be reduced to physics. Thus, although chemistry stands alongside empirical physics as an applied natural science in Kant’s architectonic, it remains a distinct, independent science. (shrink)

Since his Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft was first published in 1786, controversy has surrounded Immanuel Kant’s conception of matter. In particular, the justification for both his dynamical theory of matter and the related dismissal of mechanical philosophy are obscure. In this paper, I address these longstanding issues and establish that Kant’s dynamism rests upon Leibnizian, metaphysical commitments held by Kant from his early pre-Critical texts on natural philosophy to his major critical works. I demonstrate that, throughout his corpus and inspired (...) by Leibniz, Kant endorses the a priori law of continuity of alteration as a truth of metaphysics, according to which all alterations in experience must occur gradually through all intervening degrees. The principle thus legislates against mechanical philosophy’s absolutely impenetrable atoms, as they would would involve instantaneous changes of velocity in impact. This reveals the metaphysical incoherencies in mechanical philosophy and leaves Kant’s own dynamical theory of matter, grounded on material forces, as the only viable approach to physical explanation. Subsequently, I demonstrate that Kant nevertheless made conceptual space in his system for the theoretical consideration of mechanical explanations, which makes manifest one of the positive roles that the faculty of reason can play with respect to natural science. (shrink)

Ott (2009) identifies two kinds of philosophical theories about laws: top-down, and bottom-up. An influential top-down reading, exemplified by Ernst Cassirer, emphasized the ‘mere form of law’. Recent bottom-up accounts emphasize the mind-independent natures of objects as the basis of laws of nature. Stang and Pollok in turn focus on the transcendental idealist elements of Kant’s theory of matter, which leads to the question: is the essence of Kantian matter that it obeys the form of law? I argue that Kant (...) has an independent theory of matter in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, one that gives what Kant himself calls a ‘real definition’ of matter as a theory-independent (if not mind-independent) entity. I argue that this matter theory underpins physical arguments about inertia and impenetrability, which resemble Einstein’s arguments about the unification of fields in general relativity. (shrink)

In the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, Kant presents an argument for the centrality of <motion> to our concept <matter>. This argument has long been considered either irredeemably obscure or otherwise defective. In this paper I provide an interpretation which defends the argument’s validity and clarifies the sense in which it aims to show that <motion> is fundamental to our conception of matter.

This book is the first detailed study of Kant's method of 'transcendental reflection' and its use in the Critique of Pure Reason to identify our basic human cognitive capacities, and to justify Kant's transcendental proofs of the necessary a priori conditions for the possibility of self-conscious human experience. Kenneth Westphal, in a closely argued internal critique of Kant's analysis, shows that if we take Kant's project seriously in its own terms, the result is not transcendental idealism but realism regarding physical (...) objects. Westphal attends to neglected topics - Kant's analyses of the transcendental affinity of the sensory manifold, the 'lifelessness of matter', fallibilism, the semantics of cognitive reference, four externalist aspects of Kant's views, and the importance of Kant's Metaphysical Foundations for the Critique of Pure Reason - that illuminate Kant's enterprise in new and valuable ways. His book will appeal to all who are interested in Kant's theoretical philosophy. (shrink)

The period from Kant to Hegel is one of the most intense and rigorous in modern philosophy. The central problem at the heart of it was the development of a new standard of theoretical reflection and of the principle of rationality itself. The essays in this volume, published in 2000, consider both the development of Kant's system of transcendental idealism in the three Critiques, the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, and the Opus Postumum, as well as the reception and transformation (...) of that idealism in the work of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. (shrink)

Kant's Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science is one of the most difficult but also most important of Kant's works. Published in 1786 between the first and second editions of the Critique of Pure Reason, the Metaphysical Foundations occupies a central place in the development of Kant's philosophy, but has so far attracted relatively little attention compared with other works of Kant's critical period. Michael Friedman's book develops a new and complete reading of this work and reconstructs Kant's main argument clearly (...) and in great detail, explaining its relationship to both Newton's Principia and eighteenth-century scientific thinkers such as Euler and Lambert. By situating Kant's text relative to his pre-critical writings on metaphysics and natural philosophy and, in particular, to the changes Kant made in the second edition of the Critique, Friedman articulates a radically new perspective on the meaning and development of the critical philosophy as a whole. (shrink)

In order to understand Hegel's approach to philosophy, we need to ask why, and how, he reacts to the well-known criticism of German Romantics, like Novalis and Friedrich Schlegel, against philosophical system building in general, and against Kant's system in particular. Hegel's encyclopedic system is a topical ordering of categorically different ontological realms, corresponding to different conceptual forms of representation and knowledge. All in all it turns into a systematic defense of Fichte's doctrine concerning the primacy of us as actors (...) with respect to any knowledge claim or scientific theory. Hegel's limitations of the principle of causality and of the possibility of using mathematical methods in science show, in fact, how a merely compatibilist solution of Kant's third antinomy can be overcome. (shrink)

In contrast to the previously widespread view that Kant's work was largely in dialogue with the physical sciences, recent scholarship has highlighted Kant's interest in and contributions to the life sciences. Scholars are now investigating the extent to which Kant appealed to and incorporated insights from the life sciences and considering the ways he may have contributed to a new conception of living beings. The scholarship remains, however, divided in its interest: historians of science are concerned with the content of (...) Kant's claims, and the ways in which they may or may not have contributed to the emerging science of life, while historians of philosophy focus on the systematic justifications for Kant's claims, e.g., the methodological and theoretical underpinnings of Kant's statement that living beings are mechanically inexplicable. My aim in this paper is to bring together these two strands of scholarship into dialogue by showing how Kant's methodological concerns (specifically, his notion of reflective judgment) contributed to his conception of living beings and to the ontological concern with life as a distinctive object of study. I argue that although Kant's explicit statement was that biology could not be a science, his implicit and more fundamental claim was that the study of living beings necessitates a distinctive mode of thought, a mode that is essentially analogical. I consider the implications of this view, and argue that it is by developing a new methodology for grasping organized beings that Kant makes his most important contribution to the new science of life. (shrink)

This paper attempts to shed light on three sets of issues that bear directly on our understanding of Locke and Kant. The first is whether Kant believes Locke merely anticipates his distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments or also believes Locke anticipates his notion of synthetic a priori cognition. The second is what should we as readers of Kant and Locke should think about Kant’s view whatever it turns out to be, and the third is the nature of Kant’s justification (...) for the comparison he draws between his philosophy and Locke’s. I argue (1) that Kant believes Locke anticipates both the analytic-synthetic distinction and Kant’s notion of synthetic a priori cognition, (2) that the best justification for Kant’s claim draws on Locke’s distinction between trifling and instructive knowledge, (3) that the arguments against this claim developed by Carson, Allison, and Newman fail to undermine it, and (4) that Kant’s own justification for his claim is quite different from what many commentators have thought it was (or should have been). (shrink)

What good is Kant's philosophy for current philosophy of science? There has been an increasing interest in Kant and philosophy of science in the past twenty years. Through the reconstruction of a variety of Kantian legacies in the development of nineteenth and twentieth century physics and mathematics, this edited volume explores the relevance that Kant's philosophy still has for current debates in philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophy of physics.

This paper examines the role of Kant's theory of mathematical cognition in his phoronomy, his pure doctrine of motion. I argue that Kant's account of how we can construct the composition of motion rests on the construction of extended intervals of space and time, and the representation of the identity of the part–whole relations the construction of these intervals allow. Furthermore, the construction of instantaneous velocities and their composition also rests on the representation of extended intervals of space and time, (...) reflecting the general approach to instantaneous velocity in the eighteenth century. (shrink)

The way in which mathematics relates to experience has deeply engaged philosophers from the scientific revolution to the present. It has strongly influenced their views on epistemology, mathematics, science, and the nature of reality. Kant's views on the nature of mathematics and its relation to experience both influence and are influenced by his epistemology, and in particular the distinction Kant draws between concepts and intuitions. My dissertation contributes to clarifying the role of intuition in Kant's theory of mathematical cognition. It (...) focuses in particular on Kant's theory of magnitudes. This theory explains the applicability of mathematics to experience while bridging his philosophy of mathematics and his philosophy of science; it is therefore central. Kant's views on magnitudes, however, have been neglected. ;The dissertation divides into four parts. It begins by analyzing Kant's concept of magnitude and the closely related concepts of quanta, quantitas, quantity and number. These clarifications lay the groundwork for reconstructing and evaluating Kant's views. ;Understanding Kant's theory of mathematical cognition requires understanding how the quantitative forms of judgment and the categories of quantity are employed in mathematics. I argue for an interpretation that reflects the influence of 18$\sp{\rm th}$ Century metaphysics on Kant's thought, and reveals Kant's attempt to find a place for a mathematical conception of the world within that metaphysics. ;I also examine Kant's arguments for two fundamental properties of space--infinite divisibility and unlimited extent. I argue that intuition plays a perceptual role that can only be understood within the context of Kant's theory of imagination. ;Finally, I argue that according to Kant, a homogeneous manifold in intuition is required to represent composition and a mathematical version of the part/whole relation. The dissertation uses a modern understanding of the properties of relations to analyze the part/whole relations Kant refers to in his logic, and contrast them with the part/whole relations in his theory of magnitudes. Modern measurement theory aids in identifying Kant's insights into the conditions for the applicability of mathematics to experience. Kant's insights constitute an important part of his views on the role of intuition in mathematics. (shrink)

Plaass's treatise stood at the beginning of a renewed wave of scholarship regarding Kant's Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (MF). Plaass argues that the MF represents an integral step in Kant's development between the two editions of the Critique of Pure Reason. The MF repeats the `Copernican turn', using the conditions of subjectivity to derive the metaphysical determinations of `matter' as the object of natural science with the new method called `metaphysical construction', which simultaneously grounds the mathematizability of physics. The (...) translators provide background and analysis of Plaass's work, extend it to include the body of the MF and offer a variation on the analysis of the relationship between mathematics and metaphysics in the MF. They discuss its relevance for contemporary paradigm-dependency approaches to the philosophy of science and for philosophical hermeneutics. The book will be of interest to Kant specialists as well as to students of the philosophy of science in general. (shrink)

This dissertation is an examination of Kant's rather notorious claim that natural science, or physics, has a priori principles, understood as the claim that physics is constrained by rules warranted by the essential nature of thought. The overall direction of this study is towards examining Kant's claim by close study of a particular principle of physics, the principle of the conservation of matter. If indeed this is a principle of physics, and Kant can successfully show that it is a priori, (...) then it will be reasonable to conclude, in company with Kant, that physics has a priori principles. ;Although Kant's proof of the principle of the conservation of matter has been traditionally regraded as a reasonably straightforward consequence of his First Analogy of Experience, a careful reading of his proof reveals that this is not really the case. Rather, Kant's proof of the conservation of matter is a consequence of his schematisation of the category of substance in terms of permanence, and his identification of matter as substance, by appeal to what he thinks is the empirical criterion of substance, activity. ;Careful examination of Kant's argument in defence of the principle of the conservation of matter, however, reveals a number of deficiencies, and it is concluded that Kant cannot be said to have satisfactorily demonstrated the principle of the conservation of matter or to have convincingly illustrated his claim that physics has a priori principles by appeal to this instance. (shrink)

In his Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft, Kant claims that chemistry is a science, but not a proper science (like physics), because it does not adequately allow for the application of mathematics to its objects. This paper argues that the application of mathematics to a proper science is best thought of as depending upon a coordination between mathematically constructible concepts and those of the science. In physics, the proper science that exhausts the a priori knowledge of objects of the outer sense, (...) only motions and concepts reducible to motions can be legitimately coordinated with mathematical constructions. Since chemistry can neither achieve its own a priori principles of coordination nor be reduced to the coordinated doctrine of motion, it is a merely improper science. (shrink)

On an influential view, Newton's mechanics is built into Kant's very theory of exact knowledge. However, Newtonian dynamics had serious explanatory limits already known by 1750. Thus, we might worry that Kant's Analytic is too narrow to ground enough exact knowledge. In this paper, I draw on Enlightenment dynamics to show that Kant's notion of determinate objecthood is sufficiently broad, non-trivial, and still relevant to the present.

Machine generated contents note: 1. Thoughts on the true estimation of living forces and assessment of the demonstrations that Leibniz and other scholars of mechanics have made use of in this controversial subject, together with some prefatory considerations pertaining to the force of bodies in general (1746-1749) Translated by Jeffrey B. Edwards and Martin Schönfeld; 2. Examination of the question whether the rotation of the Earth on its axis by which it brings about the alternation of day and night has (...) undergone any change since its origin and how one can be certain of this, which [question] was set by the Royal Academy of Sciences in Berlin as the prize question for the current year (1754) Translated by Olaf Reinhardt; 3. The question, whether the Earth is ageing, considered from a physical point of view (1754) Translated by Olaf Reinhardt; 4. Universal natural history and theory of the heavens or essay on the constitution and the mechanical origin of the whole universe according to Newtonian principles (1755) Translated by Olaf Reinhardt; 5. Succinct exposition of some meditations on fire (1755) Translated by Lewis White Beck; 6. On the causes of earthquakes on the occasion of the calamity that befell the western countries of Europe towards the end of last year (1756) Translated by Olaf Reinhardt; 7. History and natural description of the most noteworthy occurrences of the earthquake that struck a large part of the Earth at the end of the year 1755 (1756) Translated by Olaf Reinhardt; 8. Continued observations on the earthquakes that have been experienced for some time (1756) Translated by Olaf Reinhardt; 9. New notes to explain the theory of the winds, in which, at the same time, he invites attendance at his lectures (1756) Translated by Olaf Reinhardt; 10. Plan and announcement of a series of lectures on physical geography with an appendix containing a brief consideration of the question: whether the West winds in our regions are moist because they travel over a great sea (1757) Translated by Olaf Reinhardt; 11. New doctrine of motion and rest and the conclusions associated with it in the fundamental principles of natural science while at the same time his lectures for this half-year are announced (1758) Translated by Olaf Reinhardt; 12. Review of Silberschlag's work: theory of the fireball that appeared on 23 July 1762 (1764) Translated by Eric Watkins; 13. Notice of Lambert's correspondence (1782) Translated by Eric Watkins; 14. On the volcanoes on the Moon (1785) Translated by Olaf Reinhardt; 15. Something concerning the influence of the Moon on the weather (1794) Translated by Olaf Reinhardt; 16. Physical geography (1802). (shrink)

Kant's understanding of two significant philosophical issues, the status of space and the nature of scientific explanation, can be illuminated by considering his reaction to the emergence of Newtonian gravitational physics. Although Kant accepts---with important provisos---the view that space bears an absolute status, he rejects Newton's philosophical interpretation of that status. Characterizing this rejection poses a problem. It is commonly thought that Kant's conception of space can be understood as a competitor to Newtonian absolutism and Leibnizian relationalism per se, but (...) Kant contends that these views commit a common mistake. Leibniz and Newton each picture space as real in a philosophically significant sense; Kant seeks to reject the reality of space in the Critique of Pure Reason. I argue that, from Kant's perspective, contending that space is absolute is compatible with thinking that it lacks reality. This illuminates, in turn, Kant's conception of things-in-themselves. ;In his work on scientific explanation, Wesley Salmon distinguishes an "ontic" conception, according to which explanations make reference to the cause of events or of phenomena; and an "epistemic" conception, according to which explanations make reference to covering laws. To begin with, I argue that Newtonian physics, which famously fails to discover gravity's cause, can be interpreted as providing nomological explanations of gravitational phenomena like the planetary orbits. Unlike Leibniz, who explicitly rejects the law of universal gravitation's explanatory status, Kant recognizes the significance of this notion for understanding the science of Newton's Principia Mathematica. In tandem, several puzzling aspects of the conception of spatial objects presented in the Critique of Pure Reason can be illuminated by considering Kant's adoption of a related Newtonian view: the content of the ascription of a force to a spatial object, or to a system of such objects, is exhausted by the physical law governing the operation of that force. In this respect, in rejecting a Leibnizian conception of force, Kant adopts an explicitly Newtonian conception; Kant's conception of spatial objects is closely linked with that adoption. Thus, important aspects of Kant's metaphysics can be illuminated by considering their relation to philosophical issues raised by Newtonian physics. (shrink)

In his Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft (MAN), Kant claims that chemistry is an improper, though rational science. The chemistry to which Kant confers this status is the phlogistic chemistry of, for instance, Georg Stahl. In his Opus Postumum (OP), however, Kant espouses a broadly Lavoiserian conception of chemistry. In particular, Kant endorses Antoine Lavoisier's elements, oxygen theory of combustion, and role for the caloric. As Lavoisier's lasting contribution to chemistry, according to some histories of the science, was his emphasis on (...) quantitative methods, Kant's assimilation of the chemical revolution raises the question: did Kant continue to think of chemistry as an improper, though rational, science in OP? In this paper, I answer this question affirmatively. I explain that a proper science requires a priori laws for the mathematical construction of its objects: the mere use of quantitative measurements is insufficient for the satisfaction this requirement. Further, I argue, contra Burkhard Tuschling, that in OP Kant retains a central role for mathematical construction in the foundations of proper natural science. Finally, I contend that the prominent a priori components of chemistry discussed in OP—the aether and the enumeration of the elements—do not make chemistry into a proper science. (shrink)