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Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science
Immanuel Kant was actively concerned with issues in the philosophy of natural science throughout his career. The Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science presents his most mature reflections on these themes in the context of both his critical philosophy, presented in the Critique of Pure Reason, and the natural science of his time. This volume features a new translation which is especially clear and accurate, together with an historical and philosophical introduction and a guide to further reading.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1786
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About the author
Immanuel Kant
2,964 books4,326 followersImmanuel Kant was an 18th-century philosopher from Königsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). He's regarded as one of the most influential thinkers of modern Europe & of the late Enlightenment. His most important work is The Critique of Pure Reason, an investigation of reason itself. It encompasses an attack on traditional metaphysics & epistemology, & highlights his own contribution to these areas. Other main works of his maturity are The Critique of Practical Reason, which is about ethics, & The Critique of Judgment, about esthetics & teleology.
Pursuing metaphysics involves asking questions about the ultimate nature of reality. Kant suggested that metaphysics can be reformed thru epistemology. He suggested that by understanding the sources & limits of human knowledge we can ask fruitful metaphysical questions. He asked if an object can be known to have certain properties prior to the experience of that object. He concluded that all objects that the mind can think about must conform to its manner of thought. Therefore if the mind can think only in terms of causality–which he concluded that it does–then we can know prior to experiencing them that all objects we experience must either be a cause or an effect. However, it follows from this that it's possible that there are objects of such a nature that the mind cannot think of them, & so the principle of causality, for instance, cannot be applied outside experience: hence we cannot know, for example, whether the world always existed or if it had a cause. So the grand questions of speculative metaphysics are off limits, but the sciences are firmly grounded in laws of the mind. Kant believed himself to be creating a compromise between the empiricists & the rationalists. The empiricists believed that knowledge is acquired thru experience alone, but the rationalists maintained that such knowledge is open to Cartesian doubt and that reason alone provides us with knowledge. Kant argues, however, that using reason without applying it to experience will only lead to illusions, while experience will be purely subjective without first being subsumed under pure reason. Kant’s thought was very influential in Germany during his lifetime, moving philosophy beyond the debate between the rationalists & empiricists. The philosophers Fichte, Schelling, Hegel and Schopenhauer saw themselves as correcting and expanding Kant's system, thus bringing about various forms of German Idealism. Kant continues to be a major influence on philosophy to this day, influencing both Analytic and Continental philosophy.
Pursuing metaphysics involves asking questions about the ultimate nature of reality. Kant suggested that metaphysics can be reformed thru epistemology. He suggested that by understanding the sources & limits of human knowledge we can ask fruitful metaphysical questions. He asked if an object can be known to have certain properties prior to the experience of that object. He concluded that all objects that the mind can think about must conform to its manner of thought. Therefore if the mind can think only in terms of causality–which he concluded that it does–then we can know prior to experiencing them that all objects we experience must either be a cause or an effect. However, it follows from this that it's possible that there are objects of such a nature that the mind cannot think of them, & so the principle of causality, for instance, cannot be applied outside experience: hence we cannot know, for example, whether the world always existed or if it had a cause. So the grand questions of speculative metaphysics are off limits, but the sciences are firmly grounded in laws of the mind. Kant believed himself to be creating a compromise between the empiricists & the rationalists. The empiricists believed that knowledge is acquired thru experience alone, but the rationalists maintained that such knowledge is open to Cartesian doubt and that reason alone provides us with knowledge. Kant argues, however, that using reason without applying it to experience will only lead to illusions, while experience will be purely subjective without first being subsumed under pure reason. Kant’s thought was very influential in Germany during his lifetime, moving philosophy beyond the debate between the rationalists & empiricists. The philosophers Fichte, Schelling, Hegel and Schopenhauer saw themselves as correcting and expanding Kant's system, thus bringing about various forms of German Idealism. Kant continues to be a major influence on philosophy to this day, influencing both Analytic and Continental philosophy.
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March 14, 2022
Immanuel Kant examines the characteristics and behavior of matter and how information that we acquire about matter is predominantly derived from our experiences or observations by way of our senses. However, Kant claims, that the foundation that determines and makes it possible to arrive at empirical knowledge of matter lies in metaphysics. Therefore, some a priori concepts of space, time, and mathematics already exist in our minds that we are born with and subsequently these concepts predetermine how we comprehend things. So the way we perceive matter and the material world is through these built-in ideas, and through these hardwired spectacles, we experience things and arrive at what we know as knowledge. Hence, the knowledge we acquire in the natural sciences is grounded in metaphysics.
Furthermore, Kant perceives matter as something infinitely divisible, although through experience can never be endlessly divided. A matter capable of being compressed to infinity, but not expanded to infinity as the matter would eventually lose its density and leave an empty universe. But the cosmos will not end-up empty, Kant argues, owing to the balance between the repulsive and attractive forces that maintain a clockwork universe.
The Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science is written in the late 18th century, where by that time much of the mechanical physics has been laid out by scientists such as Newton, his contemporaries and predecessors, and mathematics had become so complex that left relatively little room for philosophers to contribute and difficult to catch-up and this new reality was noticeable in this book. Not that you can compare the two, but I found Kant's Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens that he wrote at 31 years of age, a more fascinating natural science book than the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science that he wrote 30 years later.
Furthermore, Kant perceives matter as something infinitely divisible, although through experience can never be endlessly divided. A matter capable of being compressed to infinity, but not expanded to infinity as the matter would eventually lose its density and leave an empty universe. But the cosmos will not end-up empty, Kant argues, owing to the balance between the repulsive and attractive forces that maintain a clockwork universe.
The Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science is written in the late 18th century, where by that time much of the mechanical physics has been laid out by scientists such as Newton, his contemporaries and predecessors, and mathematics had become so complex that left relatively little room for philosophers to contribute and difficult to catch-up and this new reality was noticeable in this book. Not that you can compare the two, but I found Kant's Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens that he wrote at 31 years of age, a more fascinating natural science book than the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science that he wrote 30 years later.
February 7, 2024
Everyone nowadays looks down on Kant’s stature as a natural scientist, but so to estimate his intellect misconstrues the nature of philosophical inquiry. For one thing, the institution of the scientist, as we are familiar with it today, did not exist in the environment of Enlightenment-era Europe. A deeper point would be that the integral conception of the life of the mind, common to Kant and his contemporaries, has become fragmented and natural philosophy – for Kant is certainly entitled to be termed a natural philosopher – has since fallen into disrepair. What happens when empirical science tends to be pursued in entire separation from philosophy? For sure, a loss of perspective and a correlative enmeshment in arcane trivialities, otherwise known as the rule of specialization. At root, the crisis we witness in fundamental physics in recent decades stems from a decision to promote a narrow specialization over the attainment of general knowledge. The easiest thing in the world for a specialist to demonstrate his mettle is to take a little puzzle from the immediately preceding literature and to produce a stunningly clever resolution of it. But when everyone devotes himself to Kuhnian puzzle-solving in the normal mode of science, the advance of the field as a whole may suffer for want of fresh ideas. The great founders of quantum mechanics were not specialists of this stamp – think of how Born has recourse to the perturbative techniques of classical celestial mechanics to reason his way towards the concept of a unitary transformation in quantum mechanics, or of Schrödinger’s expertise in the theory of classical field-theoretic waves, which he drew from his pioneering studies on color perception and which served him in such good stead when he began to ponder de Broglie’s waves in quantum physics.
Thus, our theoretical grasp of the natural world would stand to be in healthier condition if the complementary role that philosophical reflection can play were respected by scientists themselves. This much by way of perspective in order to appreciate what Kant intends with the remarkable work presently to be reviewed, the Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft (1786). Kant does not purpose to work out a few exemplary solutions of problems in the developing discipline of classical mechanics, as do, say, Lagrange and Laplace, both active during Kant’s lifetime. Rather, he aims to elucidate the logical and epistemological core of Newtonian mechanics so as to serve as a model of how to conduct a philosophical inquiry in line with the principles of his transcendental critique. This matters, for the inattentive reader of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1781) might gain the impression that Kant wants to do away with metaphysical speculation, to be blankly dismissed as ‘dogmatic’. Just as Newton’s hypotheses non fingo does not entail that one ought to eschew all hypotheses in empirically grounded science, only that a hypothesis should be set aside after it ceases to function as a fruitful guide to empirical inquiries, so too with Kant, the insufficient grounding he finds in the school metaphysics of his predecessors (principally Wolff and Leibniz, also Baumgarten) does not mean that any metaphysical premises must be avoided, merely that, when one does engage in metaphysical speculation, one ought to be critical in order to escape the pitfalls in doctrine he identifies. After writing the Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik, die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können (1783), Kant returns to the question in 1786. How to ground natural science, in particular, is for him a crucial issue, for, on the one hand, he certainly entertains a lively respect for the many discoveries in the empirical sciences that were being announced every day, – so that, by his lights, knowledge drawn from experience is real enough – and on the other, his overall stance is not after all one of simple empiricism, but of transcendental idealism. Therefore, to make his system convincing he needs to spell out in greater detail the connection between the two.
Eigentliche Wissenschaft kann nur diejenige genannt werden, deren Gewißheit apodiktisch ist; Erkenntnis, die bloß empirische Gewißheit enthalten kann, ist ein nur uneigentlich so gennantes Wissen. Dasjenige Ganze der Erkenntnis, was systematisch ist, kann schon darum Wissenschaft heißen, und, wenn die Verknüpfung der Erkenntnis in diesem System ein Zusammenhang von Gründen und Folgen ist, so gar rationale Wissenschaft. Wenn aber diese Gründe oder Prinzipien in ihr, wie Z.B. in der Chemie, doch zuletezt bloß empirisch sind, und die Gesetze, aus denen die gegebene Facta durch die Vernunft erklärt werden, bloß Erfahrungsgesetze sind, so führen sie kein Bewußtsein ihrer Notwendigkeit bei sich (sind nicht apodiktisch-gewiß) und alsdenn verdient das Ganze in strengem Sinne nicht den Namen einer Wissenschaft, und Chemie sollte daher eher systematische Kunst, als Wissenschaft heißen. Eine rationale Naturlehre verdient also den Namen einer Naturwissenschaft nur alsdenn, wenn die Naturgesetze, die in ihr zem Grunde liegen, a priori erkannt werden, und nicht bloße Erfahrungsgesetze sind. Mann nennt eine Naturerkenntnis von der ersteren Art rein; die von der zweiten Art aber wird angewandte Vernunfterkenntnis genannt. Da das Wort schon den Begriff von Gesetzen bei sich führt, dieser aber den Begriff der Notwendigkeit aller Bestimmungen eines Dinges, die zu seinem Dasein gehören, bei sich führt, so sieht man leicht, warum Naturwissenschaft die Rechtmäßigkeit dieser Bennenung nur von einem reinen Teil derselben, der nämlich die Prinzipien a priori aller übrigen Naturerklärungen enthält, ableiten müsse und nur kraft dieses reinen Teils eigentliche Wissenschaft sei, imgleichen daß, nach Forderungen der Vernunft, jede Naturlehre zuletzt auf Naturwissenschaft hinausgehen and darin sich endigen müsse, wil jede Notwendigkeit der Gesetze dem Begriffe der Natur unzertrennlich anhängt und daher durchaus eingesehen sein will; daher die vollständigste Erklärung gewisser Erscheinungen aus chemischen Prinzipien noch immer eine Unzufriedenheit zurückläßt, weil man von diesen, als zufälligen Gesetzen, die bloß Erfahrung gelehrt hat, keine Gründe a priori anführen kann. [AA468-469]
The task is clear. Here in the Metaphysische Anfangsgründe, Kant applies his transcendental system to the foundations of natural science. He stresses the difference between physical concepts and the mathematical formalism that realizes them. For Kant, the physical concepts emerge from metaphysical reflection on the conditions of possible experience. The guiding theme is matter as ‘das Bewegliche im Raume’. The concept of matter is developed in stages (corresponding to his table of the categories, a favorite device of his) – kinematical, dynamical, mechanical and phenomenological. Along the way, he unfolds the basic principles of Newtonian science, although he opposes atomism and criticizes the idea of absolute space on epistemological grounds.
Eigentlich so zu nennende Naturwissenschaft setzt zuerst Metaphysik der Natur voraus; denn Gesetze, d.i. Prinzipien der Notwendigkeit dessen, was zum Dasein eines Dinges gehört, beschäftigen sich mit einem Begriffe, der sich nicht konstruieren läßt, weil das Dasein in keiner Anschauung a priori dargestellt werden kann. Daher setzt eigentliche Naturwissenschaft Metaphysik der Natur voraus. Diese muß nun zwar jederzeit lauter Prinzipien, die nicht empirisch sind, enthalten (denn darum führt sie eben den Namen einer Metaphysik), aber sie kann doch entweder sogar ohne Beziehung auf irgend ein bestimmtes Erfahrungsobjekt, mithin unbestimmt in Ansehung der Natur dieses oder jenen Dinges der Sinnenwelt, von den Gesetzen, die den Begriff einer Natur überhaupt möglich machen, handeln, und alsdenn ist es der transzendentale Teil der Metaphysik der Natur: oder sie beschäftigt sich mit einer besonderen Natur dieser oder jener Art Dinge, von denen ein empirischer Begriff gegeben ist, doch so, daß außer dem, was in diesem Begriffe liegt, kein anderes empirisches Prinzip zur Erkenntnis derselben gebraucht wird (z.B. sie legt den empirischen Begriff einer Materie, oder eines denkenden Wesens, zum Grunde, und sucht den Umfang der Erkenntnis, deren die Vernunft über diese Gegenstände a priori fähig ist), und da muß eine solche Wissenschaft noch immer eine Metaphysik der Natur, heißen, aber es ist alsdenn keine allgemeine, sondern besondere metaphysische Naturwissenschaft (Physik und Psychologie), in der jene transzendetale Prinzipien auf die zwei Gattungen der Gegenstände unserer Sinne angewandt werden. Ich behaupte aber, daß in jeder besonderen Naturlehre nur so viel eigentliche Wissenschaft angetroffen werden könne, als darin Mathematik anzutreffen ist. [AA469-470]
Damit aber die Anwendung der Mathematik auf die Körperlehre, die durch sie allein Naturwissenschaft werden kann, möglich werde, so müssen Prinzipien der Konstruktion der Begriffe, welche zur Möglichkeit der Materie überhaupt gehören, vorangeschickt werden; mithin wird eine vollständige Zergliederung des Begriffs einer Materie überhaupt zum Grunde gelegt werden müssen, welches ein Geschäfte der reinen Philosophie ist, die zu dieser Absicht sich keiner besonderen Erfahrungen, sondern nur dessen, was sie im abgesonderten (obzwar an sich empirischen) Begriffe selbst antrifft, in Beziehung auf die reinen Anschauungen im Raume und der Zeit (nach Gesetzen, welche schon dem Begriffe der Natur überhaupt wesentlich anhängen) bedient, mithin eine wirkliche Metaphysik der körperlichen Natur ist. [AA472]
Let us say some more about the four stages. The first, or phoronomical, involves construction of a motion in the imagination. For instance, the parallelogram law of addition of vectors receives an a priori justification. Kant’s reflections at this first stage seem open to refinement today: as an example, in modern-day algebraic geometry there are several competing concepts of tangency, all of which agree at regular points but which may differ at singularities. There can be no doubt that Kant would approve of the trend, initiated early in the twentieth century by Hermann Weyl, to formalize the concept of a differentiable manifold and to extend the multivariate calculus to this setting. The idea of going back and forth functorially between a space and its algebra of functions ought to appeal to Kant, were he to reappear among us, for it makes possible a characterization in intrinsic terms of what we mean by the intuitive notions of scalar, vector, tensor. One can only wonder what use he would make of global analysis, with its refined notions of infinitely many dimensions and the topologies defined therein. It seems that spatial intuition is far more powerful than one has any right to expect, or than Kant could have surmised!
At the second stage, we go from the purely mathematical to something having potential reality in nature, or matter as occupying space [Materie ist das Bewegliche, so fern es einen Raum erfüllt (AA496)]. This level is dynamical in so far as attractive, resp. repulsive forces exist and one must imagine the material bodies we experience as being the product of an interplay of such forces among themselves at the microphysical level. Thus, what Kant sees is that intensive qualities we perceive as belonging to corporeal bodies must be grounded in a dynamics of forces out of which matter is to be constituted. In this respect, he is forward-looking. Kant, however, has no concept of unification of forces – unlike Schelling. Hence, his dynamics remains open to elaboration as well: if all forces are central, then there can be only attraction resp. repulsion. Yet Ampère was soon to discover a non-central force in electrodynamics (described by the Biot-Savart law).
The third stage, or the mechanical, introduces a quantitative measure of force (difference between force and acceleration). In connection with this, notions of quantity of matter, quantity of motion (or what we call momentum), conservation and inertia. Kant’s exposition is sufficient for its time, but, as we remark about the previous two stages, could be radically deepened once one has at one’s disposal the profound modern ideas of symmetry and its relation to conservation, as embodied in Noether’s theorem. Once again, we could really use a latter-day disciple, endowed with Kant’s gift for conceptual clarification, to reduce to order these modern perspectives – a project physicists themselves would be disinclined to pursue in view of the disincentives to systematic thought the contemporary academic world imposes (about which more below).
The last stage, or phenomenological, concerns the unity of experience [Materie is das Bewegliche, so fern es, als ein solches, ein Gegenstand der Erfahrung sein kann (AA554)]. Here, Kant discusses relative versus absolute motion, the vacuum, and the possibility of a privileged inertial frame of the universe? Comparatively undeveloped. One wonders what Kant would make of Mach’s principle or the postulation of unobservable elementary particles to account for certain experiments, such as the supposed existence of quarks in quantum chromodynamics. Not that his conceptual framework is unequipped to deal with processes such as quark confinement. For he understands that at the dynamical stage, the qualities we experience emerge from an underlying interplay of forces. All the same, modern physics does seems to offer plenty of occasions for deeper reflection on the interrelation between the macrophysical level we experience and the microphysical level supposed to generate that experience. For instance, in quantum field theory the connection between a field and its elementary excitations.
Before closing, let us pause for a moment to consider what Kant accomplishes from a philosophical point of view. Here is an apposite question: is the order of stages logical or merely a convenient classification? The metaphysics of nature has a non-empirical part that treats of the constitutive elements of experience. Therefore, Kant’s concern pertains to the threshold between pure metaphysics and natural science, which he grants must have an empirical foundation. How successful on the whole is Kant’s project in the present work: or why did he later go on to write the notes that are gathered into his Opus postumum? To spell out what Kant does here roughly in modern idiom: the Anfangsgründe characterize what is conceptually possible but only experience tells what is real. Thus, one proceeds from the general theory of partial differential equations to the specific, Maxwell’s equations or Einstein’s field equations. So far, so good, and most philosophers of science would be content to stop at this station. But Kant aims to be somewhat more ambitious in the Opus postumum! There, he conceives the transition from metaphysics of nature to empirical science as a matter of self-positing [the Selbstsetzungslehre], in which what is empirically possible can be determined from the conditions of experience. As if one were to obtain Maxwell’s equations as the unique (in some sense) possibility that instantiates some necessary conditions coming from the metaphysics of the subject and not from an empirical law. Therefore, we must promise forthcoming reviews of the Opus postumum and of the contemporary scholarly literature surrounding it.
What the reviewer likes about the present work is how Kant elucidates the concepts he introduces through a series of thought-experiments, before writing down any equations. What is missing from physics as it is ordinarily practiced these days is precisely this grounding in a coherent system of ideas. Most physicists restrict themselves to purely technical problem-solving and are not capable of criticizing and evaluating physical theories on philosophical grounds. The only physicist to have proceeded along Kantian lines was Einstein, in the elaboration of his theory of relativity, special and general.
What Kant and Schelling have in common is a methodology that starts with the exploration of physical concepts; the mathematical formalism comes last, as the embodiment of the concepts. Their approach is thus the opposite of what people follow nowadays, writing down a hypothetical formula, such as supersymmetry, investigating its consequences and only later – if one ever bothers to – getting around to a consideration of what its physical content might be, if any.
It would be important to have a record of publication in the natural sciences in order to establish credibility, but there is a deeper reason why it matters to pursue science even if one’s goal be natural philosophy, for non-trivial contact with technically hard problems is key to impressing on the mind what the real issues are. When writing popular expositions of their thought, most scientists tend to fall into the trap of merely recounting the scientific findings in their field in a series of capsule summaries and fail to see that they need to be fitted into a philosophical framework. A good illustration of what we have in mind as preferable is precisely what Kant does for Newtonian physics in his Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft. Therefore, let the connoisseur who prizes an architectonic style of reasoning enjoy!
Thus, our theoretical grasp of the natural world would stand to be in healthier condition if the complementary role that philosophical reflection can play were respected by scientists themselves. This much by way of perspective in order to appreciate what Kant intends with the remarkable work presently to be reviewed, the Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft (1786). Kant does not purpose to work out a few exemplary solutions of problems in the developing discipline of classical mechanics, as do, say, Lagrange and Laplace, both active during Kant’s lifetime. Rather, he aims to elucidate the logical and epistemological core of Newtonian mechanics so as to serve as a model of how to conduct a philosophical inquiry in line with the principles of his transcendental critique. This matters, for the inattentive reader of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1781) might gain the impression that Kant wants to do away with metaphysical speculation, to be blankly dismissed as ‘dogmatic’. Just as Newton’s hypotheses non fingo does not entail that one ought to eschew all hypotheses in empirically grounded science, only that a hypothesis should be set aside after it ceases to function as a fruitful guide to empirical inquiries, so too with Kant, the insufficient grounding he finds in the school metaphysics of his predecessors (principally Wolff and Leibniz, also Baumgarten) does not mean that any metaphysical premises must be avoided, merely that, when one does engage in metaphysical speculation, one ought to be critical in order to escape the pitfalls in doctrine he identifies. After writing the Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik, die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können (1783), Kant returns to the question in 1786. How to ground natural science, in particular, is for him a crucial issue, for, on the one hand, he certainly entertains a lively respect for the many discoveries in the empirical sciences that were being announced every day, – so that, by his lights, knowledge drawn from experience is real enough – and on the other, his overall stance is not after all one of simple empiricism, but of transcendental idealism. Therefore, to make his system convincing he needs to spell out in greater detail the connection between the two.
Eigentliche Wissenschaft kann nur diejenige genannt werden, deren Gewißheit apodiktisch ist; Erkenntnis, die bloß empirische Gewißheit enthalten kann, ist ein nur uneigentlich so gennantes Wissen. Dasjenige Ganze der Erkenntnis, was systematisch ist, kann schon darum Wissenschaft heißen, und, wenn die Verknüpfung der Erkenntnis in diesem System ein Zusammenhang von Gründen und Folgen ist, so gar rationale Wissenschaft. Wenn aber diese Gründe oder Prinzipien in ihr, wie Z.B. in der Chemie, doch zuletezt bloß empirisch sind, und die Gesetze, aus denen die gegebene Facta durch die Vernunft erklärt werden, bloß Erfahrungsgesetze sind, so führen sie kein Bewußtsein ihrer Notwendigkeit bei sich (sind nicht apodiktisch-gewiß) und alsdenn verdient das Ganze in strengem Sinne nicht den Namen einer Wissenschaft, und Chemie sollte daher eher systematische Kunst, als Wissenschaft heißen. Eine rationale Naturlehre verdient also den Namen einer Naturwissenschaft nur alsdenn, wenn die Naturgesetze, die in ihr zem Grunde liegen, a priori erkannt werden, und nicht bloße Erfahrungsgesetze sind. Mann nennt eine Naturerkenntnis von der ersteren Art rein; die von der zweiten Art aber wird angewandte Vernunfterkenntnis genannt. Da das Wort schon den Begriff von Gesetzen bei sich führt, dieser aber den Begriff der Notwendigkeit aller Bestimmungen eines Dinges, die zu seinem Dasein gehören, bei sich führt, so sieht man leicht, warum Naturwissenschaft die Rechtmäßigkeit dieser Bennenung nur von einem reinen Teil derselben, der nämlich die Prinzipien a priori aller übrigen Naturerklärungen enthält, ableiten müsse und nur kraft dieses reinen Teils eigentliche Wissenschaft sei, imgleichen daß, nach Forderungen der Vernunft, jede Naturlehre zuletzt auf Naturwissenschaft hinausgehen and darin sich endigen müsse, wil jede Notwendigkeit der Gesetze dem Begriffe der Natur unzertrennlich anhängt und daher durchaus eingesehen sein will; daher die vollständigste Erklärung gewisser Erscheinungen aus chemischen Prinzipien noch immer eine Unzufriedenheit zurückläßt, weil man von diesen, als zufälligen Gesetzen, die bloß Erfahrung gelehrt hat, keine Gründe a priori anführen kann. [AA468-469]
The task is clear. Here in the Metaphysische Anfangsgründe, Kant applies his transcendental system to the foundations of natural science. He stresses the difference between physical concepts and the mathematical formalism that realizes them. For Kant, the physical concepts emerge from metaphysical reflection on the conditions of possible experience. The guiding theme is matter as ‘das Bewegliche im Raume’. The concept of matter is developed in stages (corresponding to his table of the categories, a favorite device of his) – kinematical, dynamical, mechanical and phenomenological. Along the way, he unfolds the basic principles of Newtonian science, although he opposes atomism and criticizes the idea of absolute space on epistemological grounds.
Eigentlich so zu nennende Naturwissenschaft setzt zuerst Metaphysik der Natur voraus; denn Gesetze, d.i. Prinzipien der Notwendigkeit dessen, was zum Dasein eines Dinges gehört, beschäftigen sich mit einem Begriffe, der sich nicht konstruieren läßt, weil das Dasein in keiner Anschauung a priori dargestellt werden kann. Daher setzt eigentliche Naturwissenschaft Metaphysik der Natur voraus. Diese muß nun zwar jederzeit lauter Prinzipien, die nicht empirisch sind, enthalten (denn darum führt sie eben den Namen einer Metaphysik), aber sie kann doch entweder sogar ohne Beziehung auf irgend ein bestimmtes Erfahrungsobjekt, mithin unbestimmt in Ansehung der Natur dieses oder jenen Dinges der Sinnenwelt, von den Gesetzen, die den Begriff einer Natur überhaupt möglich machen, handeln, und alsdenn ist es der transzendentale Teil der Metaphysik der Natur: oder sie beschäftigt sich mit einer besonderen Natur dieser oder jener Art Dinge, von denen ein empirischer Begriff gegeben ist, doch so, daß außer dem, was in diesem Begriffe liegt, kein anderes empirisches Prinzip zur Erkenntnis derselben gebraucht wird (z.B. sie legt den empirischen Begriff einer Materie, oder eines denkenden Wesens, zum Grunde, und sucht den Umfang der Erkenntnis, deren die Vernunft über diese Gegenstände a priori fähig ist), und da muß eine solche Wissenschaft noch immer eine Metaphysik der Natur, heißen, aber es ist alsdenn keine allgemeine, sondern besondere metaphysische Naturwissenschaft (Physik und Psychologie), in der jene transzendetale Prinzipien auf die zwei Gattungen der Gegenstände unserer Sinne angewandt werden. Ich behaupte aber, daß in jeder besonderen Naturlehre nur so viel eigentliche Wissenschaft angetroffen werden könne, als darin Mathematik anzutreffen ist. [AA469-470]
Damit aber die Anwendung der Mathematik auf die Körperlehre, die durch sie allein Naturwissenschaft werden kann, möglich werde, so müssen Prinzipien der Konstruktion der Begriffe, welche zur Möglichkeit der Materie überhaupt gehören, vorangeschickt werden; mithin wird eine vollständige Zergliederung des Begriffs einer Materie überhaupt zum Grunde gelegt werden müssen, welches ein Geschäfte der reinen Philosophie ist, die zu dieser Absicht sich keiner besonderen Erfahrungen, sondern nur dessen, was sie im abgesonderten (obzwar an sich empirischen) Begriffe selbst antrifft, in Beziehung auf die reinen Anschauungen im Raume und der Zeit (nach Gesetzen, welche schon dem Begriffe der Natur überhaupt wesentlich anhängen) bedient, mithin eine wirkliche Metaphysik der körperlichen Natur ist. [AA472]
Let us say some more about the four stages. The first, or phoronomical, involves construction of a motion in the imagination. For instance, the parallelogram law of addition of vectors receives an a priori justification. Kant’s reflections at this first stage seem open to refinement today: as an example, in modern-day algebraic geometry there are several competing concepts of tangency, all of which agree at regular points but which may differ at singularities. There can be no doubt that Kant would approve of the trend, initiated early in the twentieth century by Hermann Weyl, to formalize the concept of a differentiable manifold and to extend the multivariate calculus to this setting. The idea of going back and forth functorially between a space and its algebra of functions ought to appeal to Kant, were he to reappear among us, for it makes possible a characterization in intrinsic terms of what we mean by the intuitive notions of scalar, vector, tensor. One can only wonder what use he would make of global analysis, with its refined notions of infinitely many dimensions and the topologies defined therein. It seems that spatial intuition is far more powerful than one has any right to expect, or than Kant could have surmised!
At the second stage, we go from the purely mathematical to something having potential reality in nature, or matter as occupying space [Materie ist das Bewegliche, so fern es einen Raum erfüllt (AA496)]. This level is dynamical in so far as attractive, resp. repulsive forces exist and one must imagine the material bodies we experience as being the product of an interplay of such forces among themselves at the microphysical level. Thus, what Kant sees is that intensive qualities we perceive as belonging to corporeal bodies must be grounded in a dynamics of forces out of which matter is to be constituted. In this respect, he is forward-looking. Kant, however, has no concept of unification of forces – unlike Schelling. Hence, his dynamics remains open to elaboration as well: if all forces are central, then there can be only attraction resp. repulsion. Yet Ampère was soon to discover a non-central force in electrodynamics (described by the Biot-Savart law).
The third stage, or the mechanical, introduces a quantitative measure of force (difference between force and acceleration). In connection with this, notions of quantity of matter, quantity of motion (or what we call momentum), conservation and inertia. Kant’s exposition is sufficient for its time, but, as we remark about the previous two stages, could be radically deepened once one has at one’s disposal the profound modern ideas of symmetry and its relation to conservation, as embodied in Noether’s theorem. Once again, we could really use a latter-day disciple, endowed with Kant’s gift for conceptual clarification, to reduce to order these modern perspectives – a project physicists themselves would be disinclined to pursue in view of the disincentives to systematic thought the contemporary academic world imposes (about which more below).
The last stage, or phenomenological, concerns the unity of experience [Materie is das Bewegliche, so fern es, als ein solches, ein Gegenstand der Erfahrung sein kann (AA554)]. Here, Kant discusses relative versus absolute motion, the vacuum, and the possibility of a privileged inertial frame of the universe? Comparatively undeveloped. One wonders what Kant would make of Mach’s principle or the postulation of unobservable elementary particles to account for certain experiments, such as the supposed existence of quarks in quantum chromodynamics. Not that his conceptual framework is unequipped to deal with processes such as quark confinement. For he understands that at the dynamical stage, the qualities we experience emerge from an underlying interplay of forces. All the same, modern physics does seems to offer plenty of occasions for deeper reflection on the interrelation between the macrophysical level we experience and the microphysical level supposed to generate that experience. For instance, in quantum field theory the connection between a field and its elementary excitations.
Before closing, let us pause for a moment to consider what Kant accomplishes from a philosophical point of view. Here is an apposite question: is the order of stages logical or merely a convenient classification? The metaphysics of nature has a non-empirical part that treats of the constitutive elements of experience. Therefore, Kant’s concern pertains to the threshold between pure metaphysics and natural science, which he grants must have an empirical foundation. How successful on the whole is Kant’s project in the present work: or why did he later go on to write the notes that are gathered into his Opus postumum? To spell out what Kant does here roughly in modern idiom: the Anfangsgründe characterize what is conceptually possible but only experience tells what is real. Thus, one proceeds from the general theory of partial differential equations to the specific, Maxwell’s equations or Einstein’s field equations. So far, so good, and most philosophers of science would be content to stop at this station. But Kant aims to be somewhat more ambitious in the Opus postumum! There, he conceives the transition from metaphysics of nature to empirical science as a matter of self-positing [the Selbstsetzungslehre], in which what is empirically possible can be determined from the conditions of experience. As if one were to obtain Maxwell’s equations as the unique (in some sense) possibility that instantiates some necessary conditions coming from the metaphysics of the subject and not from an empirical law. Therefore, we must promise forthcoming reviews of the Opus postumum and of the contemporary scholarly literature surrounding it.
What the reviewer likes about the present work is how Kant elucidates the concepts he introduces through a series of thought-experiments, before writing down any equations. What is missing from physics as it is ordinarily practiced these days is precisely this grounding in a coherent system of ideas. Most physicists restrict themselves to purely technical problem-solving and are not capable of criticizing and evaluating physical theories on philosophical grounds. The only physicist to have proceeded along Kantian lines was Einstein, in the elaboration of his theory of relativity, special and general.
What Kant and Schelling have in common is a methodology that starts with the exploration of physical concepts; the mathematical formalism comes last, as the embodiment of the concepts. Their approach is thus the opposite of what people follow nowadays, writing down a hypothetical formula, such as supersymmetry, investigating its consequences and only later – if one ever bothers to – getting around to a consideration of what its physical content might be, if any.
It would be important to have a record of publication in the natural sciences in order to establish credibility, but there is a deeper reason why it matters to pursue science even if one’s goal be natural philosophy, for non-trivial contact with technically hard problems is key to impressing on the mind what the real issues are. When writing popular expositions of their thought, most scientists tend to fall into the trap of merely recounting the scientific findings in their field in a series of capsule summaries and fail to see that they need to be fitted into a philosophical framework. A good illustration of what we have in mind as preferable is precisely what Kant does for Newtonian physics in his Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft. Therefore, let the connoisseur who prizes an architectonic style of reasoning enjoy!
October 12, 2023
Absolutely crazy book, not much more to say here
December 2, 2021
Wonderful text on how to use the critique of pure reason.
One of the limitations of the critique of pure reason is the lack of examples of how to interpret physical phenomena using the Kantian method.
Kant here tries to settle accounts with Newton. Basically with his absolute space and his flirting with the atomism.
The history for me is not clear, I'm going to examine another book explaining the history of this research.
Kant shows that absolute space is a form of pure intuition and that actual absolute space is not possible, because the concept of space works always in a relative way (maybe I'm making a mistake here, but please forgive me, is difficult to understand all the details), any space is a reference to the bigger space.
Also, the explanation of the inertia is different: working from the experience (in clear contrast to Hume's perception) everything is always moving, everything is "force". When you have an object "resting", is not the absence of forces but only multiple forces that work simultaneously in opposite directions and the result of their sum is zero.
I need to have a superior comprehension of the history of physics at the moment. Have a reference to vectors, but I suppose is still a very sketchy one.
Anyway, it's a different book, Kant had a extremely good comprehension of physics, and most important, time shows us that he was right and Newton didn't.
One of the limitations of the critique of pure reason is the lack of examples of how to interpret physical phenomena using the Kantian method.
Kant here tries to settle accounts with Newton. Basically with his absolute space and his flirting with the atomism.
The history for me is not clear, I'm going to examine another book explaining the history of this research.
Kant shows that absolute space is a form of pure intuition and that actual absolute space is not possible, because the concept of space works always in a relative way (maybe I'm making a mistake here, but please forgive me, is difficult to understand all the details), any space is a reference to the bigger space.
Also, the explanation of the inertia is different: working from the experience (in clear contrast to Hume's perception) everything is always moving, everything is "force". When you have an object "resting", is not the absence of forces but only multiple forces that work simultaneously in opposite directions and the result of their sum is zero.
I need to have a superior comprehension of the history of physics at the moment. Have a reference to vectors, but I suppose is still a very sketchy one.
Anyway, it's a different book, Kant had a extremely good comprehension of physics, and most important, time shows us that he was right and Newton didn't.
March 16, 2025
There are books that explain science. There are books that explain philosophy. And then there is Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science—a book that does not describe reality but constructs the very conditions that make reality intelligible.
This is not a work about physics as we know it. This is physics before physics—the very scaffolding that makes space, time, motion, and causality possible. What Newton formulated in equations, Kant dissects in pure reason, showing that before we can even speak of laws of nature, we must first determine what it means for nature to have laws at all.
Kant begins with the most terrifyingly ambitious question imaginable:
How is physics possible?
This is not an empirical question—it is a transcendental one. The laws of motion, the conservation of matter, the very structure of cause and effect—these do not emerge from experience alone. They must already be embedded in the architecture of thought itself.
The implications are staggering. Physics does not exist independently of the mind. The framework of nature—motion, force, inertia, and attraction—is not something we discover but something we impose. Newton’s laws are not descriptions of an objective world; they are structural necessities of human cognition.
The deeper Kant goes, the more the ground beneath rational thought begins to crack. What we take for granted as the laws of nature are not external truths but conditions of perception itself.
• Space? Not an objective container of reality, but a pure form of intuition.
• Time? Not an external sequence, but an inner structuring of experience.
• Force and motion? Not derived from the world, but from the way the intellect organizes the world.
This book is not physics. It is what must be true before physics can exist.
By the time you reach the final pages, you are not simply questioning the foundations of science—you are questioning the framework of reality itself. Kant does not merely answer questions; he dissolves them, leaving behind a field of pure conceptual possibility.
This book is not for those who wish to learn. It is for those who wish to deconstruct knowledge itself—to stare directly into the logical skeleton of existence and understand that even the most fundamental truths are merely reflections of the mind’s own structure.
Kant does not just teach. He reprograms cognition.
This is not a book. It is an initiation into a new way of seeing.
This is not a work about physics as we know it. This is physics before physics—the very scaffolding that makes space, time, motion, and causality possible. What Newton formulated in equations, Kant dissects in pure reason, showing that before we can even speak of laws of nature, we must first determine what it means for nature to have laws at all.
Kant begins with the most terrifyingly ambitious question imaginable:
How is physics possible?
This is not an empirical question—it is a transcendental one. The laws of motion, the conservation of matter, the very structure of cause and effect—these do not emerge from experience alone. They must already be embedded in the architecture of thought itself.
The implications are staggering. Physics does not exist independently of the mind. The framework of nature—motion, force, inertia, and attraction—is not something we discover but something we impose. Newton’s laws are not descriptions of an objective world; they are structural necessities of human cognition.
The deeper Kant goes, the more the ground beneath rational thought begins to crack. What we take for granted as the laws of nature are not external truths but conditions of perception itself.
• Space? Not an objective container of reality, but a pure form of intuition.
• Time? Not an external sequence, but an inner structuring of experience.
• Force and motion? Not derived from the world, but from the way the intellect organizes the world.
This book is not physics. It is what must be true before physics can exist.
By the time you reach the final pages, you are not simply questioning the foundations of science—you are questioning the framework of reality itself. Kant does not merely answer questions; he dissolves them, leaving behind a field of pure conceptual possibility.
This book is not for those who wish to learn. It is for those who wish to deconstruct knowledge itself—to stare directly into the logical skeleton of existence and understand that even the most fundamental truths are merely reflections of the mind’s own structure.
Kant does not just teach. He reprograms cognition.
This is not a book. It is an initiation into a new way of seeing.
November 23, 2020
Now and then, in the course of the century, a great foundational thinker, like Frege; a great semantic reasoner, like Kripke; a fine critic of the axiomatic method, like Gödel; a supreme rationalist, like Descartes, has been able to isolate himself, to keep himself out of reach of the clamorous claims of empiricism, to learn to ‘see the whole,’ as Kant puts it, and so to realise the perfection of the Reason within him, to his own incomparable gain, and to the incomparable and lasting gain of the entire academic community. These, however, are exceptions. The majority of academics spoil their careers by an unhealthy and exaggerated faith in scientism – are forced, indeed, so to spoil them. They find themselves surrounded by great utilitarian inventions, by ambitious experiments, by grand abductive theory. It is inevitable that they should be strongly influenced by all this. The senses of man are stirred more quickly than man’s faculty of reason, and it is much more easy to see value in utility than it is to see value in logic. Accordingly, with admirable, though misdirected intentions, they very seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of spreading and developing the methodology of science. But their methods do not broaden the scope of human knowledge: they merely pollute it. Indeed, their methods are part of the pollution.
They try to justify inductive reasoning, for instance, by describing it in terms of synthetic judgement; or, in the case of a very advanced school, by grounding it in probability theory.
But these do not provide justifications: they only obscure the true problem. The proper aim is to try and reconstruct our methods of reasoning on such a basis that false thinking will be impossible. And the scientific method has really prevented the carrying out of this aim. Just as the worst advocates for the axiom of constructibility were those who successfully appealed to the richness of its first-order consequences, and so prevented its destructive implication of height minimality from being realised by those who were taught it, and understood by those who contemplated it, so, in the present state of things in academia, the theories which do most harm are the scientific theories which are most successful; and at last we have had the spectacle of men who have really studied the problem and understand epistemology – educated men with a background in formal logic – coming forward and imploring the academic community to restrain its empiricist impulses of induction, experimentation, and the like. They do so on the ground that empirical science is unfounded and creates false generalisations. They are perfectly right. Science leads to a multitude of falsehoods.
They try to justify inductive reasoning, for instance, by describing it in terms of synthetic judgement; or, in the case of a very advanced school, by grounding it in probability theory.
But these do not provide justifications: they only obscure the true problem. The proper aim is to try and reconstruct our methods of reasoning on such a basis that false thinking will be impossible. And the scientific method has really prevented the carrying out of this aim. Just as the worst advocates for the axiom of constructibility were those who successfully appealed to the richness of its first-order consequences, and so prevented its destructive implication of height minimality from being realised by those who were taught it, and understood by those who contemplated it, so, in the present state of things in academia, the theories which do most harm are the scientific theories which are most successful; and at last we have had the spectacle of men who have really studied the problem and understand epistemology – educated men with a background in formal logic – coming forward and imploring the academic community to restrain its empiricist impulses of induction, experimentation, and the like. They do so on the ground that empirical science is unfounded and creates false generalisations. They are perfectly right. Science leads to a multitude of falsehoods.
March 25, 2024
“Kantian anthropology is empirical in a double sense. On the one hand, the characterization of the soul's faculties moves within the framework of the knowledge that general experience offers of man. Then, however, the soul faculties themselves, e.g. the power of imagination, are considered in advance and solely on the basis that they and how they relate to the experienceable being. The productive power of imagination, which anthropology deals with, always concerns only the forming of views of empirically possible or impossible objects.” Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, Heidegger, 1910
Kant’s 1785 Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals is the union of the Critique of Pure Reason and his theoretical Natural Philosophy. It is a work of pure moral philosophy, at least his clearest, and is an architectonic framework for universal ethical action. Here in Groundwork, we see the development of the "maxim" of an action, or the subjective principle of volition, critical to the intellectual project of the Categorical Imperative. Morality arises from the individual’s self-legislation of practical reason and is universal and normative for all rational agents. This raised a formidable moral theory against Hume and the English Empiricists who promoted anti-teleological moral theories and would dominate the Philosophic world for a century. Still today, the Categorical Imperative is a central concept in modern ethics.
Published one year before the Critique of Pure Reasons, Metaphysical Foundations is Kant's methodology which would be used in his famous Critique. He attempts to deconstruct an Empiricist Epistemology and show that a priori principles, which are inherently metaphysical in nature, are necessary for the possibility of science to happen in the first place. He is reconciling the new mechanical causality concepts created by Newton with their philosophic preconceptions. While his theory of Phoronomy and movement are not useful to modern physics, this work outlines some basic Epistemological Platonic criticisms of Material Determinism which would be proven Empirically, ironically, by Einstein's Quantum theories and modern theories of perceptual consciousness. One of the most fascinating contributions Kant brings to modern Science is in Quantum theory. Kant, not Newton or Einstein, was the first to posit the theory of "action at a distance" which would eventually be proven by the observation of Quantum Entanglement. In the second section of this treaty, he writes Theorem 7 as "The attraction essential to all matter is a direct effect of the same on others through empty space".
The Metaphysical Foundations is an exploration of the a priori assumptions underlying the study and application of the Physical Science. Kant had great reverence for Newton as a scientist, and never questioned the scientific developments of the Newtonian Enlightenment. But here he explores four assumptions which enable humanity to even practice Physics in the first place. First, he understands the movement of objects being a quantity within Phoronomy. The second section concerns attraction as the force of gravity in space fulfilment. This is a treatise on gravity where he makes a small claim that the force of attraction is independent of distance, a bizarre claim which would be proven correct by modern Quantum Mechanics. In the third section, Kant follows basic Newtonian Mechanics, and in the fourth section he outlines the origins of knowledge, which is Phenomenological, not scientific, in nature.
Kant considered Physics to be a “pure” science, a view which is still common today. Kant and other enlightenment thinkers saw Newtonian Physics as the realization of the “Mathesis universalis”, a hypothetical universal science founded on mathematics. Both Descartes and Leibniz, among with many other 16th and 17th-century philosophers supported this model. Kant writes in one of his early models of his Metaphysical system: “I know that there are many who find worldly wisdom very easy in comparison with higher mathesis. But they call everything worldly wisdom that is written in the books that bear this title."
Kant is trying to untangle this Gordian Knot and prevent Newtonian Mechanics from taking this mantle of Mathesis Universalis and becoming the sole causal factor to explain all reality. He writes that the Empiricists "mix up the boundaries of the sciences and sometimes want to philosophize in the theory of quantities, which is why they still try to explain such concepts, although the definition in such a case has no mathematical consequence".
As in all of his critical philosophy, Kant is primarily opposing that “wretched Anthropology” of Hume & co. The dominant one-world Naturalists, the English Empiricists (Locke, Bacon and Hume), rooted in Newtonian causality (which is, ironically, is not in keeping with Newton's own Metaphysical beliefs) is Kant’s central nemesis. Hume’s idea of Heteronomy (reason as an instrument to attain that which the will arbitrarily desires) is at the core of Kant’s rage against the Empiricists. According to Hume, the "Autonomie" of the individual allows one to be at home with nature and be “moral” according to Heteronomy allowing the individual to rationally achieve the aims of the irrational will. This is the antinomy of Kant’s Categorical Imperative as a Hypothetical imperative.
Kant is a moral absolutist, the moral absolutist, utilizing a platonic metaphysical split between the Subject (Numina) and Object (Phenomena) that is independent of Time and Space, and independent of the actual beliefs and practices of the individual and collective. Right & wrong is not dependent on human perception in any way, shape or form. We are to act in a way that the maxim of the action could be universalized to all of nature. There is no "if" clause in the formula of the Categorical Imperative as there is in the Empiricist ethical model, but rather the correct act is itself the End. There is no room for “the ends justify the means” here.
When realizing how dominant the Empiricist model was in the 18th century, one becomes thankful to Kant for standing against it. Our current world is saturated with the idea that Good and Evil is intricately linked to Will, or intent, but this could easily not have been the case is Kant and others had stood against the default morality of the Empiricists. We have first, second and third degree murder thanks to Kant, not to mention the United Nations through the Kantian Philosopher Woodrow Wilson. Kantian ethics has had profound impact on developing western ethical law.
The moral advancements of the west cannot be pinned entirely on the chest of Kant, for his "societal ethic" pre-dates him by thousands of years, and his not merely his idea. Namely, St. Basil of Caesarea makes this same statement in his essays on social justice. Kant is a Christian ethicist, logically expanding upon Christian moral concepts and making them palatable to an Enlightenment Rationality. He rather simply intellectualized these ancient motifs.
Kant himself insists on this. He is an archeologist, not an architect. He is articulating what is self-evident in the soul, not constructing new ideas, exposing what has been there all along. To Kant, the move to morality is a move towards self-awareness and subsequently towards absolute freedom which is nothing less that the reconciliation of God to Man. This move towards absolute Morality is the telos of humanity. To Hegel, it is similar- absolute freedom and absolute reason. In the shadow of Rousseau's concept of freedom being synonymous with Reason, both Kant and Hegel see Rationality as inherent to ethics and self-consciousness. These are all dialectically related to the others.
The Metaphysician of Konigsburg
1755 General Natural History and Theory of Heaven: https://bit.ly/3FbUrcK
1764 Observations on the feeling of the beautiful: https://bit.ly/3uf7XWJ
1766 Dreams of a Ghost-Seer: https://bit.ly/3XIPFut
1783 Prolegomena to any future metaphysics: https://bit.ly/3uewAD0
1785 Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals: https://bit.ly/3XGObRt
1786 Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science: https://bit.ly/3GUz4Ob
1787 Critique of Pure Reason: https://bit.ly/3gMJ0i9
1788 Critique of Practical Reason: https://bit.ly/3UdFBGZ
1790 Critique of Judgment: https://bit.ly/3FdzkGK
1793 Religion within the Limits of Mere Reason: https://bit.ly/3FdEL8E
1795 Toward Eternal Peace: https://bit.ly/3ioyLRH
1797 Metaphysics of Morals: https://bit.ly/3gNkddY
1798 The Dispute of the Faculties: https://bit.ly/3AVMVQO
September 6, 2022
Apparently this reads like a physics textbook for the 18th century, as Kant introduces the ideas that matter can be expended and compressed without regard to its mass and that space can be cut into infinite proportions. It was a new way of thinking about our relationship to the world and its objects, specifically, how matter is by nature continuous with space, breaking us out of the medieval, Manichean world-view of Aristotelian fixed properties and ultimately preparing us for a conception of non-Euclidean fuzzy logic by celebrating the differential relations between what is an a priori for the Newtonian picture of the universe and what is an a priori for the Kantian world-picture.
I felt that Kant gets particularly provocative when he says that if lifelessness indicates an absence of the desire to maintain a natural state, then it should be seen that a qualitative difference of susceptible corresponding surfaces and as such is indeed the environment needed to guarantee the metaphysical foundation of natural science and apparently this didn't hold much water by the time the logical positivists came around; by extension it was clearly a venture into Leibnizian territory...I do wish Kant had established a metaphysical foundation to the natural sciences but, then again, I imagine I (we) wouldn't have been educated in the way we have been. Perhaps, like Nixon's departing from the gold standard of our currency, it was something that had to be abandoned for the better prospects of future societal growth...
I felt that Kant gets particularly provocative when he says that if lifelessness indicates an absence of the desire to maintain a natural state, then it should be seen that a qualitative difference of susceptible corresponding surfaces and as such is indeed the environment needed to guarantee the metaphysical foundation of natural science and apparently this didn't hold much water by the time the logical positivists came around; by extension it was clearly a venture into Leibnizian territory...I do wish Kant had established a metaphysical foundation to the natural sciences but, then again, I imagine I (we) wouldn't have been educated in the way we have been. Perhaps, like Nixon's departing from the gold standard of our currency, it was something that had to be abandoned for the better prospects of future societal growth...
March 20, 2018
Bagus, tapi susah dibaca. Harus tahu konteks sejarahnya, misal perdebatan Newtonian-Leibnizian tentang materi dan ruang, perdebatan tentang ruang, dll dll
April 1, 2018
Alangkah lebih baik bila paham sejarah sains terlebih dahulu sebelum membaca ini.
January 25, 2022
För mig som egentligen inte är jätteintresserad av naturvetenskap var denna inte en alldeles oförglömlig läsning. Jag är säker på att de med mer lämpad bakgrund tänker annorlunda.
February 10, 2010
I would only recommend this book if you are reading it for a class (which I did). This book is of historical importance, and thus requires that the reader have context and background knowledge in order for it to be meaningful. Kant is tough to read, of course.
March 16, 2013
Inget kata si Mang "Geografinya Kant yang gitu-gitu saja" :)) ah kau Mang...
March 3, 2014
More soon. Still working through Friedman's commentary.
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