Does Kant'sMetaphysical Foundations of Natural Science fill a gap in theCritique of Pure Reason?

Both the categories and principles of understanding as well as the ideas and principles of reason build transcendental elements to conceive transcendental philosophy as a philosophical system. Accordingly, in addition to the “Transcendental Analytic”, Kant develops in the “Transcendental Dialectic” an expanded concept of the transcendental. The transcendental ideas do not denote object-constitutive principles but, in a weaker sense, conditions of the possibility of experience. The relation between Division One and Division Two of the “Doctrine of Elements” can be demonstrated exemplarily with regard to Kant’s references to astronomy. Based on the constitutive principles of understanding, which are directed towards the field of possible experience and provide a connection of cognition through reasons and consequences, as well as the regulative principles of reason, which form maxims of research, astronomy is a proper and rational natural science. The analysis of the case studies of astronomy shows that Kant uses the term transcendental within the framework of the “Transcendental Logic” of the Critique of Pure Reason to denote conditions that are constitutive for the possibility of an object in general and for describing necessary regulative conditions of experience. With these reflections, Kant places his transcendental philosophy in a long tradition of philosophical thought in which the celestial bodies are the preferred subject.

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Noumenal Causality Reconsidered: Affection, Agency, and Meaning in Kant

Canadian Journal of Philosophy ◽

10.1080/00455091.1997.10717478 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 27 (2) ◽

pp. 209-245 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Kenneth R. Westphal

Keyword(s):

Common Sense ◽

Natural Science ◽

Necessary Conditions ◽

Positive Answer ◽

Pure Reason ◽

Logical Possibility ◽

Objective Reality ◽

Metaphysical Question ◽

Spatio Temporal ◽

Common Sense Knowledge

The lead question of Kant's first Critique, indeed his whole Critical Philosophy is ‘How is Metaphysics as a Science Possible?’ Neo-Kantian and recent Anglophone interpretations of Kant's epistemology have concentrated on the ‘Transcendental Analytic’ of the first Critique, and have taken Kant's positive and legitimate sense of metaphysics to concern the necessary conditions of our knowledge of mathematics, natural science, and of course, our common sense knowledge of a spatio-temporal world of objects and events. However, in the ‘Canon of Pure Reason’ in the first Critique Kant indicates quite clearly that, although two of the leading sub-questions of metaphysics — ‘What should I so?’ and ‘What may I hope?’ — cannot be answered on theoretical grounds, they may be answered on practical grounds (A804-05=B832-33). Those practical grounds are elaborated and supplemented (mainly) in the latter two Critiques and the Religion. In each case, however, a definite and positive answer to a metaphysical question involves giving ‘objective reality’ to a concept, e.g., the concepts of freedom or immortality. ‘Objective reality’ involves possible reference to an object, where ‘possible reference’ involves more than merely describing a logical possibility.

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Kant on Time I: The Kinematics of the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science

Kant-Studien ◽

10.1515/kant-2019-3007 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 110 (3) ◽

pp. 477-497

Author(s):

David Hyder

Keyword(s):

Natural Science ◽

A Priori ◽

A Priori Knowledge ◽

Analytical Mechanics ◽

Pure Reason ◽

Critique Of Pure Reason ◽

Principle Of Relativity ◽

Theory Of Motion ◽

Definition Of ◽

Moving Bodies

Abstract The theory of space-time developed in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and his (1786) Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science is connected to Leonhard Euler’s proof of invariance under Galilean transformations in the “On Motion in General” of the latter’s 1736 Analytical Mechanics. It is argued that Kant, by using the Principle of Relativity that is the output of Euler’s proof as an input to his own proof of the kinematic parallelogram law, makes essential use of absolute simultaneity. This is why, in the Transcendental Aesthetic, he observes that “our theory of time explains as much a priori knowledge as the general theory of motion displays.” (KrV, B 67) In conclusion, it is shown that the same proof-method, under a different definition of simultaneity, leads to the parallelogram law of the “Kinematic Part” of Einstein’s 1905 “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies”.

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THE LOGIC AND TOPOLOGY OF KANT’S TEMPORAL CONTINUUM

The Review of Symbolic Logic ◽

10.1017/s1755020317000338 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

pp. 160-206

Author(s):

RICCARDO PINOSIO ◽

MICHIEL VAN LAMBALGEN

Keyword(s):

Mathematical Model ◽

Natural Science ◽

Critical Period ◽

Formal Model ◽

A Priori ◽

Pure Reason ◽

Critique Of Pure Reason ◽

And Topology ◽

Transcendental Theory ◽

Synthetic A Priori

AbstractIn this paper we provide a mathematical model of Kant’s temporal continuum that yields formal correlates for Kant’s informal treatment of this concept in theCritique of Pure Reasonand in other works of his critical period. We show that the formal model satisfies Kant’s synthetic a priori principles for time (whose consistence is not obvious) and that it even illuminates what “faculties and functions” must be in place, as “conditions for the possibility of experience”, for time to satisfy such principles. We then present a mathematically precise account of Kant’s transcendental theory of time—the most precise account to date.Moreover, we show that the Kantian continuum which we obtain has some affinities with the Brouwerian continuum but that it also has “infinitesimal intervals” consisting of nilpotent infinitesimals; these allow us to capture Kant’s theory of rest and motion in theMetaphysical Foundations of Natural Science.While our focus is on Kant’s theory of time the material in this paper is more generally relevant for the problem of developing a rigorous theory of the phenomenological continuum, in the tradition of Whitehead, Russell, and Weyl among others.

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Guest Editor Note

Estudos Kantianos [EK] ◽

10.36311/2318-0501/2014.v2n02.4112 ◽

1969 ◽

Vol 2 (02) ◽

Author(s):

Nuria Sánches MADRID

Keyword(s):

Guest Editor ◽

Natural Science ◽

Point Of View ◽

Pure Reason ◽

Critique Of Pure Reason ◽

Special Issue ◽

Extensive Experience ◽

International Group ◽

Daunting Task ◽

History Of

As guest editor of this special issue of the journal Estudos Kantianos, I am honored to introduce the contributions gathered under the general title Kant and the empirical sciences. This monographic number two of the second issue of EK contains twelve articles, writtenby an outstanding international group of Kant scholars who have extensive experience on the questions addressed by the issue, published in five languages (English, Spanish, German, French and Portuguese), meeting the multilingual scope of the journal. The original idea of the monographic issue was to discuss whether Kant’s firm reduction of science, according to the proper sense of this term, to the condition of apodictic certainty could exhaust his concern withthe methodical grounding of science and scientificity. The following excerpt of Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1786) displays neatly Kant’s point of view about science as a product of reason: “Only that whose certainty is apodictic can be called science properly; cognition that can contain merely empirical certainty is only improperly called science” (MAN, AA 04: 468). However, an earlier Kant’s work aiming at defending the Critique of Pure Reason against its early misunderstandings, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783), points out that all empirical research could be subordinated to the legislation of reason, which therefore will shed some doubts on the legitimacy of the preceding severe categorical statement. Kant formulates this suggestion as follows in the Prolegomena (AA 04: 364): “whether or notexperience is in this way mediately subordinate to the legislation of reason may be discussed by those who desire to trace the nature of reason even beyond its use in metaphysics, into the general principles of a history of nature; I have represented this task as important, butnot attempted its solution, in the book itself ”. This excerpt encourages the reader to extend the study about the legislative scope of reason beyond the field covered by metaphysics, i.e. descending to the humble bathos where the empirical sciences are cultivated. All the articles of this monographic number attempt to cast light on such a valuable and daunting task that Kantleft without an ultimate solution.

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