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

Kant-Studien ◽  
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”.

scholarly journals Kant’s Response to Hume’s Critique of Pure Reason

2019 ◽  
Vol 101 (3) ◽  
pp. 376-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin de Boer
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
General Question ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Synthetic A Priori ◽  
Priori Knowledge

Abstract In this article I argue that Kant considered Hume’s account of causality in the Enquiry to be primarily relevant because it undermines proofs for the existence of God and, moreover, that this interpretation is plausible and text-based. What the Prolegomena calls ‘Hume’s problem’ is, I claim, the more general question as to whether metaphysics can achieve synthetic a priori knowledge of objects at all. Whereas Hume denied this possibility, I show how the solution Kant develops in the Critique of Pure Reason is in agreement with Hume’s critique of dogmatic metaphysics, but salvages the synthetic a priori principles he takes to be constitutive of empirical cognition.

scholarly journals THE LOGIC AND TOPOLOGY OF KANT’S TEMPORAL CONTINUUM

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.

Necessity, Existence and Transcendental Idealism

2006 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 55-77
Author(s):  
Robert Greenberg
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
The Other ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Correct Interpretation ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Other Hand

The role of transcendental idealism in Kant's theory of knowledge has been both deliberately underrated1 and inadvertently exaggerated. If conceivably not necessary, its role in Kant's explanation of the possibility of a priori knowledge in the Critique of Pure Reason is at least pivotal to the success of the explanation. On the other hand, though transcendental idealism depends on Kant's epistemological criterion of an existing object, or, simply, his criterion of existence, the criterion for its part is actually independent of the idealism. In fact, it may be because this independence has hardly been recognized that commentators have been unaware of the role the criterion may actually be playing in the continuing controversy over the correct interpretation of the idealism. Altogether, this article addresses both shortcomings – the underestimation and the exaggeration of the role of the idealism in Kant's epistemology. While it places the idealism at the centre of the epistemology, it also separates the criterion of existence from the idealism. In highlighting this contrast, the article explains how the criterion may actually be contributing to the persistence of the ongoing dispute over the correct interpretation of the idealism.

Pure Reason’s Enlightenment: Transcendental Reflection in Kant’s first Critique

Kant Yearbook ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin de Boer
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Critical Mode ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Priori Knowledge

Abstract In this article I aim to clarify the nature of Kant’s transformation of rationalist metaphysics into a science by focusing on his conception of transcendental reflection. The aim of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, it is argued, consists primarily in liberating the productive strand of former general metaphysics - its reflection on the a priori elements of all knowledge - from the uncritical application of these elements to all things (within general metaphysics itself) and to things that can only be thought (in special metaphysics). After considering Kant’s conception of metaphysics and his various uses of the term ‘transcendental’ I closely examine his account of logical and transcendental reflection in the section entitled ‘On the Amphiboly of the Concepts of Reflection’. Whereas commentators generally attribute the activity called transcendental reflection to Kant alone, I contend, first, that Kant regarded philosophy as such to rely on a mode of transcendental reflection and, second, that the critical mode of transcendental reflection enacted in the Critique itself yields insight into the reason why our a priori knowledge is limited to the realm of possible objects. This is illustrated by outlining the difference between Kant’s and Leibniz’ employment of the concepts of reflection.

scholarly journals Kant’s critique of pure reason and the dogmatism of metaphysics

2021 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-30
Author(s):  
Aleksandar Lukic
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Copernican Revolution ◽  
The World ◽  
Priori Knowledge

In this paper, the author explores Kant?s Copernican revolution that departs from philosophical tradition. Kant challenges a view that the existence of the world (with the totality of all laws that hold in it) is independent of the knower. In view of that, the main focus is on Kant?s analysis of the meaning of a priori knowledge and the critique of old (dogmatic) metaphysics. The aim of this critique, however, was not the dismissal of metaphysics as such, but rather the transcendental foundation of a new one.

scholarly journals Transformations of Transcendental Philosophy: Wolff, Kant, and Hegel

2011 ◽  
Vol 32 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 50-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin de Boer
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Transcendental Philosophy ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Empirical Knowledge ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Common View ◽  
Synthetic A Priori ◽  
The One ◽  
Priori Knowledge

Kant's philosophy is generally known as transcendental philosophy or transcendental idealism, terms often thought to describe the inquiry into the subjective conditions of empirical knowledge carried out in theCritique of Pure Reason. On this conception of transcendental philosophy Kant is seen to pursue a project very different from both Wolffian metaphysics and Hegelian speculative science. This view is confirmed by scholars who compare Kant's conception of transcendental philosophy to the Scholastics' conception of ‘transcendentals’ such as unity, truth, and perfection. On their account, there remains a puzzling gap between, on the one hand, the scholastic conception of the most general determinations of all beings and, on the other hand, Kant's investigation into the conditions of possibility of experience.In this article I want to challenge this common view of Kant's transcendental philosophy for two reasons. The first reason concerns the question of how theCritique of Pure Reasonitself should be read. I take the view that in the firstCritiqueKant's primary aim is to determine the conditions of synthetic a priori knowledge rather than to identify the a priori conditions of empirical knowledge. Since metaphysics was traditionally considered to be the discipline that possessed a priori knowledge of things, this view makes good sense of Kant's presentation of theCritique of Pure Reasonas a work intended to transform metaphysics into a science. In this article I hope to clarify the nature of this transformation by determining the elements which Kant's transcendental philosophy has in common with Wolff's ontology, as well as the respects in which Kant turns against Wolff. I thus hope to solve some of the riddles posed by Kant's use of the term ‘transcendental philosophy’ in theCritique of Pure Reason.

Three Kantian Routes to the Synthetic A Priori

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Robert Audi
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Insufficient Attention ◽  
Synthetic A Priori ◽  
The One ◽  
Philosophical Importance

Abstract Kant influentially distinguished analytic from synthetic a priori propositions, and he took certain propositions in the latter category to be of immense philosophical importance. His distinction between the analytic and the synthetic has been accepted by many and attacked by others; but despite its importance, a number of discussions of it since at least W. V. Quine’s have paid insufficient attention to some of the passages in which Kant draws the distinction. This paper seeks to clarify what appear to be three distinct conceptions of the analytic (and implicitly of the synthetic) that are presented in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and in some other Kantian texts. The conceptions are important in themselves, and their differences are significant even if they are extensionally equivalent. The paper is also aimed at showing how the proposed understanding of these conceptions—and especially the one that has received insufficient attention from philosophers—may bear on how we should conceive the synthetic a priori, in and beyond Kant’s own writings.

scholarly journals Epistemologia Kanta jako rozwiązanie sporu empiryzmu z racjonalizmem

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-168
Author(s):  
Michał Wendland
Keyword(s):  
Turning Point ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
German Philosophy ◽  
Copernican Revolution ◽  
Pure Intuition ◽  
History Of ◽  
Main Ideas

The article concerns some of the most important elements of I. Kant’s epistemology and its connections with earlier epistemological ideas, namely rationalism and empiricism. The history of dispute between rationalism (Descartes, Leibniz) and empiricism (Locke, Berkeley, Hume) is hereby shortly presented while Kant’s own philosophical achievements are suggested to be both alternative and synthesis of these. The main core of this paper is summary of basis of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason; some most important categories are described: apriorism, synthetic and analytical judgements, knowledge a priori and a posteriori, main ideas of transcendental esthetics (two forms of pure intuition: time and space), main ideas of transcendental logic (forms of judgement and twelve categories). Also the meaning of Kant’s „copernican revolution” is presented as a turning point for classical German philosophy as well as for whole modern epistemology.

scholarly journals The Tantalus’ Torments of Transcendentalism

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Sergey Chernov
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
Empirical Investigation ◽  
Necessary Conditions ◽  
Complete System ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Transcendental Philosophy ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
German Edition ◽  
Opus Postumum ◽  
Corporeal Nature

Kant’s manuscripts of 1796–1803, which the Academic German edition of his works combined in 21–22 volumes of under the invented by H. Vaihinger name ‘Opus postumum’, still attract the attention of researchers. Was there really a significant theoretical “gap” in the system of Kant's “critical”, transcendental philosophy, which built by 1790, needed to be filled, namely, to undertake a conceptual "transition" from the already constructed a priori metaphysics of corporeal nature (metaphysical principles of natural science) to experimental mathematical physics, to the entire scientific empirical investigation of nature? In the last years of his life Kant tried to solve a problem that was really decisive for the fate of transcendentalism, which he had already realized in ‘Critique of Pure Reason’ and concretized in ‘Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science’, however he found himself in a hopeless situation, which doomed him to the “Tantalus’ torments”. The problem that he was constantly thinking about necessarily arises in the system of transcendental philosophy, but has no solution in it. ‘Opus postumum’ is an important piece of evidence on the insurmountable difficulties faced by the attempt to “save” philosophy as a perfect and complete system of absolutely reliable, "apodictic" science, based on the idea of universal and necessary conditions for the experience possibility.

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