Abstract
Chapter 1reconstructs the systematic problems of Kant’s pre-critical reconciliation project and the unifying principles he employed in order to resolve them. His first writing, the True Estimation published in 1749, remained in the eclectic tradition of his day; but with the writings of 1755/1756 he then sought to escape from eclecticism. Together, the Theory of the Heavens, the New Elucidation, and the Physical Monadology aimed at establishing the foundations of a system of metaphysics in Wolff’s style. In view of the manifest conflict between the principles of Leibniz’s metaphysics and the foundations of Newton’s physics, this project was most ambitious. Kant faced a complex unification problem that involved various levels of theory formation, ranging from physics to metaphysics, from atoms to monads, from space, time, and matter to the principle of sufficient reason, from the assumption of divine intervention in the world to the system of pre-established harmony.
But how can metaphysics be married to geometry, when it seems easier to mate griffins with horses than to unite transcendental philosophy with geometry? (1:475)
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
See the explanation to Definition III in the Principia (Newton 1726, 404) compared to § 100 and § 117 of the True Estimation (1:110, 1:141–142). Kant interprets the “intension” as the cause of the “living force”. In this way, the vis viva seems to obtain the status of a Leibnizean vis activa derivativa which derives from the “intension”; see also § 120 (1:143–144). It is questionable whether Kant really has Leibniz’s distinction between vis activa primitiva and vis activa derivativa in mind here; but his terminology in § 117 suggests this interpretation. There, he distinguishes the “external phaenomenon of force”, i.e., motion as the phenomenological effect of the derivative force, and the “basis of activity”, i.e., the primitive force as the metaphysical cause of this phenomenon (1:141).
- 3.
See the arguments at 1:141–144, which cannot be analyzed here. Presumably his concept of “intension” has also to be understood against the background of the contemporary discussion on the infinitesimal in the calculus. The way in which this concept is related to the Wolffian doctrine of quantities should also be taken into account. See the prima matheseos intensorum principia in §§ 165–190 of Baumgarten’s Metaphysics (Baumgarten 1757, 17:61–66), to which Kant’s later concept of an intensive magnitude makes reference.
- 4.
- 5.
- 6.
Hermann Cohen, in his book on the infinitesimal method, claims that this concept of 1747 is still operative in Kant’s critical concept of an intensive magnitude (Cohen 1883, Part II, § 77). Given that Kant revised his concept of force in the writings of 1755/1756 and 1758 (see below), this is improbable. The concept of an intensive magnitude is rather an alteration of the 1747 concept, which seems to be rooted in Wolff’s doctrine of matheseos intensorum. See also n. 3 above and Kant’s notes 3571, 3839, or 4050 on metaphysics (17:64, 17:308, 17:398).
- 7.
In 1756 Kant no longer maintains this distinction. This is due to his criticism of Leibniz in the New Elucidation of 1755, and in particular the principle of succession established there. This principle is incompatible with Leibniz’s doctrines of monads and of pre-established harmony. According to Kant’s new view, a substance may only undergo changes due to the nexus with another substance and not on its own. For this principle and the criticism of Leibniz associated with it see Laywine (1993, 32–35) where it is also suggested that Kant’s proof of it is related to the possibility of an objective temporal order in the world.
- 8.
The dispute continued for decades, however. In the history of scientific concepts it continued to have an effect up to the late nineteenth century. In particular, Hegel’s natural philosophy of the 1830 Encyclopedia uses a concept of “absolutely free” motion (Hegel 1830, § 268) which is based on distinctions similar to those rejected by Kant in 1758. Indeed, this contributed substantially to the odd impression which Hegel’s philosophy of nature gave to later readers. Meanwhile, in physics, kinetic energy was commonly called “living force” until the end of the nineteenth century—Mach, for example, uses this expression throughout his 1883 book (Mach 1883), and not just in his historical account of the origins of the vis viva controversy in Descartes’s and Leibniz’s writings.
- 9.
- 10.
See Leibniz and Clarke (1715/1716).
- 11.
See also Kant’s notes on metaphysics from phases κ and λ (1769–70). The notes on space and time are correlated with the sections Totale et partiale, Prima matheseos intensorum principia, Simplex et compositum, Finitum et infinitum, Simultanea and Successiva, which belong to the ontology, not the cosmology part of Baumgarten’s metaphysics, in particular to the doctrine of the disjunctive internal predicates of things (17:19).
- 12.
Massimi (2011) shows in detail how Kant’s dynamic atomism of the 1755 writings (including On Fire) trace back to the tradition of the speculative Newtonian experimentalism, i.e., to the British and Dutch followers of Newton’s Opticks. This background fits in well with Kant’s use of the Newton’s analytic method in the Theory of the Heavens, which also traces back to the Queries of Newtons Opticks; see Sect. 2.2.1 and Appendix A.2.2.2.
- 13.
The first German translation of the Leibniz–Clarke correspondence appeared in 1720, with a preface written by Wolff (Leibniz and Clarke 1720).
- 14.
Baumgarten ranks them among the disjunctive internal predicates of existence in general: each being has to be substance or accidental, simple or composed, finite or infinite (see Synopsis, 17:19, and §§191–264, 17:66–83). In contrast, Hinske suggests that the term “transcendental philosophy” in the above quotation is not to be understood in the sense of Baumgarten’s doctrine of the transcendentals (which has its root in the scholastic doctrine of the unum, verum, bonum), but as synonymous with ‘metaphysics’, with a primary focus on the metaphysica specialis, that is, in the sense of rational cosmology. Much later, the architectonics chapter of the CPR identifies transcendental philosophy and ontology (A 845/B 873), interpreting the categories and predicables of ontology, however, as conditions of the possibility of experience.
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Falkenburg, B. (2020). Physics and Metaphysics. In: Kant’s Cosmology . European Studies in Philosophy of Science, vol 12. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52290-2_1
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