Abstract
Kant’s Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, in which is found his most sustained attempt at a practical application of his principles to the phenomenon of matter in motion, is here subjected to critical analysis by Ryall. It is again established, against Kant, that the Copernican world-view presupposes for its vindication, not an ‘empirical space’ and ‘relative’ motion but a physical space and absolute motion; which presupposition, however, is adequately inferred on the basis of our experience itself. Because it is demonstrated that the observing subject is incapable of ‘sensibly representing’ the true motions in question, Ryall’s assessment of the Metaphysical Foundations, which was Kant’s last best chance to demonstrate that this can indeed be achieved, brings the negative part of his thesis to a close.
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Notes
- 1.
Before his ‘Inaugural Dissertation ’ of 1770 which first expounded a ‘critical’ perspective on things, Kant’s last pre-critical work was Concerning the Ultimate Ground of the Differentiation of Directions in Space (already referred to) in which he was still of a mind to talk of “physical space” (2:378) rather than empirical space because he had not yet imposed the limiting condition of sensibility on himself which would subsequently inform the work now under discussion. There is only one mention in the Metaphysical Foundations of “physical” space which is also “non-empirical,” to be commented on shortly. That Kant should have undergone such a drastic shift in perspective, however, in wanting first to prove, in Directions, our bodily “relation to absolute space … [which] cannot itself be immediately perceived” (2:381) to arguing, a mere two years later, that space and time are “inherent in the mind… [which] co-ordinates for itself that which is sensed” (2:393), is something that warrants further exploration but is here left for others to pursue. It is my contention, suffice to say and a matter that is discussed further on, that Kant suffered a crisis of religious faith leading up to his ‘silent decade’ which he resolved in a manner befitting his genius, producing the most brilliant apologetic (evinced as much in his speculative as in his practical works) that has ever been constructed or is ever likely to be constructed.
- 2.
It is unclear how “empirical space” can be something that “affects” our senses when one of Kant’s arguments in support of the ‘immanent ’ status of space is precisely that things do not affect our senses “in virtue of their form” (Dissertation, 2:393). This is not the chief objection to his account here, however, which instead concerns his claim that an object’s motion is determined “relative” to this empirical space which is, in turn, moveable.
- 3.
Kant’s antinomy regarding the finite or infinite extent of the spatial world was famously undone by Einstein on the basis of whose theory it is now possible to conceive of the spatial world as being finite but unbounded; a view that involves one in no contradiction when the space in question is in fact curved.
- 4.
This is the only passage I have encountered in Kant’s critical writings where he equates the terms “physical” and “non-empirical,” if only in a disparaging sense. For Copernicus, of course, the equation is axiomatic.
- 5.
One can illustrate by analogy with our own experience why “accelerated motions” are deemed to be “absolute.” Thus, while inertial motion is indistinguishable from rest such that, if one were moving at a uniform velocity in a windowless vehicle say, there would be no indication that one was moving at all; if this vehicle were instead to accelerate away, the pressure then felt on one’s body as it gets pressed back into its seat would in effect prove that one was moving rather than remaining at rest. On a cosmic scale this “pressure” equates to gravitational attraction and the resultant accelerations are exhibited in the rotational and orbital motions of the heavenly bodies.
- 6.
It is the force of gravity acting on these objects which causes them to move in the first instance and the reason our planet revolves around our sun rather than directly around the greater centre of mass at our galaxy’s core is because of the inverse square law to which gravity is subject which lessens its effect the more distant objects are from one another and increases it the closer they are (taking into account their respective masses also).
- 7.
In calculating these masses one must of course assume a heliocentric solar system as one’s frame of reference and apply Newton’s laws of motion in determining where the centre of mass lies. Although it is the centre of gravity rather than centre of mass which precisely determines these motions, for the purpose of this generalised discussion their coincidence is assumed.
- 8.
Admittedly, this way of describing the situation, i.e., that “we arrange” objects in space, sounds dangerously like patent nonsense but this, it must be said, has everything to do with Kant’s rendering of the issue and nothing to do with my describing of it. It is simply a case of Kant’s conscious intellect exerting itself again.
References
Copernicus, Nicolaus. 2002. On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres. Edited, with Commentary, by Stephen Hawking. Philadelphia: Running Press.
Friedman, Michael. 2013. Kant’s Construction of Nature: A Reading of the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kant, Immanuel. 1998. Critique of Pure Reason, trans. and ed. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. Cambridge University Press.
Kant, Immanuel. 2002. Theoretical Philosophy 1755–1770, trans. and ed. David Walford. Cambridge University Press. Cited works contained in this Volume: Attempt to Introduce the Concept of Negative Magnitudes into Philosophy; Concerning the Ultimate Ground of the Differentiation of Directions in Space.
Kant, Immanuel. 2004. Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, trans. and ed. Michael Friedman. Cambridge University Press.
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Ryall, J.T.W. (2017). Kant’s ‘Applied Metaphysics’. In: A Copernican Critique of Kantian Idealism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56771-6_5
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