Startseite Magnitude, Matter, and Kant’s Principle of Mechanism
Artikel
Lizenziert
Nicht lizenziert Erfordert eine Authentifizierung

Magnitude, Matter, and Kant’s Principle of Mechanism

  • Aaron Wells
Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 6. November 2024
Veröffentlichen auch Sie bei De Gruyter Brill

Abstract

For Kant, inquiry into nature requires seeking to explain all material wholes merely mechanically, in terms of their parts. There is no consensus on how he justifies this Principle of Mechanism. I argue that Kant seeks to derive this claim about part and wholes neither from his laws of mechanics, nor from the mere discursivity of our understanding (two standard options in the literature), but instead from a priori principles laid out in the first Critique, which govern parts, wholes, and magnitudes. These principles are also fundamental to Kant’s account of mathematics. Therefore, Kant’s Principle of Mechanism and his philosophy of mathematics have common foundations.

Acknowledgments

For comments and discussion over the years, I’m grateful to Dimitri Apostolopoulos, Katharina Kraus, Daniel Lindquist, Jil Muller, several anonymous referees, and audiences at Bilkent University and a North American Kant Society study group (in particular Emily Carson, Hannah Ginsborg, Monica Solomon, and Saniye Vatansever). I also thank Marius Stan and Daniel Sutherland for kindly sharing unpublished work.

References

All translations are quoted from The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant (1996) and the quotation rules followed are those established by the Akademie-Ausgabe (AA). Kant, Immanuel (1900 ff): Gesammelte Schriften. Hrsg.: Bd. 1 – 22 Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Bd. 23 Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, ab Bd. 24 Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Berlin.

Allison, Henry (2012). Essays on Kant. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199647033.001.0001Suche in Google Scholar

Anderson, R. Lanier (2015). The Poverty of Conceptual Truth. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198724575.001.0001Suche in Google Scholar

Baumgarten, Alexander (1763). Metaphysica. Fifth Edition. Halle.Suche in Google Scholar

Cohen, Alix (2004). Kant’s Antinomy of Reflective Judgment. Teorema, 23(1/3), 183 – 97.Suche in Google Scholar

Engelhard, Kristina (2005). Das Einfache und die Materie: Untersuchungen zu Kants Antinomie der Teilung. Berlin: De Gruyter.10.1515/9783110891812Suche in Google Scholar

Förster, Eckhart (2012). The Twenty-Five Years of Philosophy: A Systematic Reconstruction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.10.4159/harvard.9780674064980Suche in Google Scholar

Friedman, Michael (2006). Kant—Naturphilosophie—Electromagnetism. In Michael Friedman and Alfred Nordmann (eds.), The Kantian Legacy in Nineteenth-Century Science. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 51 – 80.10.7551/mitpress/4048.003.0004Suche in Google Scholar

Geiger, Ido (2022). Kant and the Claims of the Empirical World. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/9781108992565Suche in Google Scholar

Ginsborg, Hannah (2015). The Normativity of Nature: Essays on Kant’s Critique of Judgment. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199547975.001.0001Suche in Google Scholar

Guyer, Paul (2021). The Teleologies of Leibniz and Kant. In Brandon Look (ed.), Leibniz and Kant. New York: Oxford University Press, 233 – 264.10.1093/oso/9780199606368.003.0009Suche in Google Scholar

Hume, David (1975). Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals. (Peter Nidditch, ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press.10.1093/actrade/9780198245353.book.1Suche in Google Scholar

Huneman, Philippe (2008). Métaphysique et biologie. Kant et la constitution du concept d’organisme. Paris: Kimé.Suche in Google Scholar

Jauernig, Anja (2022). The Labyrinth of the Continuum: Leibniz, the Wolffians, and Kant on Matter and Monads. In Karl Schafer and Nick Stang (eds.), The Sensible and Intelligible Worlds. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 185 – 216.10.1093/oso/9780199688265.003.0009Suche in Google Scholar

Klemme, Heiner (1998). Die Axiome der Anschauung und die Antizipationen der Wahrnehmung. In Georg Mohr and Marcus Willaschek (eds.), Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Berlin: Akademie, 247 – 266.10.1524/9783050050386.247Suche in Google Scholar

Kraus, Katharina (2020). Kant on Self-Knowledge and Self-Formation: The Nature of Inner Experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/9781108874304Suche in Google Scholar

Longuenesse, Béatrice (1998). Kant and the Capacity to Judge. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.10.1515/9780691214122Suche in Google Scholar

Maupertuis, Pierre Louis Moreau de (1756). Systême de la nature: Essai sur la formation des corps organisés. In Oeuvres de Mr. de Maupertuis. Lyon: Bruyset, vol. II, pp. 139 – 68.Suche in Google Scholar

McLaughlin, Peter (1990). Kant’s Critique of Teleology in Biological Explanation. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press.Suche in Google Scholar

McLaughlin, Peter (2014). Mechanical Explanation in the ‘Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgment.’ In Ina Goy and Eric Watkins (eds.), Kant’s Theory of Biology. Berlin: De Gruyter, 149 – 65.10.1515/9783110225792.149Suche in Google Scholar

Nunez, Tyke (2021). Kant on Plants. Philosophers’ Imprint, 21(11), 1 – 30.10.3998/phimp.3521354.0021.007Suche in Google Scholar

Plaass, Peter (1965). Kants Theorie der Naturwissenschaft. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.Suche in Google Scholar

Pollok, Konstantin (2001). Kants Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft: ein Kritischer Kommentar. Hamburg: Felix Meiner.10.28937/978-3-7873-2439-2Suche in Google Scholar

Quarfood, Marcel (2014). The Antinomy of Teleological Judgment: What It Is and How It Is Solved. In Eric Watkins and Ina Goy (eds.) Kant’s Theory of Biology. Berlin: De Gruyter, 167 – 84.10.1515/9783110225792.167Suche in Google Scholar

Schliemann, Oliver (2010). Die Axiome der Anschauung in Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Berlin: De Gruyter.10.1515/9783110228434Suche in Google Scholar

Sutherland, Daniel (2022). Kant’s Mathematical World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Teufel, Thomas (2011). Wholes that cause their parts. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 42, 252 – 260.10.1016/j.shpsc.2010.12.002Suche in Google Scholar

Van den Berg, Hein (2014). Kant on Proper Science. Dordrecht: Springer.10.1007/978-94-007-7140-6Suche in Google Scholar

Warren, Daniel. (2017). Kant on Mathematical Force Laws. In Michela Massimi and Angela Breitenbach (eds.), Kant and the Laws of Nature. New York: Cambridge University Press, 171 – 192.10.1017/9781316389645.010Suche in Google Scholar

Watkins, Eric (2019). Kant on Laws. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/9781316683026Suche in Google Scholar

Zuckert, Rachel (2007). Kant on Beauty and Biology. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511487323Suche in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2024-11-06
Published in Print: 2024-11-06

© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Heruntergeladen am 30.11.2025 von https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/kantyb-2024-0004/html
Button zum nach oben scrollen